$2.5 million spent on Super Bowl ads touting census

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Faced with record levels of red ink into the foreseeable future, Washington is spending $2.5 million to create buzz for the census -- by advertising during the Super Bowl.

The Census Bureau is hoping to exploit the strong ratings from this annual attraction, aiming to get more participation from people who now seem disinclined to mail back a government questionnaire or even answer the door.

Census officials call it a good investment, saying the front-end costs of purchasing the ads can be quickly recouped if they succeed in encouraging people to mail back their census forms.

Not everyone is happy with the taxpayer cost.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) tweeted this week that the government “shouldn’t be wasting $2.5 million taxpayer dollars to compete with ads for Doritos!”

Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) called on the Census Bureau to justify every dollar of its $133-million ad campaign, citing the tight economic times.

The census officially began last month in rural Alaska, and most of the U.S. will receive their forms by mail the week of March 15. A recent poll found nearly 1 in 5 residents said they may not fill them out, mostly because they were unfamiliar with the census or weren’t interested.

-- Associated Press