Telstra goes 70s anime to promote speed of Next G
Telstra’s new ad campaign for the Next G service appears to draw inspiration from a children’s TV serial of the 1970s and 1980s.
Battle of the Planets, a US redubbing of the Japanese anime series Science Ninja Team Gatchaman featuring a group called G-Force.
The new Telstra anime campaign is called “Next G-Force”
The campaign from BWM is among the first to be signed off by Telstra’s new director of creativity, innovation, brand strategy and customer experience, Mark Collis. However, a Telstra spokesman told Mumbrella that the new direction does not mean an end for bickering couple Brad & Emma, regular faces of the Next G campaign.
Collis said: “We’ve stepped out of our traditional ad space to use a creative treatment and situations that are unexpected for Telstra, but make sense, and we hope will get people talking.”
The Next G-Force campaign, which also includes outdoor, press and online, promotes the high speed Telstra Ultimate USB Modem.
The campaign is also accompanied by a series of initiatives negotiated by OMD. Telstra will be covering the cost of all Sydney Cross City Tunnel tolls from 4-8pm today. And Telstra customers who use Jetstar in Sydney and Melbourne will be given priority check-in.
CREDITS:
- Creative Agency: BWM
- Creative Group Head: Matt Smith
- Art Director: Matt Ennis
- Copywriter: Daniel Barrett
- Agency Producer: Sam Yeomans
- Media Agency: OMD
- Strategist: Jacquie Pierson
- Head of Portfolio Planning: Leisa Wood
- Account Director: Noel Gate
- Account managers: Milton Gan & Natali Popovski
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LOL, nice character design and decent animation congrats whoever did that… but it’s always so painful when “big brands” try so desperately to “change direction” and be suddenly “cool”.
It’s like someone told them “the kids love anime, we should use that to appeal to them” but failed to describe WHY Anime is popular.
And hey, that mock-asian-accent is it’s only mildly racist, score.
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Animatic?
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Hi flied lice,
it’s not a mock Asian accent. The voice over is by a Japanese bloke.
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Love the ad… but why just the Sydney tunnel. Missing the love here in Melbourne.
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Real Asian accent or not, the voice-over sounds a lot like Mr Yunioshi of ‘Breakfast at Tiffanys’ fame….
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Barf. Walk the walk before you talk it.
Where did this come from… so disconnected.
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Trying way too hard. Fail.
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I am not young or interested in anime, but the ad interested me,. caught my attention and I got the takeout they wanted me to.
Full marks for Telstra on this occassion (and no, I do not work for Telstra)
I think it will have cut through and work for them.
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yes but will it sell any dongles?
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That’s not the Battle of the Planets intro, that was an even later and even sillier redub. The one the kids of the 70s remember is this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoO5H_UKCrw
“Surprise attack by alien galaxies from beyond space”. Lol.
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I suppose it’s different.
Though I’m entirely unclear why I should buy such a device.
I guess it must be faster with all that zinging and she seems excited about it all, but it seems to be another one of those “ideas that work well for internal use at conferences but shouldn’t be used on customers”
Hey Mark, how about a nice positioning ad for Telstra to get us all settled?
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Thanks, Jeremy. That’s the one I remember! I’ve now updated it. Ah, nostalgia…
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
It got my attention. I love anime and after reading some comments above was going to be cynical about the ad (before I’d even seen it). Then I watched it. It’s not that crazy. It looks good AND the message gets through.
Apart from the name-play and the fact it’s an animation, what does it have to do with the Battle of the Planets/Gatchaman? SFA.
And the sword swipe sound is a sharp touch.
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I loved Battle of the Planets
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nice work, who doesn’t like anime??
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don’t care one way about anime(although I hear tentacle porn anime is popular) , but it’s a good ad even to those who are indifferent to anime.
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Can they “next g-force” my usb modem to work with my mac? Still not after spending what seems like a year of my life talking to every call centre they have in various parts of asia. Yawn, sigh…
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