Adelaide’s ‘Old Mate’ returns, this time with friends
The sad old man who featured in Adelaide’s latest tourism push – also known as ‘Old Mate’ – has returned to the city, this time in a much more upbeat manner.
The initial ad sparked controversy, backlash and discussion when it showed a downcast old man regretting not visiting the South Australian capital sooner. Much of the criticism of the ad focused on the abrasive voice-over, which cuts off the emotional scenes to declare “Don’t feel sorry for old mate. It’s his own damn fault he didn’t visit Adelaide sooner”.
The next phase of the campaign, however, shows Old Mate strutting through the airport with his friends, backed by Thin Lizzy’s The Boys are Back in Town.
The ad goes live today in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane in the lead up to the large-scale television events: the AFL and NRL grand finals.
The next phase of the campaign will have Old Mate showing his friends around South Australia, including the d’Arenberg Cube, Sellicks beach, Adelaide’s city laneways and urban beaches.
According to the South Australian Tourism Commission’s PR agency, Red Havas, the campaign has generated over 662 media articles and reached 10.59m Australians.
TBWA is behind the campaign for the South Australian Tourism Commission. The agency won the account in April last year, and opened an office in Adelaide to service it.
Red Havas said the mission of the campaign is to continue Adelaide’s momentum in domestic visitation growth, and encourage those who’ve not been to give it a go.
“Our market research indicates that while Adelaide is a rising destination, there are still many people who have put off coming to Adelaide and South Australia to “one day”, or its “on the bucket list,” Red Havas said.
‘Earlier this week, Tourism Tasmania released its own version of the Old Mate ad, showing an elderly man downing fresh Tasmanian oysters. The voiceover of the ad stated “Don’t feel sorry for old mate, he’s been coming to Tassie for years”.
“According to the South Australian Tourism Commission’s PR agency, Red Havas, the campaign has generated over 662 media articles and reached 10.59m Australians”.
The majority of those media articles were ripping the campaign to shreds.
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I really hope the haters of this campaign slowly get converted… it could be a slow burn if done properly… I fear it won’t be able to recover from the negative backlash from the launch campaign, (or have strong enough execution to recover)… but I can see potential…
oh and the lame Tasmanian me-too effort needs to be pulled asap!
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Take out will still be: Adelaide is for really old people
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Wow, did you really create an ad to respond to the backlash? Kudos for turnaround, but surely this won’t make sense to the vast majority of people who didn’t notice or remember that?
Also, I’d throw a wild stab in the dark that Adelaide’s ‘one day’ (or maybe ‘never really’?) problem is that it’s regarded as a bit slow and sleepy with little urgency (City of Churches). As Fail says, difficult to see how this isn’t going to exacerbate that.
And you have to love the PR people for trying to claim ‘millions of $ of PR value generated’!
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What a naive comment. Does that mean the take out for Evian Rollerskating babies is that Evian is only for babies, or the take out for Cadbury Gorilla is that Cadbury is only for Gorillas. The take out here is 100% clear – don’t delay visiting Adelaide ‘coz there’s so many great things to see and do. Agency & Client should be awarded for turning the hate into a positive. I love this new work. Well done SATC.
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This campaign always had promise. the voice poorly directed on the Adelaide “don’t feel sorry” should be inspired by the one on the Tasmanian Ad. That’s all.
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This cracks me up, my children & I (admittedly in middle of getting dinner) thought he was depressed because he WAS in Adelaide!
I understand the concept but if something requires lengthy explanation then it doesn’t work. Kudos to the people who did the convincing of those who wrote the cheque, need you on my team.
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