It’s a bit unsporting to ask this question I know - the BBC’s ad account being among the most sought-after in the business - but the corporation gains no revenue from attracting extra viewers so why does it need to try?
And if the aim is just to prompt people, including BBC staff presumably, to feel good about the BBC is this a suitable use of £20m of licence fee payers’ money?
For the record the account to make nice, if purposeless, films at our expense is currently shared between ad agencies Rainey Kelly and Fallon.
£20m isn’t the whole story of course, the BBC’s overall marketing budget is £100m a year. Some of this is doubtless spent on apprising viewers of changes they need to know about. But even then there are plenty of on-air announcers who could do it for nothing.
Anyway the Beeb is required to review these things every four years and it’s instructed a consultancy called the Advertising Agency Register to send out RH forms to be followed by OJEU tenders, whatever these may be. Presumably engaging the services of the AAR and sending out these mystifying forms also costs money.
Whatever would veteran crime novelist and former BBC governor PD James, who gave director general Mark Thompson a hard time over salaries on the Today programme last week, make of it all?