Clarity on marketing stats

When it comes to marketing Docklands, the City of Melbourne has not been as generous as it has been claiming.

When defending its commitment to Docklands lately, the council has been fond of claiming it spends 30 per cent of its marketing budget on the fledgling suburb.

However, figures presented to the Docklands Community Forum of March 27 reveal that the Docklands component is more like 6 per cent of its marketing and events budget.

The 30 per cent figure, explained council director Martin Cutter, actually relates to a sub-set of “destination marketing”.

However, this qualifier was not included in an official press statement to Docklands News last November when the council said: “The City of Melbourne dedicates over a quarter of its annual marketing budget to promoting Docklands.”

And in the minutes of the March 5 Future Melbourne Committee, the Lord Mayor, Cr Robert Doyle is summarised as saying: “30 per cent of the marketing budget of the City of Melbourne is either Docklands focused or has Docklands integrated into it.”

Docklands News asked the City of Melbourne whether it considered it had been misleading in quoting the 30 per cent figure.

A council spokesperson in response said: “This line of questioning by Docklands News is surprising given the detailed explanation presented by the director at the Docklands Community Forum.”

“The budget funding for destination marketing for Docklands is around a quarter of our destination marketing spend.”

“As explained at the Community Forum, the destination marketing of the city is done on an overall basis and this is an estimate of content that relates to Docklands.”

“It should also be noted that this number excludes any marketing on events such as new years eve or other type of event marketing that has a Docklands event component.”

“The number of 6.7 per cent quoted by the director city business at the Docklands Community Forum was based on events and marketing spend across the entire city of which destination marketing is only a component.”