In the Media, Marketing

Mumbrella advertising review: Qantas (great), CUB (OK), Black Hawk (half-baked) and nab (forgettable)6 minute read

Mumbrella asked me to review a series of current Aussie ad campaigns.

Here’s what I said:

1. Qantas → was bringing the iconic “I still call Australia Home” anthem the right thing to do? Is Qantas advertising becoming stale? In your view was this an effective way of creating an inflight video? Why/why not?

Qantas ads have been truly awful for a long time, from the baffling work of Droga5 to the more recent blandness peddled by the late Neil Lawrence / Monkeys in the “Feels Like Home” campaign (I’d suggest travel advertisements that inspire people to travel in a big, branded, energetic way work better than ads that are dull, unbranded and draw imagery from observing people arriving safely into a dark and empty airport terminal).

This however, is an excellent piece of work; easily the best safety video I’ve ever seen.

It begins with the intense range of emotions at Departure: Excitement, the thrill, the emotion, the heartache, over rapidly into a big city visit, and then takes us on a journey through a range of external endorsements of Australian culture. There’s nothing Australians love more than people “from overseas” validating our accent, our approach to life, our larrikinism, our resilience, even our songs. When the bloke on top of the Andes grabs the guitar and belts out a few notes of “I Still Call Australia Home” (the best brand asset Qantas has after the flying Kangaroo) to the surprise and rapture of his fellow global travellers, it’s basically peak Aussie pride. I can imagine every person in the plane’s eyes moistening as they watch scenes of Aussie cricket in Tokyo, Aussie flat whites in London and Aussie Vegemite in that beautifully shot scene with the Shanghai family.

It’s an affectionate, happy and positive embodiment of “The Spirit of Australia”. This is what Qantas’s ads should be like from now on.

2. CUB → This ad has sparked controversy with some Australians labeling it as discriminatory. Do you think this ad pushed the boundaries in the wrong way? Is the strategy behind the ad effective? Will it get people on side with the new beer? Why/why not?

I give this a 66% rating.
Product bundling is usually done in the most boring way possible. Shampoo brand X bundles new Conditioner brand X for free in a shrink-wrap to encourage trial. Dull as dishwater. But this effort at bundling a new beer flavour within six packs, and then “rewarding” people $500 to avoid any loss aversion is a really novel idea.

It’s another great idea to encourage people to “seek out” these errant bottles – a strongly branded call to action. Basing it on “you never know where red-heads can pop up in your family” is a cute, fun and brand-associated metaphor that people who live in the real world would most likely link to the product, remember (most importantly) and get a laugh out of.

However, the execution isn’t great. It tries to be funny but it’s a bit lame. The quick cut nature of the shots / stock footage looks a bit disjointed. If I wanted to generate some outrage in this ad, I’d save it for the incredibly long / word heavy script and matching overbearing, overly bloke voiceover. I was experiencing the McGurk Effect as I was watching it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McGurk_effect

3. Black Hawk → As an online tool, does the campaign do the job of taking consumers on a path to purchase? Will the campaign sell dog food? Why/why not?

I like the idea that people should be taking care of their dog with appropriate food quality and quantity. I like that there is a way of easily explaining how over- or underweight your dog is, using a human scale. However this execution is a little half-baked. What they are currently not doing is using (the relatively unbranded) DogCheck.com.au to gather data on every dog in Australia (and their owners) and using that information to advertise to the owners over the lifecycle of the dogs. According to my software, the site only has Google Analytics and Facebook plugins, not nearly enough to do the heavy lifting needed for a big, data-driven creative campaign. Build cross channel attribution by using plugins and opt-ins on the site that enrich the data before people are even asked for their email address. Further, they are not using social logins, so they demand of people that they manually enter their details. This would most likely discourage at least 60% of the eventual visitors to this part of the site.

The advantages of building a more “data-driven creative approach” with this is that they might be able to create a range of creative messages targeted to precisely the right dog owner at the right time. If the dogs are young, then promote the “puppy” product. If older, maybe the “softer” product. Creative executions that have an image / size of the exact dog the owner has. These are some of the opportunities that cannot not being exploited by this particular campaign platform right now the way that it’s constructed. If they make these changes, they might be able to drive dog food sales. Without it, it’s hard to see how sales will increase.

4. NAB → Does the ad do an effective job of continuing the ‘More than Money’ brand platform? What does the ad say about NAB’s personality?

It’s really tough for Aussie banks at the moment. Anti-capitalism is infecting our Parliament, media and even our boardrooms. The Royal Commission into banking is putting them under incredible pressure. Banking taxes are crazy – they’re a tax on consumers, as simple as that.

But despite all of that, banks underpin the prosperity of Australia. The Australian economy is basically “homes and holes” and banks have underpinned these sectors with cheap and plentiful money since white settlement. Home ownership rates in Australia – a core part of Aussie culture, is at historic highs (even despite the high cost of homes). Australian quality of life and purchasing power is also at historic highs. Credit is cheap. Bank service (while we’ll always whinge) is not too bad. Try “tap and go” in the USA, or try to find an ATM in Europe, and you find yourself yearning for the “four pillars”: ANZ, nab, Westpac and CBA.

And the funniest part? Aussie know this. Aussies totally trust their banks with money. Aussies own a massive range of banking products. There’s nothing Aussies would rather do than to put their money into one of our big four. As much as we whinge and say the opposite, we endorse the banks wholeheartedly with our actions, not our words. And actions are all that matter.

What Aussie don’t trust is banks that stray from their core purpose, which is to borrow from one person and lend to another in order to provide liquidity and make for a more prosperous society. The moment banks start talking about “more than money”, is when the famous Australian bullshit detector goes up. nab is running scared with “more than money”. “more than money” implies that there is something wrong with “money” and that “money” is only part of nab’s overall offer. It’s not. It’s what nab does, and does well. It’s not something to be ashamed of.

This work is simply an empathetic but totally forgettable attempt at expressing the flawed “more than money” premise.

And the original piece in Mumbrella.

Published by Constantine Frantzeskos

I build and grow global businesses, brands, and digital products with visionary marketing & digital strategy | Non-Executive Director | Startup investor and advisor | Techno-optimist