Reminder: Cover Oregon ads cost $21.4 million

by NW Spotlight

Left-leaning John Oliver recently skewered the Cover Oregon disaster on his HBO political talk show. Speaking on the $248 million wasted on Cover Oregon, Oliver said “To be fair to Oregon, not all of that money was spent on the web site itself – $3 million of it was spent on violently adorable adverts like this.”

But it’s worse than that. It wasn’t $3 million – Oregon actually spent $21.4 million on those “violently adorable” ads to promote a web site that didn’t work.

Willamette Week reported yesterday on the Portland advertising agency that created those “violently adorable” ads. The head of the ad agency had responded to John Oliver in a blog (warning: strong language) to defend his ads.

Willamette Week pointed out that the advertising agency had “received a $9.9 million taxpayer-funded contract for its advertising, which the state later increased to $21.4 million.”