Buy Kiwi Made a waste of taxpayer money – study
The axed Buy Kiwi Made campaign had little effect on consumer behaviour, a new study has found.
The $11.5 million campaign, a pet project of the Green Party and the result of the Greens/Labour coalition agreement after the 2005 election, has been canned by National until its effectiveness can be reviewed.
Now a study by the University of Otago has concluded that while the public likes the idea of country of origin campaigns, they won’t open their wallets to support the concept.
“There appeared to be a general consensus amongst respondents that, although the objectives of the Buy Kiwi Made campaign were laudable, consumers are simply not willing to pay the price premium for domestically-produced products,” researchers Rebecca Prentice, John Knight and Andrea Insch write.
These respondents in their survey were buyers for supermarkets.
As the study points out, the decisions made by this group on which products to stock have an obvious impact on the range of New Zealand-made goods available for consumers to purchase.
Out of the 12 respondents, only one mentioned country of origin unprompted as a factor that they considered when deciding whether or not to purchase a product.
There was a general consensus that while a minority of consumers placed a high importance on the origin of a product, the majority do not consider it important.
“While the objectives of such campaigns have frequently enjoyed popular support, evidence that such campaigns alter consumers’ actual purchasing behaviour is lacking.
“Some authors even claim that “buy national campaigns” have a negative effect and merely result in an increase in prices of domestic goods.”
The study concludes that resources that national governments allocate to “buy national” campaigns could well be ineffective and instead, labelling should be improved to cater consumers who care enough to want to know the origin of products.”
The University of Otago research references another study, which looked at annual sales and staff numbers of New Zealand firms in four industries that either participated or were non-participating in the “Buy New Zealand Made” campaign over its first five years from 1988.
They found the campaign had “no significant effect” on its objectives of retaining employees in manufacturing, or increasing domestic sales of members relative to non-members.
Buy NZ Made is a separate initiative from Buy Kiwi Made.
It is paid for by the private sector and is not being axed.
Buy Kiwi Made has struggled from the start, with a series of roadshows showcasing New Zealand products postponed after dismal crowd turnouts at the first two.
Since then the campaign has mainly revolved around a television commercial featuring actor Oliver Driver.
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Comments and questions13
What kind of a "study" is that with just 12 respondents, "buyers for supermarkets"? "Labeling should be improved", i.e. country of origin is generally not labeled, i.e. there is no effect to measure. This study is a waste of money and has been conducted either by incompetents or by vested interests keen on flooding us with stuff from China. Poll consumers instead and state your margin of error.
While I aplaude the concept of buying NZ made, the purchase price of an item will sway my purchasing decision in almost every instance.
If we wish NZ made products to be a main staple of NZ'ers purchasing habits it has to be cost competitive.
Could you tell me the number of ‘buyers for supermarkets’ there are in New Zealand? You obviously know because you determine 12 is not representative of the population. Are you aware of the supermarket industry in New Zealand and the dominance of the two major players? Given their domination perhaps it is plausible that 12 is representative not just 'BS as you protest?'
Perhaps you are unaware that the media often uses studies or statistics to back up their point. Based on that perhaps the views expressed in this article are not be those of the researchers but those of the journalist?
Another ridiculous Green Party state-driven social engineering experiment fails in a heap of wasted tax-payer monies. Sue Bradford is a very low intellect individual, it is amazing that anybody gives her money to do anything, but hey that's politics I suppose.
The PR and media sycophants that infest parliament buildings have reaped the reward from all the education campaigns though ... maybe the Treasury will count that as "economic" activity?
A great idea for NZ, however the point wasn't really made as to why people should actually buy Kiwi made over imported goods.
Truly think that most consumers will buy locally if at all possible and sensible.
Those TV adverts were never going to change or influence attitudes.
How on earth do 12 buyers for supermarkets represent an independant look at buyer behaviour?
I'm happy to accept that 12 probably represent a huge majority in the supermarket industry. I wouldn't mind betting however, as soon as they were asked to partcipate in the survey they spoke to their company and industry lobiests and said "What should we say?".
C'mon, you'd be very niave to think the supermarket industry doesn't have a pretty clear bias in terms of government intervention into where or who they buy from. It is a load of BS to infer these 12 people from one big industry represent your and my views!
hearing that the funding has been cut has strengthened my resolve to buying NZ/Kiwi made. Maybe thats how those of us in favour should respond rather than spending time and energy arguing about the validity of the study... i do agree that the study seems greatly lacking in validity. Lets be more active getting the message out there to friends and neighbors.
DS,
I think over the last 9 years we have had enough studys/select committees/huis and who knows what else to see NZ through to 2100 not to mention the costs! I applaud National and especially Mr Brownlee for making a call and sticking with it and even more happy about how he was not interested in debating it with the Greens on tv.
This country isn't operating efficently and hopefully this is just the tip of the iceberg for slashing unproductive spending. Personally I'd rather pay less tax, drive on a better road, have another teacher at my childs school or have my mother have another $10 per week than see an advert on tv 4 times a year telling me to suck eggs.
Jeez....Feels like governmental studies are no more than a set of pork-bellied pigs these days.
Six words : I CAN DO A BETTER JOB.
Lets see - to do this job really well, you need the following :
7 days at 100 sites in NZ, or else 1 day at 400 sites, with 2/3rds of them in Auckland, since most of the countries economic activity takes place there. The rest o the survey can be run in Wellington and Christchurch, since they are the other two main population centres.
For each survey taker, they need the following :
$50 to cover gas to and from, and it also lunch money
12hrs at $20 (this is a rotten job, lets face it) = $240
Some sundry expenses (printing, collating of forms) = $10 per surveyor
multiply this out by by 400 sites for one day = $300 * 400 = $120k all told
Spend another day collecting data, putting onto a yes/no Excel Spreadsheet for a tally, and employ a poorly employed Crop & Food Biometrician to spit out a report (personal experience, they are an awesome bunch), or another CRI biometrician/statistician on gov payroll, so it is cheap to do. Or else someone with a good head for figures, who isn;t a shark - I'd do it effectively in about a day, so thats $200 to me or someone else.
The report needs to be printed and sent - and if there are say 20,000 copies, then you might run up a cost of $35k incl the post and packaging, and its a nice one going out to everyone who cares and has an interest.
Sum total so far = $156,000 for a national survey, with a mass of data points. If the survey is just say 5 questions with yes/no answers, you'll get a LOT of useful information jolly fast, with quantitative graphs.
NOW - I'd suggest going out to the members of the Green Party and everyone else associated with this survey, divide the $11.5 mil / number of participating 'officials', and arresting them on a charge of corruption, with a fine equal to the money they wasted !
Martin, I think you'll find that the Buy NZ Made campaign cost $11.5 million, not the University Study.
Still, 12 respondents is pretty dismal. But, that's 12 more real data points than the anthropogenic climate change people have and the politicians believe them.
It is pretty basic social science that unless you have 100 or more respondents a survey is low/meaningless in stastical value...but any moron would know that 12 respondents is not a real survey of the population.
Otago University?, I could do better during my own weekly shopping by chatting in the aisles.
That aside, $11 million for the TV ads etc. A load of nonsense. It is one thing to encourage buying Kiwi and another to sign free trade with China and not support domestic producers during currency crisis. How many factories closed or shifted production off-shore in 2007? Michael Cullen always seemed a conceited suit to me. NZ industry is threatened and $11 million on some ads...absolute nonsense & insincere to boot. I care. I avoid the Warehouse and try to buy NZ foods but the Labour govt. did no favours for NZ producer. Paradoxical really....Kill the campaign.
The conclusion should not be that Buy Local campaigns are ineffective, but that this campaign was ineffective. From my limited knowledge, I suspect weak messaging and lack of input from business owners is to blame.
Dozens of communities in the U.S. have developed very effective campaigns via Independent Business Alliances that are grassroots, not top-down efforts, involving local business owners themselves. The American Independent Business Alliance is a national federation supporting these community efforts: http://amiba.net
The Buy NZ Made Campaign as stated in the original article is a privately owned organisation which manufacturers and retailers join (and pay subs to do so) to gain access to the kiwi-in-a-triangle logo. It is seperate to the government run Buy Kiwi Made campaign and could easily be classed as your "grass roots" campaign as discussed by Ross.
We have set up a website (with the help of one of the funding rounds from the Buy Kiwi Made campaign) called getnzmade.net. to help manufacturers and retailers promote and sell NZ Made products. visit www.getnzmade.net.
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