Freeview unveils TV ad with ‘real people’
Freeview unveiled its new TV campaign last night, with a strategy which focuses on “real people” and avoids mentioning shows or channels.
The spot – featuring lots of people saying “More for me” and “It’s free” made its debut with a ‘roadblock’ across every Australian free-to-air television network at 6.29pm, on the ABC, SBS, Seven, Nine, Ten, Prime, WIN and Southern Cross channels.
The campaign will continue to run over the summer period. It has also launched a promotional video taking a swipe at the cost of subscription TV operators, in particular Foxtel.
Freeview is the industry body that promotes free-to-air digital TV.
Creative credits:
- Strategy: Banjo
- Creative Director: Jane Eakin
- Production: Capitol Productions
groan
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More 1960’s cartoons for me…
More shows mucked about on the main channels that are 12 months old and fans have already watched online… for me….
More car chase shows…for me…
More obscure sport no one gives a rats about…for me…
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1. this ad seems familiar
2. Can anyone say 90% repeats?
3. Sport? Poker is Sport now? What next Jelly wrestling live from the Oxford Tavern?
4. Damn, I wish I could remember the campaign which this reminds me of
5. Just like Freeview, I don’t have much more 😉
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I am sorry to say I don’t think this ad will do Freeview any favours
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The problem is that I think it’s only a relatively small section of the general public that realises what a con FreeView is. For example, Tivo could have been a great product in Australia if only it hadn’t been crippled (ad skipping disabled). We were talking about this (in a way) at work today – if the stations earnt ‘brand’ loyalty, they’d be a lot better off. How do they earn it? Showing complete series, at the time advertised, don’t keep moving them or stopping mid-series – stop antagonising people by running over published times – don’t dumb down reality TV shows like Border Security (stick to the one damned story and finish it, then move to the next without repeating half the show (look at COPS for a good example) – stop broadcasting adverts while trying to convince us that they’re not etc etc.
Yup – it’ll never happen, so I will keep getting the TV shows I want, via other means
FreeView? Bah. More for me? Bah. It’s Free? Hah – at a cost…..
Simon….
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More doesn’t mean better. It’s the calibre of the programs that’s the difference. 1 channel or1000 channels if they all have crap then who cares if it’s free. Agree with Simon, run a complete series, stick to a timeslot, and stop showing repeats ad nauseam (eg Ch10 the first 8 seasons of The Simpsons) and for the love of every Deity stop with the pop-up promos that take up half the screen while people are trying to watch possibly the only decent show on at the time. Then people may watch your station rather than get RSI in their thumb from channel surfing.
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While we’re at it, comments from Damo and SimonB are, I think, particularly relevant. What other product with a loyal customer base would change specs without notice, would add unwanted promotional material, etc. In the distant past, I worked on both the 7 and 9 accounts (as copywriter and CD), so have some sense of how things worked within them. Seems to me that, over the past 10 years or so, commercial stations have lost all respect for their audiences. Audiences, in turn, have lost the loyalty they once had to particular networks (yes, they did have loyalty, really). Programmers used to worry about keeping faith with viewers. Today, I suspect, if you put concepts like loyalty or respect to them, you’d be greeted with a blank stare. If you put two networks side-by-side, had one run to published schedules and limited ad breaks to, say, 10 mins/hour, which do you think would come to dominate the ratings?
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@jape
and here’s the main issue – their ‘loyal customer base’ isn’t viewers, it’s advertisers – they really don’t care about viewers.
A true reflection would have this ad made up of media buyers saying, “More for me’.
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WOW. Real people? Well now its confirmed – good actors are made of plastic and only bad actors are flesh and blood.
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i just hate all that NCIS, law and order crap and all the other glorified cop shows = BORING!
NO MORE FOR ME THANKS!
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What’s with all the retards commenting on Freeview and not discussing the ad?
This is a media and marketing website people, if you want to make lame comments about Freeview, head on over to NineMSN.
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people aren’t discussing the ad because it clearly doesn’t address their concerns over the service and is meaningless dribble with no clear takeout message.
Viewers don’t want more tv, they see it as a waste of time and think they watch too much already – more, free, easy is hardly the language of a quality product, it’s more at home with Dustbusters and Danzo Direct – what viewers want is shows that appeal to them – that’s why targeted content related campaigns work, but unfortunately Freeview still doesn’t have enough choice to pull this off.
It’s going to be a long haul.
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Dear ‘Anonymous’
The ad (mis)represents freeview to world, therefore commentary on Freeview is commentary on the ad. If you want to be rude, anonymously, to people, I suggest you head over to Whirlpool
Regards
Gavin
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What a load of tripe. Total wallpaper. The second campaign which fails to sell the (supposed) benefits of Freeview. Hang your heads in shame Banjo
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