Mistake or stunt? Nova’s bus ads are turning up in the wrong cities
One of the misplaced bus ads
Nova’s out-of-home campaign appears to have hit a speed bump, with ads in capital cities showing the wrong radio teams.
Ash, Luttsy and Nikki Osborne, Brisbane’s breakfast radio team, have been splashed on the sides of buses in Perth and Melbourne, while Melbourne’s breakfast duo Jase and Lauren appear on a billboard in Brisbane.
This anomaly was first noted by Game Changers Radio, who were sent photos of the buses by bemused listeners.
Wade Kingsley, one of the show’s hosts told Mumbrella: “Our first thought was, is this a mistake? Or strategically trying to show all their presenters, in a campaign for their Nova player.”
As more examples flooded in, different hosts in different cities, the Game Changers Radio team (Irene Hulme, Craig Bruce, and Kingsley) figured it must be a mistake.
“Through our sources, we confirmed that the bus company had actually received the wrong material from the out-of-home supplier, in this case, which was JCDecaux. We now know it was a mistake.”
There were signs in the creative, Kingsley said.
“There’s no context to it. So if you’re a radio listener in Melbourne and you like Nova, and all of a sudden you see, you know, Ash, Luttsy and Nikki from Brisbane on the side of a bus, it makes no sense to you.
“It’s not like they’re saying, ‘We’ve got this amazing array of talent’. Some of them are, you know, literally just an image of the show. It was that sense of just a mistake, because it was sort of amateur hour, really. It wasn’t a campaign. It wasn’t a strategy. It didn’t make sense. So all roads point to the nature of a mistake.”
He notes how Southern Cross Austereo mount Listnr campaigns with a composite creative, to show the breadth of their presenting talent.
“If it was a NOVA campaign, and it had all the NOVA personalities, then you could probably go, ‘Well, actually, that may be a demonstration. They’re trying to show this a whole lot more to the Nova player,” he said.
“The fact that it was a single show context, pretty much, I think, led us to believe that it was a clear mistake, and then has since been confirmed to us by Nova on the podcast.”
Or has it?
The official statement provided by Adam Johnston, chief growth officer at Nova Entertainment, falls short of an admission.
“We’re not here to throw anybody under the bus, proverbially speaking of course,” Johnston said.
“Nova has an amazing array of talent across Australia, all available to listen to on the Nova Player, so it’s not inconceivable that we would want to tell the whole country about them.”
Kingsley noted that the quote [from Johnston] “doesn’t 100% confirm” it was a mistake.
“I think they’re quite happy to have people potentially think that it was a strategy just to avoid the embarrassment. It clearly is a mistake.”
Kingsley assured Mumbrella that The Game Changers team will explore this further on tomorrow’s episode.
