Almeida doubles spending on institutional advertising in three years

One of the most coveted items of public administrations is institutional advertising.

A budgetary flow that is destined to promote and sell the actions that are carried out in the cities and countries in all possible supports and means: marquees, newspapers, radios, televisions, social networks... The Madrid City Council spent in 2019 ―the Manuela Carmena's last months as mayor, and José Luis Martínez-Almeida's first six months as new alderman—4,470,152.94 euros.

A year later, in 2020, with the PP in power, the increase was 2,173,637.14 euros, to more than 6.6 million.

In 2021, the last available, was 8,852,118.56 euros, practically double that at the beginning of her mandate.

All these data are in the transparency portal of the Consistory.

The municipal group of Más Madrid will propose, in the plenary session next Tuesday, to establish criteria for the distribution of spending on institutional advertising with the aim of guaranteeing "effectiveness, transparency, austerity and efficiency."

Predictably, the measure will be rejected by the PP, Ciudadanos and Vox.

The party led by Rita Maestre in the capital proposes to recover the criteria established during the mandate of Manuela Carmena: a proportional distribution based on the audiences of each medium, beyond the ideologies that the companies have.

The cost of institutional advertising does not include the cost of designing campaigns, producing dissemination materials such as posters, banners or brochures, or presentation acts, since these data are not accessible from the transparency portal.

"Madrid is without a mayor," says Maestre by phone.

“Almeida has no projects or ideas for our city and now we see that he makes up for his inability and lack of interest in the people of Madrid with more money for advertising.

It is a looting of public resources to sell smoke”, says Maestre.

In this sense, the municipal spokesperson for Más Madrid criticizes the fact that more than 300,000 euros have been allocated to a campaign to publicize the new Plaza de España by the Department of Works and Facilities.

“It is a project that has the stamp of the previous government, with more space for pedestrians, greener and part of a participatory process.

That spending on advertising only shows one thing: Almeida has wanted to take over a project that is not his”, launches the spokeswoman.

The dark and dubious sustainability campaign

Last November, Almeida invested more than 100,000 euros in advertising in different media – including this newspaper, with 12,000 euros – to boast that Madrid was the second most sustainable city in the world.

The study came from a British phone comparator based on studies without any scientific rigor.

The campaign, also visible in institutional accounts, coincided with the COP26 climate summit, in which the City Council hardly participated.

Right now, the city is adorned with posters of Madrid World Capital of Sport 2022. Dozens of media, entities and children attended the "opening ceremony" called by Almeida at the Vallehermoso Stadium a few months ago.

“In this fight against the pandemic that we are embarking on,” he himself said before the cameras, “what better way to celebrate it than with this distinction.

We have fought for it and, for that, we appreciate this distinction”.

Madrid was the only candidate who had applied for this almost unknown recognition and which is delivered by an association based in Brussels called Aces Europe.

The City Council had to pay a fee of 12,000 euros to qualify for the award.

Madrid is the third city to hold this award after Guadalajara (Mexico) and Abu Dhabi.

The images of the mayor with the banner of Madrid World Capital of Sport appeared the day after the ceremony in numerous newspapers and on television.

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