The Good, The Bad, And The How-Did-That-Happen Australia Day Marketing Campaigns
With tomorrow being another Australia Day, brands everywhere are showing their patriotism and jumping on the bandwagon to mark the occasion.
Already this year, we’ve had the furore of the MLA Australia Day ad featuring Lee Lin Chin and a vegan’s house in flames, brands are not giving up with their messages of celebration.
We thought it was only fitting that we have a peek at the best (and worst) of Adland’s participation in the Australia Day traditions.
1. Animals Australia Unleashed
You only need to watch a minute of telly or flip open a magazine to know Australia Day is a tough one for our non-meat eating friends. And this cute little ad sort of got through to us – although rest assured we’ll still be snacking on a snag this Aussie Day. Sorry little lamb…
Animals Australia began the initiative back in 2013 with its ‘Everyone deserves a day off’ campaign to encourage people to go meat-free on Australia Day.
2. Havaianas Down Under
No Aussie Day would be complete without the Havaianas Thong Challenge, where the Brazilian thong company gets thousands of Aussies at beaches around the country to attempt to set a new record for the longest line of giant inflatable Havaianas thongs in the water.
3. Facebook’s budgie smugglers
Facebook Australia has released a whole series of new Australian stickers to help celebrate your mates, vegemite and classic catches on Facebook this Australia Day.
A total of 20 new parakeet stickers designed specifically for Australia will be helping users share experiences and celebrate some of the unique aspects of our Aussie nature.
4. Aussie Bum Blunder
This year also saw the Aussie underwear company walk blindly into this blunder that used Indigenous Australian artworks and planted the Australian flag (and not the Aboriginal flag) atop Uluru for its Aussie Day marketing stunt. Whoops!
5. Supermarket stuff-ups
In the truest of Australia Day traditions, both Woolies and Coles have managed to totally eff-up their marketing strategies for the year. Woolies was first off the bat with those hats that left off Tasmania:
And this was soon followed by Coles‘ inability to know what our bloody flag looks like:
6. More MLA lamb?
It’s not Australia Day unless we relive some of the classic MLA lamb ads this national day has become inherently famous for, especially with this year’s spectacular record of most complaints in Aussie history. We’re excited for next year already!
7. Uber and Optus
Teaming up to show just how true blue they really are, these two brands are letting you order your own umpire for your Aussie Day backyard cricket match.
In addition, Optus, with the support of Cricket Australia, is helping everyone bypass the arguments on the biggest cricketing date in the calendar with the launch of Optus’ official Australia Day Backyard Cricket Rule Book.
From ‘Six out and you have to fetch it’ to ‘If a Kiwi’s batting, multiple people may bowl at the same time’, this should help settle a few tiffs tomorrow.
8. Mini marketing
In these simple but clever print ads from last year, Mini announced the release of its new 5-door Mini by ‘throwing’ another door on. Check it out:
9. Buy a Jeep
And in 2015, Jeep also followed the same simple but effective marketing guide by reminding us of its classic grill with an obvious Aussie brand connection to the BBQ.
What’s been your favourite Australia Day ad campaign?
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