FOI request detail

Number of named Mayors appearing on TfL Advertisments

Request ID: FOI-3340-1920
Date published: 18 March 2020

You asked

Good Day, Since the appointment of a Mayor of London, I would like to know the amount of times the Mayors full name has been included on TfL advertisments (across all platforms), not just 'Mayor of London'. As a secondary request, to put the primary in perspective, how many unique adverts have been used during each Mayoral term. Best Regards,

We answered

Our Ref:         FOI-3340-1920

Thank you for your request received on 3 February 2020 asking for information about Mayoral advertisements. I apologise for the delay in my response.

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy. I can confirm we hold some of the information you require.

The Mayor of London’s name has appeared in TfL advertising since September 2016. We have kept records of the campaigns which have included the Mayor by name since 1 April 2019.   This follows a previous question about the inclusion of the Mayor by name in advertising.  It would exceed the budget limit to provide this information retrospectively but we have put in place a system to provide it from April 2019.

There have been seven TfL campaigns, across all advertising platforms, which included a reference to the Mayor by name since that date.  These were important customer information campaigns and the reference to the Mayor was incidental to the main purpose of the campaigns which was as follows:

1.   Ultra-Low Emission Zone
2.   Air Quality Scrappage schemes
3.   Cycleways launches
4.   TfL improvements (Low Emission Taxis, Step free stations for example)
5.   TfL fares (Hopper, £1.50 off peak fares)
6.   TfL Rail
7.   Air Quality education (in conjunction with Metro and Global Radio)

Across these campaigns ads have run as follows:
• Press and posters:  164,591 insertions / panels
• On line web advertising: 49.47m impressions

To put this into context as you have requested, the total number of advertising campaigns which ran across this period was 21 and the Mayor was mentioned in only seven of these, as above.

We do not record all our campaigns by the number of insertions or the number of panels and it would exceed the budget limit to provide this information retrospectively.

If this is not the information you are looking for please feel free to contact me.

Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal.

Yours sincerely

Gemma Jacob
Senior FOI Case Officer
FOI Case Management Team
General Counsel
Transport for London

[email protected]

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