A Dagg at My Table by John Clarke

Author:John Clarke
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Humour
ISBN: 9781921776779
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Published: 2010-11-21T16:00:00+00:00

HELPFUL SUGGESTIONS

I don’t mean to harp on about this, but there still isn’t anything like enough public money being syphoned into the advertising industry. There are plenty of government-owned bodies spending virtually nothing on nebulous ideas and anthem quality statements of the obvious.

I exclude the Post Office from this. I know I’ve been critical of them in the past, but my hat is now raised in a gesture of respect. Their television commercials have made them the market leader right across the country.

They have filletted the competition to the point where, I believe I am right in saying, in some areas the Post Office is now the only Post Office still operating as a Post Office.

I also have only the highest regard for the millions sensibly invested by Telecom in establishing that a telephone can be used for making phone calls. I may have oversimplified this. The commercials actually indicate that a telephone can be used for making overseas or interstate phone calls. There is no suggestion that it is possible to make local calls, but there is probably a reason for this. Perhaps the phone is out of order and no one can look at it before Wednesday, or maybe all the phones in the whole area are out and nobody knows why, or it is possible that the phone has been cut off because the user is too poor to go on helping with the TV commercials.

Neither do I intend any disrespect to the airline that used to be TAA. Their work in establishing whatever their new name is has been without parallel in the history of image-based money flushing, although they didn’t have it all their own way. The Buy Australian Campaign must have given them an awful fright.

This was a bench-mark effort. It pointed out that people should not buy Australian products just because they were Australian. This broke down the old, stereotyped idea that a commercial should achieve what it set out to do. The Buy Australian Campaign depended for its success on the ability of the buying public to reject the advice of its advertising. I’m presuming here that the aim of the campaign was to encourage people to buy Australian products, supposing such a thing were possible.

It would be unfair to ignore also the spectacular media spending embarked upon in the name of the Priority One Campaign. It would not be at all appropriate to remember the campaign itself, but the figures involved were very reassuring.

For the Bicentennial one can have only the most open-hearted admiration. Not only are they currently funding about a quarter of the world’s shipping, but the plan to sail the Deficit around Australia during the summer months is well advanced and the television campaign is on air, even though it obviously isn’t quite finished yet. There is a song about all of us doing something without hands. I’m sure it will all become clear once it has been edited.

It is what is called an ‘awareness’ campaign. It doesn’t sell anything or provide any actual information.

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