Opinion

Why NAB shouldn’t have said sorry for mocking country music

In this guest post, Eaon Pritchard reckons NAB was mistaken for caving in to pressure from country music fans and ditching its ad.

I do get sad seeing a former client make a hash of things.

NAB have copped some flack for their radio ad which takes the mickey out of a country music stereotype.

So they’ve publicly pulled the ad and apologised.

They say that they should have understood that not everyone has the same taste in music.

The fact that they crumbled at the first sign of unrest from a few outspoken voices from rural Australia is not the saddest part.

The sad fact remains that they somehow believed, and still believe, that country music isn’t cool.

When, of course, it’s just about the coolest shit there is.

Gram Parsons, Steve Earl and Uncle Tupelo, anyone?

But country fans are outlaws and outsiders. A tribe. They’re different from the mainstream. You could almost say they have decided to ‘break-up’ from the dominant popular culture.

If only there was a brand that stood for those kind of values?

Rather than taking a smug cheap shot at a easy target cliche, NAB would have been better advised to compared bank fees to X-Factor wannabees or Big Brother nonentities. Because ‘certainly’ no-one likes that garbage.

And ‘certainly’ there would be no customer revolt from hardcore XFactor fans demanding retribution.

Because there is no-one who gives enough of a shit.

But of course NAB have already sponsored those quality additions to the culture.

File this one under Dunning-Kruger Effect.

Eaon Pritchard is the director of brand strategy at Sputnik Agency

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