‘Half wit’ and ‘imbecile’: Hardie Grant pulls 2GB ad spend after Ray Hadley’s on air tirade against marketing boss over ‘get routed’ ads
One of Australia’s biggest publishers has pulled all of its advertising from Radio 2GB after morning show presenter Ray Hadley called its marketing manager an “imbecile” and told her to “pull your head in you silly woman” live on air .
Hadley’s blow-up came 24 hours after he had a Father’s Day ad for UBD Gregory’s Street Directories taken off the Macquarie Radio Network after taking offence at its message to tell dads to “get routed”.
In the first of two rants on the topic on his show on Thursday Hadley took aim at marketing director Roxy Ryan, describing her as a “half wit” and “wet behind the ears”.
If an ad is played on my program and offends me and my listeners it won’t be played, pull your head in you silly woman,” Hadley said. “Obviously you half wit you know nothing about talk radio, the program is about me having my say you fool.”
In a statement to Mumbrella Ryan said: “If Ray, a very powerful man, feels like the best use of his considerable platform is to bully a young woman on air who has dared to question his decision making then I think we are better off not advertising our products on 2GB.
Roxy Ryan
“Ray is entitled to his own opinion about the UBD street directories advertisement, but personal insults are totally unnecessary.”
Ryan had previously defended the campaign as “light hearted and tongue in cheek”.
The publisher has pulled campaigns for both UBD and Explore Australia, costing the station between $20,000 and $30,000 in lost revenues.
Later in his show Hadley had a second, longer spray against Ryan prompted by reports in Mumbrella and other outlets after he initially banned the ad, claiming the ad had “somehow snuck onto the station without someone from the right departments [at 2GB] hearing it”.
Hadley said: “She’s had a few things to say about me – I think she’s never heard my program. When I say I don’t want something on my program I think I mean it.”
He said it was immediately taken off air as the general managers of the various stations it was banned from found it “offensive in the extreme”.
Turning to the outdoor element of the campaign he conceded it might work better as a pun, but added: “When you transfer that from the written form into the verbal form and you’re telling your dad to get ‘R’d four times in 30 seconds it is offensive.”
On Wednesday Ryan told Mumbrella Hadley had pulled the ad after receiving a couple of calls from listeners, but on air Hadley said he had received 30 phone calls about the issue as well as several emails.
“It was a big drama because I found it offensive and it was a bigger drama because my listener found it offensive as well,” he said.
Describing her as a “silly, silly girl” he added: “I suspect Roxy’s a younger person and it may work on the social media platforms you reside on but what I think you should be doing as the marketing director for Hardie Grant – I’m your one hope, you should be nice to me.
“People my age are the only people who’d possibly go and buy a UBD. You should realise I’m your target audience, old blokes like me, who are happy to read the Daily Telegraph or Courier Mail in the written form and is happy to have in my glove box a UBD. The young ones don’t want it…they are upwardly mobile with their mobile devices and can even get it on their mobile phones now.
Unless you’re nice to me Hardie Grant won’t sell 10 UBDs, let alone 100.”
On Wednesday Hadley said he had a large audience of young mothers listening to his show.
In a statement Julie Pinkham, managing director of Hardie Grant Publishing said: “We’re not impressed by the use of personal insults like ‘half wit’ and ‘silly girl’ attributed to our accomplished staff and so we prefer to promote our products elsewhere.”
The last radio survey on Tuesday showed Hadley had a dominant 15.4 per cent audience share for the station in Sydney, up 0.4 share points on the previous survey.
Alex Hayes
Good on you Ray.
It’s just disappointing that this kind of advertising doesn’t get filtered along time before it reaches you and your listeners. Unfortunately, young inexperienced marketers and advertising people alike are now rife in the industry and need to get some basic common understanding of what is acceptable and what is not.
I’m an ‘old school’ creative In advertising and the quality of the creative product being produced these days is primarily cheap, offensive and annoying.
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I would have thought lots of “silly girls” will be buying their “old bloke” dads a UBD for Father’s Day. So, you might not be the only target audience Ray #whowouldhavethought
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i’m no ray hadley fan and i don’t listen to his show, but he’s got it right here
the ad sucked and was inappropriate
if “halfwit” and “silly girl” are the worst insults used, i don’t think it can really be called “bullying”
playing up the “powerful man” vs “young woman” angle is weak sauce, we’re all adults here.
HG can take their toys and go home but i think this reflects worse on them than it does on hadley or 2GB
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Sounds like a cheap play on routed and Fathers Day, in poor taste
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Nice bucket load of publicity of course and won’t do any brand harm. But again, like so many of these ‘uproar over ad’ events, agency and client saw this one through, so heat should not just land on ‘Roxy’.
They should apologise to the industry on behalf of real creativity, which has obviously left Australia and gone to live on the Mad Men set.
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Wow, the ad can nowhere be as offensive to his audience of young mothers (and by definition their children) as his insults and the example he is setting to this audience; “There we go little Jimmy, this is the way you should deal with someone disagreeing with you, especially if she is a woman” I know who the half wit is and it is not Roxy…
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I just don’t get why any brand would advertise on these ‘shock jock’ shows. Sure they have a few listeners but you are putting off an even larger audience by being associated with their brand of nastiness. The further a brand get get from these toxic people the better.
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Hadley says he has a large number of young mothers listening to his show. Rubbish. The majority of his audience is aged over 65. And another thing about his audience…..Hadley only has 316,000 people listening to his show each week. That’s 7.5 per cent of the available audience. So 92.5 per cent of people in Sydney NEVER listen to him.
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@Peter – bang on.
Being #1 in Radio is like peaking in high school.
7.5% is his audience – meaning 92.5% of Sydneysiders dont listen to him
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Appalling Ray and completely unprofessional.
Whilst it’s your radio show, it didn’t give you the right to attack the advertiser (otherwise known as your client) on the air without any right of reply.
Instead, all you had to do was quietly mention the advert was an issue internally and someone from sales or production could have rectified it, then you would still have the client and perhaps their campaign would be more successful.
You have lost the plot.
Your job Ray, in radio, is to help advertisers (customers) promote their brands through your airtime and audience exposure, not belittle them and rant on in an offensive and abusive manner.
Not good enough.
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I hope Ray finds peace one day. It’s pretty sad really.
He has good points, like his sports calling and his ability to talk to his target audience.
But …..
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Hardie Grant we can help you sell your next UBD by communicate directly with your target markets – Motorists – No Routing About !!
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The very minor issue here is the use of innuendo to sell products… pah, so what… the industry will still be doing that in 100 years because sex and humour, like it or not, have cut-through and we’re all here to move product for clients.
The very BIG issue here is the [edited by Mumbrella] jock hurling insults in a tirade of misogynistic vitriol. It’s an appalling abuse of his mouthpiece and rather more befitting his southpiece.
Shame on you Hadley. Macquarie, what say you?
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