New anti sports betting campaign highlights ‘absurdity’ of putting young children and gambling together
A new anti-gambling campaign uses children to get across the message that they are being bombarded with pro-betting TV ads
The Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation campaign – by McCann Melbourne – launches the fictional brand of KidBet.
The ad comes months after a backlash against the pervasive Tom Waterhouse ads which also saw the brand, fronted by Waterhouse, integrated into sports programs on the commercial networks.
The campaign is part of the Foundation’s new ‘Gambling’s not a game’ strategy which includes an education program for schools, parents and teachers; a responsible gambling program for sporting clubs; a guide for parents to help them talk to their children about the dangers of gambling and a supporting website.
Foundation CEO Serge Sardo said: “The ad is deliberately provocative because there appears to be a misplaced complacency around the issue.”
McCann ECD John Mescall said: “Research shows that young people are at risk of developing gambling problems because they may not understand the risks of gambling and are less able to resist advertising messages. Placing a kid front and centre in this campaign by making him an ambassador, tackles this challenge head on.”
Miranda Ward worked for Mumbrella from 2013 to 2017, eventually becoming deputy editor. Miranda joined Mumbrella in September 2013 from Sky News.
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Saw this on the weekend. It was immediately followed by an ad for Sportsbet.
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$20 says most people think it’s for real…and don’t actually care. Sad, really.
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Bravo. But unfortunately too few give a Sh#t. It’s so uncool to be concerned about gambling. Especially at this time of the year
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Who did this.
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Saw this on air yesterday with my kids and it had the opposite affect – they thought it was encouraging them to have a bet.
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Hi Credits,
It’s McCann Melbourne. (As per the second paragraph).
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
So if that ad is right, if sports betting is banned, would we now have to gamble on the odds of reality shows and which network will win a night in ratings or target demographic? Can you see Bet365, SportingBet, Centrebet (fire them up and you fire up Satan), etc do live market odds on TV show ratings, which X Factor contestant will win that Sony contract and the money, who’s winning Big Brother, etc?
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That has to be the most pointless campaign and biggest waste of government funds in the history of Australian advertising. If they spent at least five minutes actually researching the subject first before they created the campaign they’d see that on-line sports betting has the lowest underage participation of any form of gambling. I read a lot on this subject and I can’t remember a single documented case of under age internet sports betting in the last twenty years. Why ? – Because on-line bookies are the only ones that actually force people to produce 100 points ID. This stops underage betting in its tracks. Any kid can sign up with zinga poker, or walk into a news agent and get a scratchie. And what about the thousands of 17 year olds that have got into a pub and played the pokies.
These people who did ad this are a disgrace. Either they are completely incompetent and did no research on the subject at all, or they chose sports betting agencies simply because they are politically unpopular at the moment. If they actually wanted to help the kids they should have made an ad about the dangers of pokies, but these pretend do-gooders won’t touch that subject because the AHA is too politically powerful.
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He kinda looks like Mr Waterhouse. Same patter, same shitty hairdo.
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I agree with the comments about this ad being confusing. I was fast forwarding thru a segment on Today (?) featuring this ad and I did a double take. I went back and watched a bit of the ad and I honestly thought it was an education campaign advising kids how to bet online. My wife saw the ad and she thought it was promoting a new betting agency for kids, a bit like Kid’s Gym or little athletics.
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