Saturday

yes and no. Without question the visuals will appeal to those curious about Australia – it ticks all the expectations boxes and looks pretty fabulous… and yet… this TVC really only works when played with the audio set to mute.

Drawing on the last TVC promoting Australia that was also met less than positive reviews – where the bloody hell are you?

Well apparently we are singing really badly all over the place. Visions of Simon Cowel sighing with deep relief that a) he was never involved with Australian Idol and b) he’s retired to judge more broader sight acts on X-Factor.

Look, in a word the soundtrack is woeful. Just bloody terrible. An unappealing song, sung off-key, in broad cringe worthy boganish accents translates into an experience that is in no way attractive and I would have thought is not what we as nation would like to have projected to the rest of the world.

This ad is like a blind date. Pretty to look at and then they talk and teeth are gritted. Pity.

The big problem here is that not only is it just horrible but they miss a key element in a successful ad. The ad needs to have something, a personality, or perhaps a catchy song, and a tagline or pithy phrase that will enter into common everyday use.

Good ads become part of the general popular culture and take on a life of their own. Drawing on geat Aussie tourism moments – the now ancient but still affectionatly recalled ‘Put Another Shrimp on the Barbie’ and instant recognition with Australia comes with the flute played by Men at Work’s ‘Down Under’.

This ad however shares has none of this. The tag is hohum and this song, well let’s just say that I am confident that this won’t be hummed along by someone slaving away in Essex as they save for an overseas holiday.

All I can say is d’oh! Looks like we’ve missed another opportunity to present the nation in the best possible circumstances.

Rating – visuals 9 out of 10, audio – 1 out of 10 (well it’d be churlish to not rate it at all), tagline 3 out of 10 – so that is a grand total of 13 out of 30.

Not even close to a shrug of the shoulders pass mark. FAIL.

Midnight

Okay, hate the soundtrack, get it, it really is pretty awful. But here’s a question for you Mister Saturday — do Australians have any real idea what overseas markets find interesting about Australia and Australians?

I’m not saying that this ad demonstrates that Tourism Australia has even a fingernail grip on what will (or won’t) appeal to a tourist, but you have to think that the very things that might make an Australian cringe are the things that people find exotic and interesting about Australia as a destination.

Looking at Tourism Australia’s own figures, tourism has been steadily increasing over the last 12 months, even through the "Where the bloody hell are ya?" campaign that so many Aussies hated.

Are we missing the point that maybe ‘unpolished’ is exactly what people from other countries want to come here to experience?

Saturday

hmmmm you may have a point. Perhaps the rest of the world does see us as the last of the wild frontiers… but you know… with safe streets and plumb’ sewerage and cable tv.

Midnight

Tell you what though, if I was marketing Australia I’d stick to the central theme of "Come here because it’s on the other side of the world from all the shite that normally keeps you awake at night, working on that acid reflux problem you need all the meds to control."

Or what about, "Australia, it’s okay to come by airplane, but please don’t come by boat. We have prison islands for people like you."

Midnight

Heh. The coffee-nose-snorting thing. Good times.

But, let’s go back to the question of how do you market an experience like Australia? Obviously featuring a bunch of people who should never be heard singing outside a karaoke bar is probably not a great strategy, but what do you use instead?

As you know, I’m no marketing expert, but it seems to me the glory days of Australian Tourism advertising were back in Paul Hogan’s lovable larrikin, "Throw another shrimp on the barbie" campaign.

I kinda think the secret is somewhere in pitching Australia as "The Big Backyard", albeit a backyard where spiders, snakes, sharks, and people wearing Akubra hats with corks dangling from them are likely to ruin your picnic.

Oh, and for extra points of difficulty, you can’t use women in bikinis. Or pictures of Ayers Rock (Ularu). Or anything to do with kangaroos or the Sydney Opera House. And sweeping coastline vistas shot from helicopters or planes should also be considered verboten.

Midnight

Okay, you lose points for mentioning kangaroos, but you make up points for bringing in the wombats. Like the use of dingoes, since most Americans are at least familiar with the phrase, "A dingo took my baby."

Me, I’d have a guy standing on a headland surrounded by a bunch of doors. Every time he opens one of the doors, he’s "Somewhere else in Australia": he goes through one and he’s dressed in a Jackeroo outfit, and he’s jumping up on a horse and heading downhill like a madman a la "Man from Snowy River", he goes through another door and he’s in boardshorts and he’s diving off a yacht into (what’s left of) the Great Barrier Reef, he goes through another door and he’s canoeing down one of the red stone gorges in the Northern Territory, another door and he’s in rainforest in Far North Queensland, another door and he’s partying in Melbourne during Grand Prix week, and yadda yadda. And that’s what the slogan would be: "Somewhere else, in Australia".

So, I think this conversation has justifiably fallen quiet, as Lord General Saturday has taken his battle-wearied troops on another suicide glorious mission, and is currently refusing to respond to military dispatches and appears to have set up a guerilla army that looks like it might be invading us back again, just for the hell of it.

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