Research conducted by ACNielsen MMS exclusively for Marketing reveals that government adspend soared by 38.5% last year to £143m, catapulting the UK government to the top of the annual league table for the first time.
The news reignited Conservative Party claims that Labour's obsession with spin is resulting in the misuse of taxpayers' money.
"Is it any surprise that this record waste of public money on advertising came in the same year as the general election?" a spokesman for the Conservatives asked.
However, Downing Street denied that the figures represented a record UK government spend, claiming that Tory governments had spent more "in real terms" in the 80s.
"Are people seriously trying to say we shouldn't try to recruit more nurses or police officers, deter drink-drivers and help people quit smoking?" a Downing Street spokesman asked. "It is rubbish to suggest that public money has been used for political purposes. The government runs important public information campaigns, and there are strict rules to ensure that is the case."
The £143m spend was put into dozens of campaigns, ranging from the Department of Health's ads encouraging smokers to kick the habit to a campaign for the 2001 Census.
The government outspent FMCG giant P&G by more than £20m. Only three UK advertisers -- P&G, BT and Ford -- spent more than half the government's outlay on ads in 2001. Full details of the top 100 advertisers will be published in Marketing on February 21.
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