Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what the aggregate cost is to the public purse of designing, printing and nationwide display of the Business is Great posters; and what the objectives are of that campaign.

Business is GREAT Britain is the single brand to be used across Government to promote the wide range of Government products and services for the UK’s 5 million small businesses.

This is an important and very successful part of our long term economic plan. Ultimately, its aim is to make Britain more prosperous by supporting jobs, enterprise and growth.

Posters are used as part of the Business is GREAT Britain campaign, which is managed the Department. Its aim is to increase awareness, and effect significant take up of, Government’s offerings to help small businesses grow. Posters have also been used to increase awareness of the digital opportunities of the internet to help sole traders/micro businesses to market their business online, and to promote broadband vouchers with a potential value of up to £3,000 per business to help businesses access superfast broadband available in 22 cities around the country.

Posters are displayed in print/digital formats in a range of UK cities and digitally across targeted websites. Our media planning /research show poster formats continue to be very effective ways to communicate with small business audiences.

Media and production costs for posters across financial years 2013/14 and 2014/15.

The GREAT campaign has been increasingly successful. It has increased awareness of Government products and services that support small businesses by 45% since it launched in November 2013.

There have been over 2 million sessions on greatbusiness.gov.uk, the website the campaign promotes, reaching over 1.6m users since the site was refreshed in July 2014.