Dan Ilic: We pretended to be outraged over Dick Smith ad ban
The man behind Dick Smith’s “censored” Australia Day ad has admitted that its so-called ban was a stunt designed to generate media coverage.
The ad for Dick Smiths Foods was created by producer and comedian Dan Ilic. It generated extensive media coverage after Smith complained that the innuendo-laden ad had been denied a early evening time slot.
Interviewed on Nine News’ new 9StreamLive online news show, Ilic – who also appears on Ten’s Can Of Worms – revealed that a G-rated version of the ad was approved for the timeslot, but the racier version was not.
Ilic said: “We kind of pretended that it wasn’t a laughing matter for a couple of days to spark media interest. Luckily the media bought it.
I think a lot of people saw it as a contrived social media stunt from the start. The mainstream media were foolish to jump on the bandwagon as eagerly as they did. Clearly none of them saw fit to actually seek comment from the network(s) or governing bodies and just took Dan Ilic and Dick Smith’s word for it.
I thought that Dick was having a go at brands using their ‘Australian’ identity to sell their products. I dont think he was suggesting there shouldnt be other brands at all, but that you should save your supermarket patriotism for foods made locally.
Err, who the hell thought it wasn’t designed to be a beat up? Seriously.
So what happens the next time Dick Smith wants the media to take him serious?
As the boat sails away, you’ve told the cyclops who really blinded him.
This is hubris. Play the trick, but don’t take a curtain call. Now you can never do it again.
I just like how someone can tell an outright lie and then call it ‘a successful media stunt’. Lesson learnt – don’t believe anything Ilic or Dick Smith say in the future.
Dan might be a comedian, but he’s no ad man. The ad is badly written – how many times can you make the same dick joke? – badly acted and generally pretty lame. Just goes to show that there’s more to making a funny ad than just being funny.
No one is surprised it’s a stunt. But anyone over the age of 12 who thinks that dick jokes are funny in the (real or pretend) advertising world will never get my buying dollars. Tremendous idea, possibly, if 12 year old boys are doing the grocery shopping but ,somewhere in your expensive statistic gathering, you might latch onto the fact that (sadly) it’s still predominantly women making the vegemite/ozemite decisions. And all the women I know are still cringing with embarrassment at the ad and vowing never to buy ozemite. I figure it’s totally backfired in my circles.
Sorry to the charities that might have benefited from increased sales but, whereas before I was a potential customer… it’s now strictly vegemite for me. I’ll just donate to the collectors at the traffic lights.
Dan Illic is funny?
@HindleyStreet: Not sure about Dan Illllic… But Dan Ilic tries to make a living out of it…Allegedly.