The ‘Philausophy’ campaign is self-indulgent wank, and a crime against Australia
Tourism Australia's latest 'Philausophy' campaign has "desecrated" Australia and is appalling, self-indulgent wank, according to creative director and senior copywriter Mark Farrelly.
What happens when you give a government department $38m dollars of our money? You get a pile of self-indulgent wank that’s an embarrassment to our nation.
You would think after the unmitigated disaster that was ‘Where the bloody hell are you?’, Tourism Australia would have learnt a lesson. But clearly, it did not.
One of the campaign images released this week
The campaign after that was completely forgettable. Can you remember it? Bet you can’t. It passed like a ship in the night. The only thing memorable about it was the fact its weak, pathetic slogan was grammatically wrong.
There’s nothing like Australia? No people. Australia is a place. A location. It is somewhere, not something.
There’s nowhere like Australia would have made sense. I’m not saying that’s great. But it’s okay.
Rule one of tourism advertising: you are advertising a destination.
So it’s not surprising that when you have a team of people so unable to use even basic English, they are going to come up with something even more appalling than before.
If you were ever in doubt they have too much money and no idea what to do with it, take a look at their latest campaign. They got really clever. They invented a word – “philausophy”. It’s the way we live our life down under. Get it?
Sorry, am I meant to live in a shop run by a guy called Phil? I don’t get it. If I was Chinese, I wouldn’t get it. If I was American, I wouldn’t get it. “Philausophy” fails the most basic test of advertising: Will anyone even understand it?
Clearly, nobody at Tourism Australia or its agency has ever heard of the expression “very clever, but not very smart”.
What they don’t realise is the power of simplicity. And authenticity.
At this point, I should say: We should applaud our industry when it produces great work. But we should be equally scathing when it produces utter nonsense, as it has in this case. The trouble with tourism advertising is that the number of visitors keeps rising, so there’s no real accountability.
But the numbers rise despite the campaigns, because of the hard work that honest people in the industry do on the ground (not the agency and client wankers) and Australia’s strong underlying values. Australia is a great brand, one we should all be proud of. So when people desecrate it like this, they need to be called out.
The famous Hoges tourism campaign worked so well because the end line – “I’ll slip an extra shrimp on the barbie for ya” – encapsulated everything the new campaign is trying to say, but quicker, more powerfully and more memorably.
Why? Because people could say the phrase themselves. It became “Throw another shrimp on the barbie”. It said everything the tourism people wanted to say – we are friendly, welcoming, relaxed, outdoorsy, optimistic. But it said it better.
The end consumer could own the campaign. That’s the most powerful thing possible in advertising.
I guarantee you millions of people around the world won’t even know how to pronounce “philausophy”. Let alone know what it means. But every one of them could repeat Hoges’ line.
Of course, nothing done so far in Australian tourism will ever beat “Queensland. Beautiful one day, perfect the next”. It’s so powerful, yet so simple, because it’s based on a fundamental truth about Queensland. That’s what the place is actually like.
It will outlast the state of Queensland itself. In a post-apocalyptic world when the whole state is six feet underwater, the survivors floating on rafts will still be saying: “Yep, good old Queensland. Beautiful one day, perfect the next.”
The people behind the “philausophy” campaign will never understand the power of simplicity, the power of understatement, and the power of not trying too hard to be complete wankers.
Advertising isn’t about showing the world how clever you are as a creative. It’s about making the product the hero, not you.
Philausophy. Awful one day. Dreadful the next.
Mark Farrelly is senior copywriter/creative director at Mark My Words Advertising
There’s a typo in par 8 Mark
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I’m not sure one typo takes away from the entire article, but thank you for flagging. I have corrected the error.
Vivienne – Mumbrella
“Advertising isn’t about showing the world how clever you are as a creative. It’s about making the product the hero, not you” says Mark Farrelly, Creative Director of Mark My Words.
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ironic that the agency that created it (M&C Saatchi)positions itself around ‘Brutal Simplicity of Thought’. mega fail. they also created the ‘where the bloody hell are ya’ turkey. they should have kept it with Droga5 5 New York.
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I don’t like philausophy either and agree that folk who don’t speak English or have it as their first language will likely not get it, but I’m not triggered enough to write my own self-indulgent wank. The beautiful images are what will sell the campaign. Also, you lost credibility when you cited the Hoges campaign as a good example. The only reason people remember it is because no one says the word shrimp here.
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The closing scene of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, with conman Michael Caine wanting to convince a potential foreign investor that he’s a true-blue authentic Australian, throws in the line about “shrimps on the barbie…” https://youtu.be/xof2LkhAFGU
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I don’t like the term philausophy either and agree folk who don’t speak English will likely not get it, but I’m not triggered enough to write my own self-indulgent wank. The beautiful images are what will sell the campaign at the end of the day. Also, you somewhat lost credibility when you cited the Hoges campaign as good. The only reason people remember it is because no one says the word shrimp here.
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The only thing that will save this pile of poo is TA., like all Govt Depts., will be incapable of admitting it’s a failure. To do would be to add more salt into the gaping wound this campaign has caused the Minister; not to mention the cloud its put over the careers of all those responsible at TA. Await wads of meaningless research claiming its done its job and stage 2 [which was always planned] will begin to roll out shortly. Cam is a smart guy and M&C is a great agency, but this is unforgivable. The best thing the Govt and TA could do right now is to cancel all media, put and end to the waste and start again.
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So your saying you don’t like the campaign? 😛
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Defending a typo doth butter no parsnips Vivienne.
It is appalling that in a self-indulgent rant of a man who woke up looking like [Edited under Mumbrella’s comment moderation policy] can’t use spell check.
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Agree. Can imagine the group of media creatives sitting around a table in North Sydney or wherever taxing their brains to come up with something smart and when the word ‘Philausophy’ was mentioned high fives all round and drinks at the Oaks.
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I couldn’t have said it better myself, great article.
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Couldn’t agree more – too clever for words.
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I disagree. Tourism advertising in general suffers from me-too footage montages – for Australia this is often beach cut to Harbour Bridge cut to kangaroo. The unique CVP for this campaign is our people and our attitude about life – the scenery footage is there but is overlaid with a higher order unmet need – getting to know a people with a different take on life. Australia is seen as a long-haul “I’ll visit there one day” destination but we need overseas visitors to know they should come here sooner than later. “Philausophy” is a clever line that pulls it altogether. I’m not involved with this campaign but I’m an admirer.
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I love the smell of creatives slagging each other off in the morning
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Slow news day at Mumbrella… this should be a rant on your personal blog, not a “news” article
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This is a bit harsh! I agree the tagline isn’t great, but everyone not in the marketing industry just sees it as a tiny piece of copy on an otherwise large ad with a much larger key headline. Someone doesn’t understand “philausophy”? Who cares, I’m sure they can understand the key message “A stranger is a mate you haven’t met yet”.
Re “nowhere” vs “nothing”, I think “nothing” is completely valid. Firstly they are referring to the experience of being in Australia, not the physical destination itself. Secondly they are competing for visitor’s dollars against not only other destinations but also other events, other experiences, or even other mundane spending. The author is short-sighted if he thinks Tourism Australia just needs to entice engaged tourists to visit Australia instead of another country.
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American working in Australia, feel like most Americans would understand the pun in the advertising. At least they are trying something creatively different with the copy of the ad
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You lost me at ‘client wanker’.
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Hey Mark,
American here. I’m American – not sure if I should feel insulted or not? Probably because I don’t get it. I mean, I get PhilAusophy, but I don’t get how spattering fecal matter into an article constitutes to the integrity of Mumbrella as a publication.
That said, freedom of speech.
Regards,
Inept American. Duh
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The campaign is rather shameful.. Especially, considering the budget
Not a great way to build a business so why bother saying it.
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It takes one to know one.
Honk.
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Now that I have had time to reflect on this, I am more insulted by this article. The fact that this was posted is disrespectful for a a publication that dictates itself as one of integrity
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This entire organisation could be shut down tomorrow and I really doubt it would make any difference. Just give the money to Qantas and the like.
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Look who was in charge of Tourism Australia when “Where the Bloody Hell” etc, was devised and look who’s running the country now. Wonder if there’s a link?
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Hi,
Feel free to insult my editorial judgement, any errors you spot, and indeed the content and opinions expressed in this article.
Insulting someone’s appearance to debase their opinions, however, achieves nothing and is against our guidelines.
Vivienne – Mumbrella
Not the greatest TA campaign, but not the worst.
This is a hard game and there are many factors that impact the end result. The individuals involved in this will probably be feeling pretty shit already with all of the mainstream media coverage, without having an additional kicking from industry peers who should at least empathize with their position.
Mumbrella, there is something tasteless about having a rant slagging off the work published as ‘news’.
Mark, there is something tasteless about submitting a rant, presumably in the interests of business development. I’d imagine I’m not alone in wanting to see all of the high profile, effective and award winning work you’ve produced for your clients over the years.
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I’m just here for Mark’s, [Edited under Mumbrella’s comment moderation policy] , photo.
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Hi KGB,
Thanks for the feedback.
To clarify, we haven’t tried to position this as ‘news’ at all. It is marked as ‘opinion’. If you click on the news tab of our website, it will not appear: https://mumbrella.com.au/category/news
This is Mark’s opinion, and it is clearly marked as such at the top of the article.
Thanks,
Vivienne – Mumbrella
Clearly responses from people who worked directly on the campaign. Give us a real debate and defend your work if you’re that offended…
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lol, how old are your references?
there is one creative agency in North Sydney and erm, ‘media creatives’ is an interesting description
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Shut up and take my money …
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But isn’t that a reflection of good work understanding your target consumers i.e. North Americans who do use the word ‘shrimp’, instead of prawn?
Mark my words, you make the product the hero, by showing the world how clever you are as a creative. it is rare for the product to do this by itself.
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The Hoges campaign is a very good example. The word prawn is more common in Australia, but shrimp is universal, and the campaign was talking to people abroad who more commonly use the word shrimp.
This is the very point made by others, that the words must work for those living outside Australia.
NB look at the size of the shrimp/prawn Hoges uses as a prop, this is also a clever device.
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I think this article is completely inappropriate and if you have a personal view then post it on your personal LinkedIn profile or Facebook page.
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I think we all saw the article and the campaign yesterday – most industry folk agreeing it fails on most fronts – but this is purely fodder for this guy to get himself on the front page – which he has done. I’m surprised Mumbrella fell for that- you usually have to spend trade $$ here to get that kind of coverage.
Insulting the industry, client and agency side, doesn’t seem like a real smart move though Mark, mark MY words.
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Fair point. I’ll make sure I read properly in the future!
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Whatever became of the comma OR ‘and’ in the term “Come live our philausophy”? (“Come, live our philausophy” OR “Come and live our philausophy”) Are we so Americanized that we regard grammar as anachronistic?
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There are no creative agencies in North Sydney. There is a car company that employs a few creatives.
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Perhaps someone at TA said “ we have to do something really awful so it doesn’t make Scotty’s effort look so bad ! “
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This one’s good:
“There’s nothing like Australia? No people. Australia is a place. A location. It is somewhere, not something.”
Launching into grammar nasty mode, here we see Mark come undone straight off the bat. I’m fairly sure he’s not remarking that there are “no people” in Australia, but is intending to address a large group of unknown persons as ‘people’, in that irritating way that people do. Hence perhaps it should be: “No, people.”
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The whole philausophy thing doesn’t exactly float my boat but TA and M&C throwing up a few visuals and a massive list of pat me on the back credits for PR purposes is just feeding the sharks, which we all know are many.
We can shout ‘It’s Shit’ and ‘A Waste of Money’, ‘Nobody will understand the wordplay’, blah, blah blah etc but there is a much bigger game in play here. What we forget is when they start rolling out the ground publicity campaign with the likes of Chris Hemsworth and little Robert Irwin with his overweight wombat and a big fucking snakes on US Morning Shows and Late Night Colbert/Fallon talking about their phil-AUS-ophy’s to what is a viewing audience of more than the whole Australian polulation, what we all think back here is irrelevant.
You do have to wonder though if even just slightly subscripting the ‘AUS’ with an underline and change of tint colour in the word would have improved the communication avoiding a shed load of criticism.
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A classic tautological headline
I think you will find that all wanks are self indulgent.
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My sympathies on the size of the comment approval backlog that’ll be waiting for you guys on Monday morning.
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This self-indulgent wank of a rant sounds like sour grapes from someone who didn’t win a pitch. Bottom marks.
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Does anyone know if TA research test their creative in the target markets before unleashing the media vault? If they don’t, then why not? If they do, how did this over complicated and confusing creative get through?
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One would think TA etc. would have learnt from ‘Where the bloody hell are you?” and the indulgent nostalgia of the film ‘Australia’?
However, it seems more about the symbiotic relationship between ‘commissioners’, advertising corporate heads and Australian nationalism, while ignoring the target market and fact that Australia’s brand is no longer that ‘cool’ anymore?
Research has shown the value of film and other media content in creating ‘word of mouth’, but via more authentic or organic media, not that only created for an ad campaign. Fifteen years ago the Bollywood film ‘Salaam Namaste’ did more for Australian, especially Melbourne, tourism and education destination branding and promotion, than any onshore effort.
Further, like QLD’s ‘Best job in the world campaign’, once attention and interested is created (which it did), where do prospective tourists or travellers go to for information and travel products? Most would hit the most visible web presence but only useful if they can navigate to a contact within four clicks…..
The latter digital aspect, is ignored too often but TA with the ATDW marketing e-kit had world’s best practice in digital (downloaded offshore more than onshore) with TA website visible in most languages across the globe. Accordingly most enquirers could contact someone in their language locally (‘Aussie Specialists’), joining up the dots.
Moral of the story is that digital, customer generated or relevant media and local contacts allow development of marketing strategy or system bottom up vs. top down from Oz.
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Gold
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Jesus [edited under Mumbrella’s comment policy] christ. Who hurt you?
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I think I share my thoughts with a few here, I’m not pissed off what we lost the pitch, I’m pissed off that we lost it to such inferior advertising. What does that mean? What sort of advertising should we present in order to win?
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I’m European, completely understand the ‘clever’ play on words but It doesn’t take away from the fact this is a wank campaign and a complete waste of money – TA either get it bang on, or bang wrong – This campaign is certainly the latter.
For those knocking the OP on his opinion or Mumbrella for posting it – Either you don’t understand the concept of opinion pieces, don’t understand what a good campaign looks like or you’re involved in the steaming shite of an idea.
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Never beaten
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Pre 100% Pure New Zealand..was the sublime “You’ll love every piece of Victoria.” A campaign which ran over 20 years..was wildly successful and is the State’s best ever IMHO.
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The ads aren’t designed for people who live in Australia. They are ads for Australia, not Australians. Hogan’s line was extremely quotable. Jim Carrey used it in “Dumb & Dumber”, for example.
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In theory, what you’ve said sounds nice. But nothing about the word “Philausophy” has anything to do with any of the ideas or outcomes you’ve described.
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Brit living in Australia…. do calm down dear, it’s only a bit of wordplay!
Maybe it’s not targeted at the entire world, but it’s immediately understandable to me and I’m sure most Brits would get it. I like it, it’s fun and a little bit clever, which isn’t a terrible brand stretch for a country generally only associated internationally with beaches, Kangaroos and ‘barbies’.
These are pretty dark times around the world, particularly in the UK and the USA, pitching a chance to escape for a couple of weeks to a sunny, laid-back and friendly country may well appeal to many.
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Pipe down and leave the sensationalized outrage back at home (alongside the Halloween celebrations).
Also, let me anticipate you’re next move: No you can’t sue me for defamation!
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“Australia is a great brand”.
Wait a minute, Mark. Didn’t you just argue that Australia can only be considered a place?? ¬_¬
By the way, if you’re going to play the grammar nazi (against advertising copy, no less), then don’t write “if I was”.
Also, criticising “philausophy” is rich coming from a guy who names his own shop with a pun. And a self-indulgent one at that! Too funny.
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Philausophy? Something that a copywriter might come up with, when thoroughly pissed off with the huge number of great and relevant tags have failed to be approved by a large committee, because someone out of fifteen or twenty or thirty -doesn’t get it. By the time “Philausophy” gets thrown in, months have passed, digital is ready and a collective “Why not? It says it all really” is conference-call approved, it’s in.
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Good point
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If you’re gonna bag out a line (and it’s really just line that’s the problem here) it helps your argument to put up a convincing alternative. Here’s an opportunity for Mumbrella to run a pitching competition.
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it’s not brilliant, but it’s not worth the negative column inches it’s getting.
for a creative to write an article bagging it out, shows a complete lack of empathy or understanding of how ads are made these days.
no one sets out to make something bad. but now more than ever the work faces so many challenges it often ends up being an average result…there’s the strategy feedback, the suits, the client, the client’s wives, the feedback from the strategy consultant the fearful client has hired who they think is a genius, the minions with marketing degrees who hate ideas, the research, then the last minute debrief with a day turnaround…
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Very philosophical—and true
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now this is a nice lil clap back
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Actually, he/she probably could, since Australia has much lower standards for liability when it comes to speech and expression. It would be much harder to sue you for snarky online comments in the USA. But I guess robust protections for speech is just a thing we dumb Americans like 🙂
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They paid $38m for that line.
I want at least $2m before I hand over an alt.
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@dude. Perfect.
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Copy writing is not something you can rack up a ditsy little competition on Mumbrella, to try and better a $38 million campaign brand line.
You’ve stuck copy writing in the “it’s not that hard to whip up a good line” frame.
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Its a great ad! It sounds like more of less sour grapes to me!
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If they place the ad campaign in a market,
and tourism sales in that market go up by a discernible factor,
especially more than the cost of placing the campaign,
then the ad worked.
The rest is just opinion.
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Generic Kangaroo & Koala shots that we’ve used to sell Australia since the first Tourism ad was invented… What they should’ve done was made another Crocodile Dundee trailer. Crocodile Dundee TWO. More adventures with Thor and Kenny Powers…
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….Don’t forget about your freedom!!!
(eagle screeches in background / gun fires in air)
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Excellent opinion piece. It’s great to be informed about what actually makes a good ad. Simplicity, for a start. I had no idea what Philausophy actually meant. So if an Aussie has trouble, how will others get it?
Also, as Mark said, Australia is a great brand. But this ad just makes me cringe.
How to trash a great brand.
I’m not sure what led the naysayers to Mumbrella in the first place.
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