Rudd impersonator fronts eyewear retailer’s TV campaign attacking foreign aid
Retail eyewear company The Optical Superstore has made a foray into the federal election using Kevin Rudd impersonator Anthony Ackroyd to front a new TV campaign, which attempts to combine a denouncement of aid to Indonesia with a brand message.
In the video Ackroyd, labelled the video “The Ruddster”, questions whether Australia should be giving $647m in foreign aid, citing the $8bn the country spends on its military.
At the end of the video the Rudd impersonator turns to the camera and says: “I can see this issue so clearly now because I bought my glasses from The Optical Super Store”.
Wow
(but not in a good way, you understand)
memo to adland. i vote labor. i don’t buy your reactionary crap.
Other Memo to Adland. What the **** were you thinking?
One of the reasons Australia gives aid to Indonesia is to increase education and fund schools. This has actually made Australia quite popular amongst a lot of ordinary indonesians. As a result kids in Indonesia don’t end up in strict religious schools like the ones the Bali bombers attended. So we are spending the money on creating more educated neighbours and helping kids. If we didn’t give that money to Indonesia the military is not going to give it up. We’ve funded 2000 schools. The optical Superstore wants that to stop?
Also I’d encourage anyone who is involved with foreign aid or Indonesian language education to share this ad with their friends. I am encouraging a boycott on the company until they explain their position on the funding of Indonesian schools by the Australian government. Selamat Siang.
Tacky brand association. Why are they different from any other store? such a waste.
And he doesn’t even look like Rudd. How did this get through both the agency and the client?
I like Anthony’s act but he needs new hair. Kev has gone grey now.
What on earth
Lowest common denominator politics crossed with commerce.
News Ltd behind this?
Don’t we give money to Indonesian schools so they don’t turn radical and blow us up when we next holiday in Bali? Very odd way of flogging specs….
I think it’s a great idea and the ads make a good point. Why keep insulating the Indonesian govt from its responsibilities to its own people? I’ll become an Optical Store customer. Good ad!
Oh my. That is bad.
“the script a collaboration between the agency, Ackroyd and Optical Superstore CEO Ian Melrose”
In other words the deep-pockets rich man came to his ad agency and said “I’ve got an idea for an ad” and the agency tugged their forelock and laughed in all the right places (but mainly on the way to the bank)?
I like it – and I like the fact that it takes a risk – which most Australian advertising (particularly TVCs) fail to do.
Fuckwits
From the Aus Aid website:
“An Indonesian woman is 30 times more likely to die in childbirth than an Australian woman and one in three children under the age of five suffer from stunting, caused by malnutrition. About 120 million Indonesians do not have access to safe drinking water while about 110 million do not have adequate sanitation.”
But lets not help them. Let’s have a lot of poverty next door and then crack it when people allow their country to be used for illegal immigration. Let’s complain about Islamic extremism but not fund schools that keep kids out of madrasas.
Ian Melrose is a supporter of the Wes Papua movement, a movement I support but if we cut aid to Indonesia we’re going to cut the aid to West Papua too. Indonesia isn’t going to let us only give aid to the areas with separatists. This is a bafflingly unfunny ad. There is no debate about humanitarian aid to Indonesia because hungry kids don’t care about military spending and when it comes to feeding them neither should we.
Well, it certainly is getting a reaction!
I would say it’s not about depriving Indonesian children, schools and people of aid, rather a means to increase the debate surrounding aid given to a government with an atrocious human rights record and ever increasing military spending!
Have people forgotten East Timor?
Are people even aware of what is taking place TODAY in West Papua?
It’s a true worry and it’s on our doorstep!
Thankfully we live in a democracy and have the right to an opinion 😉
I think this ad is great. So is the guy. He’s almost as funny as the Real Thing!
James Smith or Billy C (!): the poorest provinces in Indonesia are the Papuan ones. AusAID and indonesia doesn’t let ibdependent people see for themselves what’s happening there. Plus they’ve got huge HIV problems. If u do support the West Papuans, you should be calling for an end to the blockade of foreign journalists and human rights groups. Where have you done this? Any evidence?
I’m glad these guys are saying something but hey everyone’s got the right to expressing an opinion. Except the West Papuans, thanks to the Indonesian military!
I am not doubting for a second that there are terrible human rights abuses in many parts of Indonesia including West Papua. I was once taught by an Acennese man whose best friend was tortured by the Indonesia security forces with electricity. But how does ending or cutting aid help? If we engage and help educate we will do some good. If you cut aid the Indonesian government will not make up the shortfall by cutting the military budget. Australia’s investment in schools in Indonesia has vastly improved how Australia is viewed by many ordinary indonesians and helped stem religous extremeism. Perhaps we might be able to direct some of that aid to specific areas or make some of it conditional. But pulling out is not going to help anyone. Punishing ordinary poor people does not punish the Indonesia military. This campaign is off the mark. Hurting poor people does nothing to help West Papuans. Campaigning for more West Papuan Human rights is laudable but this ad is asking the questions why do we give aid to Indonesia and I’m trying to answer that question. It’s in our interests on several levels and it does a tremendous amount of good to people living in poverty.
“How does ending or cutting aid help?”
One answer is that the Indonesian government will have to find the money from its own coffers. And its coffers are pretty darn deep. “The money is gushing into Indonesia”, according to the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04.....surge.html
“The stock market here doubled last year and is headed that way again, money is pouring into Indonesian government bonds, and investment is booming” according to the Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....03839.html
No wonder the Indonesian government has tripled its military spending: “The country’s 2012 defence budget of $8 billion, up from $2.6 billion in 2006, is the largest it’s been—relative to GDP—for 20 years.”
http://www.economist.com/blogs.....esias-army
No problem if you want to give money to schools there. Do it privately and get a tax deduction. I don’t want my tax dollars going there, and Im glad the Optical Shop is saying so publicly!
This is not about party politics – Melrose funded the East Timor Oil rights campaign when Libs were in power. He also funded the Xenophon fronted Chinalco/mining rights campaign. No one wants people living in poverty or without education, but everyone should at least question what the govt of the day Labor or Liberal, are doing and why… should we be giving $650m Aid to any country with an $8 Billion Military Budget? Does the Indonesion (or any) Govt provide the Aust govt foreign aid for our indigenous population to address the poverty and health disparity? Should we provide aid to any nation regardless of Humans Rights issues? How much aid do we give to India? Afghanistan?
I have no answers, but if someone is prepared to fund a campaign to get our largely apathetic population to question ANY serious issue, that’s a good thing, right?
http://www.brainyquote.com/quo.....ority.html
$647m of aid money to Indonesia is $647m too much. They are illegally occupying West Papua and that money is used to brutally enforce that illegal occupation by Indonesia’s military.
It would surely be more useful to mount an argument about why aid should be cut an have an adult conversation about it than get a guy in a bad wig to do this ad and then some relate it to buying glasses. Making it an ad for a glasses store trivializes the issue.
Don’t know what all the hoo haa is about – just could have been done a bit better (ie. maybe a better connection to optical superstore).
forget the politics and the foreign aid issue this is just a really shit ad. The gag totally vampires the product
the issue is not how much we are giving. the issue is is Indonesia spending their money in the right places. If they spend $8b on their military is this a good use of their money. The more we give them to cover their basic expenditure, the more they will have to spend on what – more military ?? so they can control their people?? this is not good.We should help then help their people not fund them so they will have more military.
No more specs from this obviously stupid company for me anymore…
And I thought they sell eyewear.