The oath-laden slogan of Australia’s new tourism campaign — ”So where the bloody hell are you?” — has been banned in Britain.
The decision by Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority was announced in Australia on Thursday and will keep the Aus$180-million ($131-million) campaign off British television screens.
The setback was nevertheless hailed as as a marketing coup by Scott Morrison, the managing director of the Australian government’s tourism promotion agency, Tourism Australia.
”This is a marketer’s dream,” Morrison told Australia’s ABC Radio. ”It will be driving people to the internet like there’s no tomorrow.”
A clearly shocked Morrison claimed the ban would give the controversial campaign even more attention.
”The Brits will have a good giggle about it,” he said.
”We are already running in the United States, we are already running in New Zealand — if you can run the thing in Utah, I imagine the UK will have to have a good think about how close they are in touch with community standards.”
The campaign features all the standard vistas of Australia — beaches, deserts, coral reefs — as well as traditional icons like the Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
”We’ve poured you a beer and we’ve had the camels shampooed, we’ve saved you a spot on the beach. We’ve even got the sharks out of the pool,” the introduction goes. Then, from a bikini-clad blonde, come the slogan: ”So where the bloody hell are you?”
The campaign has been controversial from the start. Prime Minister John Howard sprang to its defence but declined an invitation to repeat it.
”I’m not somebody who uses that expression, certainly not on radio,” a flustered Howard replied to an interviewer.
Alan Cadman, a member of the federal Parliament, echoed the worry of Queensland state premiere Peter Beattie that the profanities were a dreadful gaffe.
”People usually can say those things to somebody they know well,” Cadman said. ”I don’t think they would use it to a stranger and, in this instance, we’re talking to strangers of a different culture who I think may be offended.”
Morrison admitted that Japan, Korea, Thailand and Singapore would get expletive-deleted versions of the campaign. ”We’re being a bit cautious up in Singapore and have taken a pro-active stance there,” Morrison said.
The new campaign, which one industry critic said was ”pandering to crude national stereotypes,” is a return to a promotion style pioneered by Paul Crocodile Dundee Hogan in 1983 when the knockabout film star invited Americans to come over and share the relaxed Aussie lifestyle with his slogan: ”I’ll slip an extra
shrimp on the barbie for you.”
That tourism promotion campaign, despite its pandering to crude national sterotypes, hiked arrivals from the United States by 40%.
The new campaign replaces the celebrity-packed ”See Australia in a new light” promotion that was acclaimed as ”sophisticated and culturally adventurous” but proved a dud in getting more people to hop on planes. – Sapa-DPA