Thursday June 16, 2011
RM1.8m was for ad blitz, says Dr Ng
By NG CHENG YEE
chengyee@thestar.com.my
KUALA LUMPUR: The RM1.8mil budget is for an overall social media advertising campaign and not just for Facebook, said Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ng Yen Yen.
She said the entire campaign was aimed at creating and developing six tourism events, including Citrawarna 1Malaysia, 1Malaysia Malaysia Mega Sale/Malaysia Year-End Sale, Cuti-Cuti 1Malaysia and Fabulous Food 1Malaysia.
Dr Ng said the budget for Impact Creations (M) Sdn Bhd, which had secured a RM30mil ceiling contract for the domestic tourism advertising campaign via open tender, included expenses for digital advertising on Google, Facebook and other websites and to run, manage and monitor responses.
“We also need to spend on the collection of data and evaluation of the campaign. All these need to be done by professionals and technical experts,” she said here yesterday.
She said Impact Creations would also coordinate the campaign with other promotional activities in newspapers, magazines, radio, television and billboards.
“Expenses for advertisements there are not included in the RM1.8mil budget, which is solely for the social media campaign.
“This part of the expenses will be funded by the remaining allocation under the RM30mil contract,” she said, adding that the Facebook page for the six events had attracted 24,000 fans within a month of its launch and expected to reach 120,000 by December.
She also denied the accusation that the RM1.8mil had been spent to set up Facebook pages for the six events.
“Everybody knows it can be done (setting up a Facebook page) for free. It costs us nothing because we do not spend a single sen on it,” she said.
On Tuesday, Deputy Tourism Minister Datuk Dr James Dawos Mamit told Parliament that it spent close to RM1.8mil to develop its Facebook page to promote its domestic tourism market and activities from this year until 2013.
Dr Ng had since said this was a small sum, as compared to the Philippines which spent RM7mil while Australia had set aside RM485mil over the next three years.
Dr Ng accused DAP’s Rasah MP Anthony Loke, who questioned the expenditure, of making an issue out of the reply by “twisting the facts”.
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