The Ocker Shocker
Kangaroos skipping playfully through the bush, a barbie on the beach, a brace of surfers waiting for the first big wave of the day, a local pub "where everyone's your mate," a sea plane skimming over the Great Barrier Reef, an Aborginal elder stood in front of Uluru, a ferry carving through Sydney harbour, with the Opera House and bridge in the background, and, of course, the mandatory koala. All to the bouncy refrain of a catchy new song, "There's Nothing Like Australia".
I speak, of course, of Tourism Australia's long-awaited new global advertisement, where no cliché and stereotype is left un-reinforced. It appears to have been cobbled together by Paul Hogan and Barry "Bazza" McKenzie after a long night on the grog, with the occasional idea hurled in by Sir Les Patterson and pictures gleaned from the past 10 years of Qantas in-flight advertisements. Needless to say, I think it's brilliant.
I've long thought, and have written before, that Tourism Australia could save itself a lot of money by simply re-running Paul Hogan's "C'mon Say G'day" campaign, which was such a smash hit in the 1980s. The reason is simple: the rest of the world loves the very clichés which make many Australians cringe. Regular readers of this blog already know how sophisticated, fashionable and up-to-moment I think you all are. But that discovery comes as an added bonus for visitors. When most tourists touch down in Australia they want to have caught sight of a koala, and ideally a kangaroo as well, by lunchtime.
"Stone the crows, are they fair dinkum about this flamin' ad?" asks the Sydney Morning Herald, in which the writer Rick Feneley suggests the new ad "casts us as a nation of tone-deaf bogans caught in a '70s time-warp." On the blogosphere some have already described the ad as "bogan pride at its best", and "cringeworthy". Another commentator asks: "When will we shake these dowdy, 50-year-old stereotypes?"
My take, for what it's worth, is that you have already shaken many of them, but when it comes to global advertising campaigns it is worth taking the self-inflicted hit. After all, playing to your strengths means playing to your clichés. Previous campaigns, which have asked people to take a fresh look at a modern, thrusting Australia, have bombed. So while the new ad may be an "ocker shocker", it arguably might work precisely for that reason.
The problem seems to arise when people start equating a 90-second tourism advertisement with our old friend, a complete summation of Australia's national identity. But if it looks like a tourist ad, and sounds like a tourism ad then the chances are it is just that - a tourism ad.
UPDATE: Advertisements, of course, are much in the news in this part of the world, because the Rudd government has decided to bend its own rules, and spend $A38.5m ($32.5m, £22.4m) promoting its tax reforms - or, more accurately, countering the media campaign from the resources sector to block the super tax on super profits. Before the last election, Kevin Rudd declared government advertising as "a sick cancer within our system...a cancer on democracy." Your comments please.....
UPDATE: Many thanks for your comments on the new Tourism Australia advertisement. This may be a complete beat-up from the Brisbane Times, but it is between the song, There's Nothing Like Australia, and Disney's Mickey Mouse Club theme tune. It comes, of course, in the wake of the over Down Under, which a judge decided sounded too much like that kindergarten classic, Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree.
As for the cringe factor, this is a which presents the counter-argument to many of your comments.
I meant to mention my favourite comment about the new ad campaign, which came from talk-back radio. On caller said he was convinced "There's Nothing Like Australia" was a late Antipodean entry into this year's Eurovision Song Contest.
Back to the mining tax.......
I'm 
Comments
or to comment.