Two social marketing campaigns have caused a bit of controversy in Australia in the past week or so. In Victoria, VicRoads has launched their "Don’t be a Dickhead" campaign, while in NSW, the Department of Health’s anti-drug educational campaign has sparked controversy over the use of colloquial language to describe drugs; terms such as"nose candy". […]
Author Archives: Paul Harrison
Would you say your child’s education is important to you? It seems like a harmless enough enquiry and, when asked, what parent would not instantly agree that their child’s education is a priority? But when it comes to the sale of educational software, obvious questions like this can be significantly more dangerous […]
So, there has been lots of coverage (of US coverage) in Australia, and some coverage (of the Australian coverage of the US coverage) in the US, about an advertisement designed for the Australian market where an Australian cricket fan, finds himself in a crowd of West Indian cricket fans. To placate the “scary” crowd (who seem […]
Reports in the Fairfax press and the ABC that Westpac customers received a video on Monday, comparing bananas as borrowed cash, and smoothies as credit, is about as wacky as a bank can get. It’s probably not as strange as the bizaare Celebrex Ad – “it won’t kill you… we hope”. Who advised them on this? I’m guessing the same dudes […]
One of the biggest contributors to obesity and environmental degradation in the past 35 years has been the increasing sophistication of all facets of marketing to create an environment where highly processed and energy dense food is easily available to those living in developed countries. Although it is typically argued that lifestyles have become […]
It’s hard to see how something like the “free” bike scheme being launched in Melbourne is going to be at all successful. A report in The Age tells us that “users will pay a membership fee – $2.50 a day or up to $50 a year…” But, and here’s the killer, if a bike isn’t […]
I did live in hope that we wouldn’t go the way of US schools, but I guess it was always going to be a bit difficult to resist. News that “leading educators” (are these official titles?) are willing to back sponsorship of schools by food companies such as McDonalds, and other commercial brands, puts children […]
You know, I really struggle when somebody asks me to define postmodernism. The thing is that by its very conceptual nature, postmodernism surely can’t be defined. But I usually come up with something lame like no absolute truths, or postmodern is not modernism, blah, blah, blah. But last night, on Australian TV, I […]
Reports from SMH and other news outlets are advising that Kraft has responded to consumer “outrage” at the name of Kraft’s new product, iSnack 2.0 (is this Kraft’s Vista?), and decided to re-visit the competition to name the new product. This time, it will be a popularity vote – in the style of Australian Idol […]
Kraft Foods has released a new product that contains a combination of the black beer slops that Australians lovingly call Vegemite, and cream cheese. Non-Australians already find the black stuff weird, but in Australia, there has been a bit of a stink around the name that they have given to the new product, iSnack […]