BHP attempts to pull at the heartstrings with ‘We’re helping Australia grow’ messaging
Multinational mining, metals and petroleum conglomerate BHP wants people to focus on the positive knock-on effects of its steel exports in a campaign which says “We’re helping Australia grow”.
The ad features smiling children and BHP staff as a voiceover details how the company is helping provide the steel to build the schools, hospitals, bridges and transport needed to cater to the world’s growing urban population.
“And when we help the world’s cities grow, we’re helping Australia grow too,” the ad concludes.
The first work in 2017 reminded the public of the company’s roots as Broken Hill Propriety, founded by seven miners, 130 years ago.
The new advertising push is the second phase of BHP’s Think Big campaign, and will include TV, print, online and billboards. It, like last year’s campaign, was created by Big Red.
BHP’s chief external affairs officer, Geoff Healey, said BHP plays a crucial role in addressing global challenges.
“We are continuing to tell the story of how the people of BHP develop and deliver the resources that underpin global development and support Australia’s economy”, said Healy.
“Each advertisement will focus on a key global challenge and highlight the role of our commodities in helping build a sustainable future. The first adverts focus on steel; which is crucial for growing cities and is made from iron ore and coal, and electric vehicles; which need four times more copper than conventional cars.”
The campaign kicked off today.
There’s some really strange things in the first ad:
0:11: The person in the lecture hall’s computer is shutting down, which is strange. Stranger still, video game platform Steam is preventing his computer from doing so. What’s he doing on Steam in a lecture hall? What’s this entire shot got to steel?
0:25: There’s a prominent building in the background with the old BHP Billiton logo poorly blurred out. It’s probably recycled footage from an old campaign, but it makes me wonder: why is their new logo taking so long to roll out? There’s a building here in Brisbane still with the old logo atop.
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It would be nice if BHP ‘helped Australia grow’ by paying it’s fair share of tax.
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Well spotted. I thought this was sloppy AF when I saw it too.
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Is everyone really that concerned with growth? Not sure the grow at all costs messaging is really going to resonate
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Think… this or that… big or small
Isn’t this and the Think Big one before it based on the successful decade-old BHP Billiton Global Employer Brand strategy of Think Ahead??
I think so.
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What about the newer ad, we are helping the environment because we are producing copper at the Olympic Dam mine? And what is the second mineral they extract at Olympic Dam? Uranium.
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BHP sold off it`s Australian steel mills in the 1990s , they must employ people to make their advertisements who are too young to remember what they did to this country . Every time I have to endure this advertisement I just wonder , do they think people forget .
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