Bad creative: who pays? In this case, we do
In light of this week’s frankly terrible ad by Transport for NSW spruiking Sydney’s crippled nightlife, Jonathan Seidler asks: how long until we demand quality creative from our governments?
In 2014, I was at Leo Burnett Sydney when I was told that we’d be pitching for a NSW Government campaign. Specifically, the ad was an anti-marijuana PSA targeted at teenagers. It was clear from the outset that the brief was so full of holes that it barely managed to float into our office.
Unable to push a scare tactic (most weed wranglers are let off with a warning and a number of US states have legalised it) or health message (medicinal marijuana has become a saviour for sufferers of terminal illness), our prospective client instead went with the flimsy insight that weed was no longer ‘cool’, and that smoking it made you the outcast of your social group.
Nobody in advertising likes to lose a pitch, but in retrospect, we really dodged a bullet. The winner of that campaign was #StonerSloth, arguably the most lampooned, absurd piece of creative that NSW had seen in a long time.
https://youtu.be/Ut7qd-KmHqM
Definitely on board with the overall point of this column, nicely said. However, you only have to look south to Victoria to see Government advertising done well. Even up here in QLD our Government ads are solid without being earth shattering. NSW in fact seems to be the outlier. So, be careful about labelling Government workers as “severely lacking empathy or any quantifiable social skills” – generalist comments like this just devalue your position.
Wholeheartedly agree with this!
So then the research groups or research process should be held accountable.
The people who make the decisions are led by those results, not just personal preference.
I didn’t mind the George Street piece. It was basically a ‘postcards’ type story that made the place look interesting. I’m not from NSW though, so I’m not aware of any pre-conceptions about the street.
Brilliant article! Couldn’t agree more. Another campaign that comes to mind is the original Opal campaign. Truly awful.
Condescending advertising is just a logical extension of an elitist Government culture that looks down on the very people they’re supposed to serve. They spend (taxpayer’s) money like it’s going out of fashion, and this is what they come up with. It’s beyond belief.
If three weeks of extensive research can conclude that Stoner sloth is a good idea, I’d venture to claim it’s conclusive evidence that creative testing is fundamentally useless, and causes more harm than good.
Yet the Government keeps on keeping on spending millions on the same research approach that concluded Apple’s 1984 ad would fail, just to find that people still want faster horses.
It’s the ultimate act of stupidity and arrogance.
Here’s a link to the ever crapper crap fest that was the Santa Rap.
http://www.news.com.au/video/i.....ecember-19
As with so many other things, NSW always proves the unfortunate exception to the rule!
Oh. Poor casting, poor choice of genre, poor scripting, poor cinematography. It would certainly get social sharing.
I completely agree with this. Furthermore, the brief for TfNSW was probably “make young Australians love the city again”, at least enough to go and spend money. It’s not just a distinct “dad” vibe, it feels like someone who doesn’t love Sydney at all. It doesn’t feel like the client really cared about the outcome.
Are we even sure they did creative testing at all?
Great article. And well done m&c for letting this be printed. Really impressive
Govt marketers please listen.
Which agency produced them?
Can someone please leak the budget for these videos
How long until we demand quality government from our government?
cracking article.
until they do something about the abysmal ‘peer review’ process run by the bureaucrats within ‘strategic communications’ itself a subset of Dept of Premier and Cabinet nothing will change. a truly terrible process.
Stoner Sloth is a strange anomaly.
A weird idea made it through a govt dept.
And those people need to be applauded for bravery.
Sure the strategy, idea and execution were all wrong – but it can be hard for marketers to make judgement calls on creative. It’s hard for anyone. Mistakes happen, knowing if something is going to be good is an art, not science. A bunch of idiots in a research group, and some bullshit pretend ad science spun by research companies won’t give you the answer either. Just gut instinct and common sense. But…. sometimes it just doesn’t work out.
So whoever you are brave marketer, don’t let this failure make you gun shy. Advertising needs more cavalier people like you in marketing. Keep fighting the good fight, keep approving weird. It’ll be good next time.
Hmmm very easy to blame government because everyone loves to give them a kick but there’s a few people to blame for bad campaigns.
At some point it was the ad agency who decided and pitched that Stoner Sloth was cool. Where is the blame on them? Oh wait it’s because you work for an ad agency right?
Your blanket statement about government workers shows how ill informed your opinion is.
Maybe we should just criticize journalists for bringing us crap stories.
Wasn’t your new agency responsible for the Stoner Sloth creative?
I find the sloth weirdly endearing…..i want to hang with him rather than his intense friends. Perhaps that is the problem.
So many government ads preaching about substances – alcohol, drugs etc, actually make the person who is drinking or drugging look like they are having fun. Which defeats the purpose.
i wonder how they spin the results of these ads. Surely the money could be better spent!
So if research isn’t good for working this out, why do marketers rely on it?
I find the whole thing hilarious… But it’s not just governments… The company that my husband is part shareholder in, just recruited a really ‘lame duck’ marketing agency in Adelaide.
They now have an almost unreproducible logo that gets lost on many items and is EXTREMELY difficult to embroider. They also have really, REALLY lame, ‘story time’ on their website, about the product/company that is not only infantile, but has unfortunate connotations that are immediately obvious if you live in the world and don’t have your head shoved up your hoo-ha. They have the worst, tackiest business cards it’s possible to have, and the board of directors have just signed up these jokers again, to link the website to ‘buzzwords’ that no-one in their industry uses, and that are completely irrelevant to their product.
The first time, management wondered why everyone was drifting through the intro presentation of these moronic ideas in the most lacklustre way. Then they hired them again. There should be capital punishment for repeat idiocy.
To top it all off, hubby has just received a financial tombstone to commemorate the acquisition of another company. A total waste of crystal and granite. We laughed hysterically and it’s fondly known as ‘the murder weapon’, as it’s so heavy and useless. I keep my garden shed door open with it, mostly.
It’s like he’s working in the cesspit of the Golgafrincham fleet – and they all take them selves so seriously!
What is meant to engage us merely makes us despise them the more. Bad enough in corporate loony land, however somewhat more alarming when it’s government.
I’m all for the sloth… I’ll chillax with them any day. The other kids need head flushing – seriously. I’ve never known a stoned person unable to tell salt from salad, or develop a sudden inability to write. Perhaps that’s what happens to government employees when they partake? We’ll never know…