Advertisers can’t please everyone, so please stop complaining Danielle Veldre
The adage you can’t please all of the people all of the time seems to be one very few advertisers would add to their list of business mantras—and yet, from my observation of the industry, it seems to be this attitude at work when some of the most memorable—and effective—ads are made.
Take the furore over Meat & Livestock Australia’s latest lamb campaign for Australia Day. It’s a beautiful piece of copywriting which is clearly designed for the viewer to take it with a grain of salt on his or her lamb chop. But the campaign is less talked about for its irreverent take on being Australian than for the amount of complaints from wowsers it’s received. The same thing happened last year when the MLA dared re-purpose the national anthem in its Australia Day TVC.
The thing is, in this culture of complaint, even making a bland, let’s-not-offend-anyone ad is going to offend someone (now there’s an idea: next time you see an ad which is offensive to you as a member of the advertising industry, ring the ASB. After all, they have to investigate an ad even if only one person complains about it), so you may as well have fun and entertain consumers while you do it.
The MLA’s Australia Day TVC really embodies the quandary the industry spends so much time at conferences discussing. Australia used to be known as a creative hot bed, and now it’s in danger of having the Australian globalised out of it.
