Community Blindspot

Agency-by-Agency Data and Analysis

NYS Office of Children and Family Services

OpenBookNY data indicated that from FY2012 to FY2022, the Office of Children & Families (OCFS) spent $5,680,156 for media placement services with OpAD, $120,000 with NY Broadcasters Association, and $1,000,000 with Miller Advertising Agency Inc.

OCFS sent CCM 25 OpAD invoices in response to our FOIL request, but 11 of those contained outdoor ads, like bus station ads, or production fees which did not apply to our inquiry. The remaining 14 invoices comprised two advertising campaigns between December 2019 and December 2022.  

The first campaign, “Talking is Teaching,” encouraged parents and caregivers to discuss everyday activities with preschool children to promote preschool development. As the chart below shows, this 2019-2020 campaign placed 84% of the video ads with local TV stations, which we categorized as traditional media. The second campaign aimed to get parents to install the NYS Parents Portal App. This campaign had three separate year-long “flights.” A flight refers to the date range of an ad campaign. OFCS categorized these ads as interactive and overwhelmingly placed with social media and tech companies like Facebook (Meta) and Google an average of 70% of the time. Community media received 0.8% ($17K) of the $2.2 million in OCFS ad placements we analyzed.

FIGURE 3

Ad Spending by Media Campaign and Placement Category

NYS Office of Children and Family Services

Hover over the circles for more details.

Community media: New Tang Dynasty

Traditional media: Bustle Digital Group, TV stations

Social media and tech: Apple, Facebook (Meta), Google, Reddit, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter

Ad serving/targeting companies: AdTheorent, H Code Media, MightyHive, MobileFuse, OM Trade Desk, Programmatic Mechanics, Streamlyn, Teads

FIGURE 4

Ad Spending by Media Campaign and Placement Category

NYS Office of Children and Family Services

Hover over the bars to see amounts and percentages for each category.

FIGURE 5

Overall Ad Spending by Media Placement Category

NYS Office of Children and Family Services

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