Bad creative: who pays? In this case, we do
In light of this week's frankly terrible ad by Transport for NSW spruiking Sydney's crippled nightlife, Jonathan Seidler asks: how long until we demand quality creative from our governments?
In 2014, I was at Leo Burnett Sydney when I was told that we’d be pitching for a NSW Government campaign. Specifically, the ad was an anti-marijuana PSA targeted at teenagers. It was clear from the outset that the brief was so full of holes that it barely managed to float into our office.
Unable to push a scare tactic (most weed wranglers are let off with a warning and a number of US states have legalised it) or health message (medicinal marijuana has become a saviour for sufferers of terminal illness), our prospective client instead went with the flimsy insight that weed was no longer ‘cool’, and that smoking it made you the outcast of your social group.
Nobody in advertising likes to lose a pitch, but in retrospect, we really dodged a bullet. The winner of that campaign was #StonerSloth, arguably the most lampooned, absurd piece of creative that NSW had seen in a long time.
https://youtu.be/Ut7qd-KmHqM
Not only did it completely fail to hit its target, but it became a reverse meme in the process. Up in Byron Bay during Falls Festival that summer, kids wore Stoner Sloth t-shirts and pins as they rolled joints from weed kept in Stoner Sloth branded tins.
In trying to make marijuana uncool, the government had instead done a number on themselves.
In the past two days, Transport for NSW, another state government body, managed the same Christmas trick by releasing not one, but two spectacularly terrible videos on social media, each aimed at young people.
This comes a time when confidence in our Premier is at an all-time low, as he increasingly shows his disdain for anyone under the age of 35.
The first piece, which sees a former The X Factor finalist, Jayden Rodrigues, and his mates romping around the construction site that is George Street, trying to imply that Sydney still has many late night options and is ‘open for business’.
That seems to mean spending a lot of money and participating in the late night economy with all the grit of an active teenage member of Hillsong; karaoke, VR arcades and expensive tickets to Aladdin.
The second was so bad that even the client realised, removing it from Facebook within 24 hours after being taken to task by thousands of commenters. It featured Santas rapping about tapping on and off with your Opal card.
Basically, it’s a tombstone that writes itself.
Here’s the problem with bad creative that comes from your government. Every one of us is the client. When a beer company green-lights a bad ad for beer, that company paid for it. When the NSW government approves consistently awful pieces of creative that are so out of touch they make Clive Palmer appear relevant, we’re paying for it.
Earlier in the week, I expressed the sentiment that it seemed like every government campaign was written by dads. But that’s not really true; I know plenty of dads who wouldn’t talk down to their kids or belittle them with jokes that aren’t funny.
Rather, the government is more like that creepy, out of touch Uncle at a Sunday barbie, trying to tell you about how cool the Harlem Shake is in 2016 while laughing about how you still can’t afford property.
None of us expect our government to be hip to the latest trends; it’s a field that largely employs people with a severe lack of empathy or any quantifiable social skills.
However, its increasing deafness towards the people who will be the future of this country is astounding.
To get into the second round of the marijuana pitch, our ideas had to go through three solid weeks of research. This is the same research group that thought Stoner Sloth was a brilliant concept.
We hold our financial institutions accountable when they waste or lose our money. We take our telcos to task when they create stupid campaigns and rain down hell on our insurers for insultingly out of touch creative, so why can’t we do the same for the State Government’s advertising?
After all, we might not all have an ANZ, Telstra or NRMA account but we sure as hell pay tax.
Jonathan Seidler is a journalist and copywriter at M&C Saatchi
Definitely on board with the overall point of this column, nicely said. However, you only have to look south to Victoria to see Government advertising done well. Even up here in QLD our Government ads are solid without being earth shattering. NSW in fact seems to be the outlier. So, be careful about labelling Government workers as “severely lacking empathy or any quantifiable social skills” – generalist comments like this just devalue your position.
User ID not verified.
Wholeheartedly agree with this!
User ID not verified.
So then the research groups or research process should be held accountable.
The people who make the decisions are led by those results, not just personal preference.
User ID not verified.
I didn’t mind the George Street piece. It was basically a ‘postcards’ type story that made the place look interesting. I’m not from NSW though, so I’m not aware of any pre-conceptions about the street.
User ID not verified.
Brilliant article! Couldn’t agree more. Another campaign that comes to mind is the original Opal campaign. Truly awful.
Condescending advertising is just a logical extension of an elitist Government culture that looks down on the very people they’re supposed to serve. They spend (taxpayer’s) money like it’s going out of fashion, and this is what they come up with. It’s beyond belief.
If three weeks of extensive research can conclude that Stoner sloth is a good idea, I’d venture to claim it’s conclusive evidence that creative testing is fundamentally useless, and causes more harm than good.
Yet the Government keeps on keeping on spending millions on the same research approach that concluded Apple’s 1984 ad would fail, just to find that people still want faster horses.
It’s the ultimate act of stupidity and arrogance.
User ID not verified.
Here’s a link to the ever crapper crap fest that was the Santa Rap.
http://www.news.com.au/video/i.....ecember-19
User ID not verified.
As with so many other things, NSW always proves the unfortunate exception to the rule!
User ID not verified.
Oh. Poor casting, poor choice of genre, poor scripting, poor cinematography. It would certainly get social sharing.
User ID not verified.
I completely agree with this. Furthermore, the brief for TfNSW was probably “make young Australians love the city again”, at least enough to go and spend money. It’s not just a distinct “dad” vibe, it feels like someone who doesn’t love Sydney at all. It doesn’t feel like the client really cared about the outcome.
Are we even sure they did creative testing at all?
User ID not verified.
Great article. And well done m&c for letting this be printed. Really impressive
Govt marketers please listen.
User ID not verified.
Which agency produced them?
User ID not verified.
Can someone please leak the budget for these videos
User ID not verified.
How long until we demand quality government from our government?
User ID not verified.
cracking article.
until they do something about the abysmal ‘peer review’ process run by the bureaucrats within ‘strategic communications’ itself a subset of Dept of Premier and Cabinet nothing will change. a truly terrible process.
User ID not verified.
Stoner Sloth is a strange anomaly.
A weird idea made it through a govt dept.
And those people need to be applauded for bravery.
Sure the strategy, idea and execution were all wrong – but it can be hard for marketers to make judgement calls on creative. It’s hard for anyone. Mistakes happen, knowing if something is going to be good is an art, not science. A bunch of idiots in a research group, and some bullshit pretend ad science spun by research companies won’t give you the answer either. Just gut instinct and common sense. But…. sometimes it just doesn’t work out.
So whoever you are brave marketer, don’t let this failure make you gun shy. Advertising needs more cavalier people like you in marketing. Keep fighting the good fight, keep approving weird. It’ll be good next time.
User ID not verified.
Hmmm very easy to blame government because everyone loves to give them a kick but there’s a few people to blame for bad campaigns.
At some point it was the ad agency who decided and pitched that Stoner Sloth was cool. Where is the blame on them? Oh wait it’s because you work for an ad agency right?
Your blanket statement about government workers shows how ill informed your opinion is.
Maybe we should just criticize journalists for bringing us crap stories.
User ID not verified.
Wasn’t your new agency responsible for the Stoner Sloth creative?
User ID not verified.
I find the sloth weirdly endearing…..i want to hang with him rather than his intense friends. Perhaps that is the problem.
So many government ads preaching about substances – alcohol, drugs etc, actually make the person who is drinking or drugging look like they are having fun. Which defeats the purpose.
i wonder how they spin the results of these ads. Surely the money could be better spent!
User ID not verified.
So if research isn’t good for working this out, why do marketers rely on it?
User ID not verified.
I find the whole thing hilarious… But it’s not just governments… The company that my husband is part shareholder in, just recruited a really ‘lame duck’ marketing agency in Adelaide.
They now have an almost unreproducible logo that gets lost on many items and is EXTREMELY difficult to embroider. They also have really, REALLY lame, ‘story time’ on their website, about the product/company that is not only infantile, but has unfortunate connotations that are immediately obvious if you live in the world and don’t have your head shoved up your hoo-ha. They have the worst, tackiest business cards it’s possible to have, and the board of directors have just signed up these jokers again, to link the website to ‘buzzwords’ that no-one in their industry uses, and that are completely irrelevant to their product.
The first time, management wondered why everyone was drifting through the intro presentation of these moronic ideas in the most lacklustre way. Then they hired them again. There should be capital punishment for repeat idiocy.
To top it all off, hubby has just received a financial tombstone to commemorate the acquisition of another company. A total waste of crystal and granite. We laughed hysterically and it’s fondly known as ‘the murder weapon’, as it’s so heavy and useless. I keep my garden shed door open with it, mostly.
It’s like he’s working in the cesspit of the Golgafrincham fleet – and they all take them selves so seriously!
What is meant to engage us merely makes us despise them the more. Bad enough in corporate loony land, however somewhat more alarming when it’s government.
I’m all for the sloth… I’ll chillax with them any day. The other kids need head flushing – seriously. I’ve never known a stoned person unable to tell salt from salad, or develop a sudden inability to write. Perhaps that’s what happens to government employees when they partake? We’ll never know…
User ID not verified.