It was the ad which made Lara Bingle famous, the ad whose typical Aussie language sent its target audience packing – and not destined for our shores: Tourism Australia’s 2006 advertising campaign which carried the divisive slogan, ‘So where the bloody hell are you?’
Denoted in the text are a variety of landscapes, from deserts to oceans, with a range of individuals from children to young women to middle aged men, along with a variety of cultures synonymous with Australia including Aboriginal dancers.
Each sequence involves visual signs such as beer, pubs, camels, water, beach, sun, sand, kangaroos, Queenslander houses, seaplanes and Uluru, as well as aural signs such as a combination between traditional indigenous sounds and a more modern, relaxed humming tune.
Australian model and media personality Lara Bingle featured in the controversial tourism advertising campaign.
The last sequence features a blonde woman standing on the beach asking the viewer, “So where the bloody hell are you?”
This sequence concludes with a longshot of the woman, with the Tourism Australia website ‘Australia.com’ followed by a bounding kangaroo sitting at the bottom of the screen.
Connoted in this sequence is a variety of ideologies about Australia; firstly, the tanned, blonde, ‘surfer chick’; the beach itself, a vast expanse of tranquil, undisturbed beauty; and the infamous slogan, which references the Australian colloquialism, ‘bloody hell’, as a common turn of phrase. It was these two words which caused much consternation among audiences around the world. As an ad promoting Australia, use of local linguistic customs is fitting, however this is an example of a cultural divide, something which must be bridged particularly in portraying a message which is supposed to be ‘inviting’.
This ad exemplifies the way in which marketing developers must be careful to consider their target audience; unfortunately the phrase held negative connotations for the target audience and thus the ad (which is reported to have cost in excess of $180 million – ABC News) was discarded in 2008.
P.s. Thankyou The Inspiration Room for the image.
P.p.s. Thankyou Flackin for the video.
