Reward Wonder. (Spoiler alert: My wonder was not rewarded, I’m still wondering what the fuck is going on.)
By madtown
on September 29, 2018
By madtown
on September 29, 2018
It’s the brand spanking new South Australian Tourism Campaign that promises to ‘Reward Wonder’, but the truth is, after the launch of the new campaign last night at the Art Gallery, I’m mostly wondering what the fuck is going on? Not because the campaign isn’t any good mind you, I’m just not exactly sure what it actually is yet. Here’s what I can tell you: The launch was at the Art Gallery which currently has a massive anal egg out the front. Not judging, just saying.
Don’t ask. I didn’t. Sometimes it’s better not to. (HINT: Google ‘anal egg’. Except don’t. Also, don’t knock it til you’ve tried it.)
The food at the launch was pretty fucking epic and I smashed quite a few prawns and oysters. My favourite bit was when the lady explained they were South Australian prawns and me, being sophisticated as, said “Given it’s an SA Tourism thing I wasn’t expecting them to be the ones from Thailand with the dirty poo pipes still in them”
More seafood than the Sizzler Buffet. I went back for seconds when no one was looking. OK, and thirds.
These were some bullshit nuveau hipster eggplant vego sliders as well. And they were fucking delicious!
One of the photos used in the ‘Tell Us Where’ teaser campaign is perhaps one of the most epic pictures I’ve ever seen. (Full disclosure: I took this picture. That is not a joke. I really did.)
Whoever took this pic is a rare talent indeed. Now taking bookings. Get your people to call my people. (PS I don’t have any people. Just call me.)
The band Germein, (I’m old so had absolutely no fucking idea who they were), who feature in one of the SATC teaser videos, are pretty great and hopefully they, and the guy who plays plastic pipes with his thongs in the mall, all become mega stars after featuring in this campaign. This is me with them, because… why the fuck not?
I have my arms around them. This was not a ‘Pastor puts his arm around Ariana Grande’ moment. I feel bad. Sorry. #ThemToo Also, I’m not wearing a cape, that’s the tablecloth on the table behind me. Thinking about it now, should totally wear a cape from now on.
And as for the campaign… well, the jury’s out. The campaign is actually so innovative, it’s the first time I’ve ever been to a campaign launch that didn’t launch the actual campaign. How’s that for creative? But when the campaign features 120 hours of footage, it probably makes sense they could only play a hype reel and not the actual thing in its entirety. I’m a stayer though, so totally would have been up for it. As it is, I’ll have to grab some popcorn (ie about 900 packets), and wait for 5pm Monday when it kicks off live on Facebook, YouTube, and at all good record stores. For those of you who don’t yet know, the concept is… ah… I’m not really sure. I mean, I sort of get it… you can binge watch 120 hours of real time content about South Australia a bit like if you’d just come out of a coma and wanted to catch up on every episode of every season of Game of Thrones.
Maybe a better analogy would be binge watching that show 24 with Kiefer Sutherland in it cause that was also in real time and possibly where they got the idea from. Whether or not there’s a ticking digital clock going beep… beep… beep I can neither confirm nor deny. Not because I’m being cagey, I just don’t know. Just like I don’t know what happens in those 120 hours, but they went to lots of places and filmed lots of stuff (think KI, Flinders, swimming with seals, eating food and lots of shots of the d’Arenberg Cube which for my money will be the real star of the show) over a five day period where they didn’t stop recording, (not accidentally like when old Uncle Albert forgot to stop recording during his last Phil Hoffman holiday, but on purpose), so I’m guessing something must happen at some stage. Maybe nothing happens and it’s an authentic Adelaide experience like actually being here? Jokes. All jokes. I fucking love Adelaide. It’s heaps good. And there’s heaps of epic shit to do here. Enough to fill, say, 120 hours of VHS tapes apparently. *fist pump*
Quite a few people, including Brent from SATC explained how it all works, but I’m still not entirely sure. More importantly, Brent now wears pocket squares like the guys from TBWA. It’s a thing. Apparently.
The innovative part, is that in the old days (ie every day up until approximately today) we used to film a whole bunch of stuff, and pick the very best bits, edit them together, and squish them down into 30 seconds, 60 if we were really indulgent, and say to people, “check this out, it’s all the good bits” and if we were lucky they watched the whole 30 seconds and agreed with us and did what we asked them to. Instead, they’ve saved a shit tonne on the edit bill, and are just going with all 120 hours, editing be damned. I’ve always thought editing was pretty over rated anyway. And if that’s not innovative, I’ll reactivate my MySpace account. (Just kidding, I never deactivated it. And Tom is still my friend.)
I’m sure there’s stuff that happens after the launch, but I’m not entirely sure what it is so we’ll both have to wait and see. For now, it’s let’s see the launch ad during the AFL Grand Final on Saturday (I’ve already seen it because unlike some people – ie you – I’m important and got invited to the launch. Don’t worry, after this article it’s probably the last time I’ll be invited to anything ever again) and roll with it from there. (Spoiler alert: The 60”er starts with “This a tourism ad for South Australia. Normally we’d edit these parts out. But then you’d never believe that all of this was discovered in five days, unscripted, non stop filming.” and goes on from there… for about 50 more seconds.)
What I can say is this is clearly a BIG idea. And who doesn’t love those? They even had a video with important people from Facebook and Google (But not Tom from Myspace – definitely a missed opportunity) saying how amazing it was so you should probably trust their opinion over mine. The client, agency, and other people who looked important and wore grown up clothes and get paid way more than I do all seemed pretty chuffed with themselves as well, so I’m guessing once we see it roll out we might all go “holy fuck that’s incredible!” and I for one, as a super proud Croweater, am hoping that’s the case. It’s just that as of right now, I can’t say that cause I haven’t seen it all, and honestly left the little theatre where fifteen different people explained it and where they played the initial 60 seconder (twice), like I’d been Punked. There were certainly plenty of cameras there filming us, and I’m not yet convinced that wasn’t the case. Then it will be revealed, all of us reacting will be in the real ad, and wouldn’t that be fucking cool?
(EDIT: In addition to people from Google and Facebook who recorded videos about the campaign, they also had AFL head honcho Gillon McLachlan record one – not sure why exactly, but he seemed particularly impressed with being able to sit by a campfire which he seems to think you can’t do interstate which is pretty fucking weird. But not as weird as the fact he doesn’t seem to know how to record a video on his smart phone. I’m genuinely not sure where he thinks the lens on his smartphone is, but apparently he’s used to multi camera broadcasts and was looking in every direction except at his actual phone. His video was perhaps my favourite bit of the campaign.)
Look, agency people will probably froth over how different and clever it is. OK, not Adelaide agency people because we all still hate TBWA for stealing, ah, I mean winning the account and they could have created the new Nike Campaign combined with the last great Apple campaign combined with that billboard kwp! did a few years back that won 927 awards, and we’d still fucking hate it. Let’s be honest, they could cure cancer and we’d still hate them. They were never gonna get a free pass on their campaign ever, right?
One thing’s for sure, the campaign is big, it’s different, it’s innovative, it’ll get talked about, and importantly, it’s not really about what we think… we’re already here. It’s what the people we want to come here (which is basically everyone overseas and interstate – except another agency who might steal another one of our clients) think, and according to the data, more and more people are coming here, and that’s a beautiful thing. Because with only so many people in the market for a submarine, it’s a relief that our tourism sector is growing – apparently it’s expected to crack $8billion (Australian dollars, not Chinese Yuan) any tick of the clock.
For me, one big question remains. Will the AADC have to add a new category to next year’s awards? Will there be one for 30 second ads, 60 second ads, and 120 hour ads? Oh, who am I kidding, TBWA will enter it in the awards interstate, right?