Govt backflip after $32m advertising value attributed to coverage of Sam Smith

The government will no longer use a metric that calculates the “Advertising Value Equivalent” to justify spending on tourism events after backlash over the invite-only Sam Smith concert.

The state government will no longer use “Advertising Value Equivalent” to justify spending on tourism events, after it was revealed the $32m in purported advertising value of an invite-only Sam Smith concert was generated by mostly negative coverage.

Opposition analysis of documents released under Freedom of Information laws show that more than $24.5m of the estimated Advertising Value Equivalent (AVE) was for exposure that was either critical of the event or off-topic.

That figure represents 76 per cent of the purported advertising benefit.

The two articles with the highest value – worth $6.5m each – were about how the government had refused to say how much taxpayer money was being spent to bring royal couple Zara and Mike Tindall to South Australia.

A separate $3.1m article highlighted the complaints of a concert attendee, who said the event had been ruined by the bad behaviour of invited guests – including one who allegedly “peed in the mosh”.

Instagram photos of the exclusive Sam Smith concert at the d'Arenberg Cube in McLaren Vale. Picture: Instagram

The singer performed in January at an invitation-only show for competition winners, celebrities and influencers at the d’Arenberg Cube as a taxpayer-funded tourism pitch.

Opposition government accountability spokeswoman Michelle Lensink said it was astounding that Labor believed negative coverage was worth tens of millions of dollars.

“When it comes to promoting South Australia as a tourism destination, not all publicity should be considered good publicity,” she said.

“The Malinauskas Labor government really must go back and crunch these numbers again – because in my books, an article about a woman urinating in public is not worth $3m and is certainly not how we want to be selling SA to the world.”

Emma Terry, chief executive of SA Tourism Commission, defended the use of AVE as a metric in an interview with ABC Radio Adelaide on Monday morning.

She said the report had been “very conservative” in assessing the total value of the coverage, and did not include things like a radio competition held in the lead-up.

“I think the coverage of this is really a matter of interpretation,” she said.

But, a few hours later, she appeared at a press conference where Tourism Minister Zoe Bettison announced the measure would no longer be used.

“It has come to my attention that using this AVE encapsulates not only neutral and positive media, but negative media as well,” she said.

“Because of this, I have instructed SATC not to use this measure going forward.

“We heard from South Australians that they had their concerns, and while we saw tremendous success with this publicity event – particularly on radio, and TV, and we also had 150 pieces of global coverage in newspapers and magazines like Rolling Stone – we know that it captured negative press.”

Originally published as Govt backflip after $32m advertising value attributed to coverage of Sam Smith