the census and the super bowl

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.

and this is only $2.5 million of their overall $133 million ad campaign!

i understand that they are trying to hype the census in order to get as many people to complete it as possible. and i know this isnt the first time that the government has advertised the census during the super bowl.

however, during the current economic situation arent you just stirring the pot of citizens concerned about the government wasting tax dollars? at the very least its a bad PR decision right?

while im annoyed that tax dollars, in my mind, are being mismanaged on this effort, i can get past it. the one statement from this article that most stuck out was the last paragraph

you can make a succesful argument that running the ads during the super bowl is a good advertising strategy but how do you make the argument that the front end costs can be quickly recouped? its not a product; the census will bring in $0 to taxpayers. so how are ANY costs being recouped?