#$%&*& hell! Brits nobble our tourism ad campaign
#$%&*& hell! The Brits have banned the use of the word #$%&*& in the Tourism Australia advertising campaign!
That’s the one where the girl in the bikini, after spruiking about the delights of this great land, asks ‘So where the #$%&*& hell are you?’ (yes, we know, if she was a fair dinkum Aussie sheila she woulda said ‘Where the #$%&*& hell are youse’).
It turns out that the Poms’ TV advertising regulator, the Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre, has refused clearance for the ad to be shown on free-to-air TV. The ad will still run in cinemas and in print, but the version going to air on TV will be ensored.
In true stiff-upper-lip tradition, the ’clearance centre’ regulations state that while the word ‘bloody’ is OK in programming, its use in advertising is limited to clinical descriptions. So ‘it was a bloody battle’ is acceptable, but ‘a #$%&*& great night out’ is not.
Rather than take offence at the British ruling, Tourism Australia is delighted. This from the Tourism Australia website: “The new campaign has got off to a great start in NZ, and the USA where it was launched this week.
“The campaign will be launched at ITB, in Berlin, tomorrow before moving on to London on Monday for our UK launch. The UK launch is now going to get an extra boost following a preliminary decision by the UK Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre (BACC) to not allow the use of the term ‘bloody’ in our commercials on UK TV.
“Tourism Australia managing director Scott Morrison said the BACC decision in the UK will deliver our campaign a massive PR boost when we launch there on Monday. The campaign was designed to achieve cut-through and get people talking, especially online.
“After just two weeks, we’ve certainly achieved that. Already, we estimate that over 100,000 people in the UK have already viewed the ad online through our website www.wherethebloodyhellareyou.com and after the BACC decision this is only going to get better.”
Tourism Australia says it is hopeful that the BACC will reconsider the decision as it is within its jurisdiction to do so, citing the broad usage of the phrase in UK broadcasting, film and literature, including ‘Harry Potter’.
This decision is a bit rich on the Brits’ behalf, considering the contents of some of their comedy shows, for example, Little Britain, where you can see ‘classy’ skits such as the incontinent old woman (I get a laugh out of most things, but taking the … sorry, I mean, making jokes out of such things … well, it’s ‘humour’ we can do without.)
It’s just as well the Brits didn’t see The Chaser’s War on Everything on ABC TV last week. Those fellas reckoned the ad was too soft, and they went in even harder on the coarse language.
But ironically enough, Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott’s response probably summed up Australians’ attitude to the ‘furore’ as a whole.
Asked to comment, the usually staid pollie told Australian Associated Press that the furore made him think of former Prime Minister Billy Hughes’ efforts to explain democracy to a group of shearers. “He was trying to say that democracy is one man, one vote, and the shearers were scratching their heads,” Mr Abbott said. “Eventually Billy exploded with rage and said ‘look, look, one bloody man, one bloody vote … and the shearers said ‘why didn’t you say so in the first place?’.”
Boom, boom, Mr Abbott!
