I love to watch money flush down the toilet — especially when it’s that new, pretty, multicolored money.
That’s why I’m so jealous of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. The people there get to see it happen a lot these days.
Cultural obstetrician
To educate the public about the new $20, $50 and $100 bills and their security features, the agency has launched a $53 million advertising, public awareness and education campaign.
For the next five years, BEP will dump roughly $28 million into advertising purchases in order to increase awareness of the bills’ security features and to discourage potential counterfeiters.
With their fresh-from-the-salon look, the bills will receive the type of publicity that many celebrities and product manufacturers can only dream of. And this product doesn’t have any real competition.
To do the marketing work, the BEP hired public relations titan Burson-Marsteller. This firm, a division of WPP Group, has received a good deal of notoriety as the company charged with cleaning up the reviled reputations of the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement, Big Tobacco, energy companies, biotech firms and the like.
Aiding Burson-Marsteller in getting out the news of the new bills are the product placement whizzes at Omnicom’s Davie-Brown Entertainment and the world’s largest talent managers: The William Morris Agency.
Together, these firms have worked quite diligently to get the ugly little bills featured in an eclectic jumble of our ever-weirdening culture.
ABC Unlimited, a property of the Walt Disney Company, scored a sweet deal. The new $20 bill has been a feature on “Wheel of Fortune,” “Live with Regis and Kelly,” “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” “Who Wants to be a Millionaire,” “Monday Night Football,” ESPN’s college football programs and an extensive list of other ABC shows and stations.
Pepperidge Farms has a sweepstakes in which you can win millions with specially marked packages of its Goldfish crackers — the crackers themselves are colored to match the new notes.
Wal-Mart will do a public service address on their in-house satellite TV network, posters will feature the new bills in subways, and a huge billboard in New York’s Times Square will advertise the new, wallet-sized eyesores.
The three firms have also pitched ideas to the hot propagandistic dramas on prime time television. “The West Wing,” “Law & Order” and “CSI: Miami” have all been approached to help with the campaign. Look how valuable they’ve been with promoting fear and the war on terrorism; maybe they can help us scare away counterfeiters.
Luckily, most of the media hype is coming with the initial launch campaign, but the new 50s and 100s — to be released in 2004 and 2005 respectively — will still be followed by some buzz.
In response to this frivolous spending, Congressman Ernest Istook, R-Okla., chairman of the U.S. House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation and Treasury, called the publicity campaign a “waste of taxpayers’ money.”
According to a press release from Istook’s office, the BEP operates on a revolving fund generated from funds it receives for manufacturing products and performing services. Whatever money the agency doesn’t spend should be sent to the Treasury’s general fund.
“Every dollar wasted on this ad campaign is a dollar that does not go to the Treasury and doesn’t help us reduce the deficit. Maybe introducing the new currency isn’t free, but it shouldn’t cost $53 million,” Istook stated in the release.
The slogan of the ad campaign goes: “The New Color of Money: Safer. Smarter. More secure.”
It sure would be nice if they’d talk about our tax dollars like that.
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His opinions do not necessarily represent those of the Emerald.