U.S. Census Spends 22.7 Million on Promotional Products

On April 14, the Orange County Register reported the total amount the U.S. government has spent on advertising this year's census. The information was gathered from an interview with Stephen L. Buckner, assistant division chief, decennial programs public information office U.S. Census Bureau.

The article states that 16.3 million was spent on promotional items directly advertising the census, and another 6.4 million in product was used for the census' March to the Mailbox campaign. The cost-per-person was around five cents, each item costing on average about 25 cents. 65.2 million items were given away in total. The article mentioned mugs, T-shirts, water bottles, pencils and printed materials as some of the items that were used.

Buckner explained in the article that the purpose of the promotional campaign was to increase the census' mail response rate, which is considerably cheaper at 42 cents compared to the 60 dollars it cost to send a census worker to a home.

Click here to read the whole article from the Orange County Register.