APA Content Summit: COI – out with the old, in with the new

Government communications has irrevocably changed. The old model has gone for good and a new model, focusing on collaboration and outcomes, will define the COI going forward.

David Seers, director of content at the COI, spoke candidly about the future of government communications following a year of ups and downs, starting with consolidation and ending with the coalition government putting a freeze on ad spend.

“They choked our air supply, we had to cut headcount by 40%, which meant that I had to cut my team in half,” he said.

“It means, from the darkness, we have real challenges for the future… it is real and it is happening now.”

The marketing freeze is still in place and will be effective until April next year. Seers could not predict what would happen then but did say, the COI’s philosophy has changed fundamentally.

“The Big Society is real and the government is very serious about it,” he said. “Agencies will need to demonstrate how they fit in to this new way of working.”

Speaking to delegates at today’s APA International Content Summit, Seers confirmed that the COI’s way of thinking has moved away from control to influence, and said the days of the government spending huge amounts on advertising are over. The new model, he explained, is about collaboration: “Behavioural science will be at the core of what we’re going to do going forward.”

He added that paid for advertsing will take its place alongside owned and earned channels, with an emphasis on partnerships.