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C'mon...Ban
It. I Dare Ya!
The
28 March 2006 edition of the Zeitgeist Z-news:
Since
my last post regarding Australia’s
incredible new marketing campaign, I’ve been waiting for the collective
shoes to drop in each country in which this fabulous television ad is
aired. Just as GoDaddy.com
got more visibility for having 13 proposed Super Bowl TV ads rejected
by the network than they ever could have hoped for from a single 30
second spot, I’m beginning to wonder if pushing the envelope and
purposefully taunting conservative elements in England, Canada and America
with this edgy invitation wasn’t part of the grand strategy all
along.
Thus, this is as much about marveling at a masterfully constructed multi-media
strategy as it is a celebration of one of the more creative campaigns
we’ve seen in years.
 For
those just tuning in, Australia’s new tagline is,
“So, Where the Bloody Hell Are You?” First
off, the word “bloody” fell afoul of British censors who
initially banned the television ads (the print ads were, apparently,
cleared to run). That is, until (as reported in The
Age), “the ban prompted an urgent flight to
London by federal Tourism Minister Fran
Bailey, who, amid a blaze of priceless publicity, complained
the Poms had lost their sense of humour.” Ultimately, the Brits
backed down...but not before tens of thousands of citizens downloaded
the ad from Australia’s website to see what all the fuss was about.
Then, it was Canada’s turn to object to the ad...but it wasn’t
the “bloody hell” that got regulators into a huff. It was
a reference to beer. To set up the closing line of “Where the
Bloody Hell are You?,” a series of Aussies deliver lines such
as, “We’ve shampooed the camels,” “we’ve
got the ‘roos off the green” and “we’ve gotten
the sharks out of the pool.” One of the lines is, “I’ve
bought you a beer.” But, apparently, Canadian TV regulations prohibit
the reference to beer in a commercial if said beer is unbranded.
The result? More visits to the website to see the ad. And Bailey’s
priceless quote: "As far as this particular Canadian regulator
is concerned, I'd love him to come out here and I'll buy him a beer
and say thank-you." Oh...this is sounding like a set-up.
Naturally, I was waiting to see what the FCC,
fresh from a
recent imposition of millions of dollars in fines against
TV stations, would do.
And, just as I had suggested in my last post...they did nothing, and
let the first ad air last Wednesday during ABC’s Lost...in
front of 20 million viewers. Of course, by this time, over 100,000 Americans
had also downloaded the spot after hearing about the controversy in
England and Canada.
But, just because the FCC saw the light on this one doesn’t mean
that the ham handed American
Family Association hasn’t hastened to take the Australian
bait and keep the spot in the public consciousness even more. And I’m
sure that the Australian Tourism Commission couldn’t be happier.
In registering its displeasure with the words “bloody hell,”
an AFA spokesperson offered these rather revealing observations: "It's
a shocking phrase because we're not familiar with it. I guess they use
it all the time in Australia, but it's a foreign language here...”
By all means, let’s make sure that we keep phrases we’re
not familiar with away from our kids (who, of course, are exposed to
and fluently speak their own unique language every day at school...just
as their parents did and their parents did when they were kids).
But, again, this couldn’t play more perfectly into Australia’s
design for world tourism awareness domination! As Bailey said (surely
struggling to suppress a laugh), the AFA’s proposed ban on visiting
Australia won’t have an effect because the ad is targeting well-educated,
high-earning, widely travelled Americans. Which not only reinforces
the brains behind the campaign but subtly positions the AFA as under-educated,
middle-class consumers that think crossing a state line is a big deal.
The moral of this evolving story is that taking a calculated risk of
offending a small group of people with an advertising campaign in today’s
over-sensitized world can pay off in millions of dollars of free publicity
and hundreds of thousands of web hits.
Like Park
City’s Wasatch
Brewery, whose campaign for its Polygamy
Porter (”Why Have Just One”) torqued some in
Utah’s Mormon community (but netted the company worldwide media
coverage and sales)...taking a risk can be one of the smartest strategies
a destination can employ.
Bill
Wanna
comment on this or other topics. E-mail
Me!
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