Monday, April 27, 2009

New Zealand and Australia: Everybody needs good neighbours

The Australian ABC-TV programme The Gruen Transfer challenged two Sydney advertising agencies to come up with a mock TV ad to promote an invasion of New Zealand. They came up with two very different and funny ads, which, since airing has been a massive hit online and generated media interest in New Zealand.






And this is New Zealand's revenge:



Where the bloody hell are you?
The official Tourism Australia ad was released in early 2006 with the intention of increasing Australia's appeal as an overseas tourism destination in the international tourism market. The ad not only caused controversy at home in Australia, but also stirred a large amount of controversy in overseas territories, with Great Britain banning the original version of the ad after pressure from family groups. A compromise was reached and the ad was eventually broadcast with "bloody" being removed from the ad and a sanitised version being shown to the British market. However, the publicity that the ensuing controversy caused drew even greater attention to the campaign.


We've poured you a beer
and we've had the camels shampooed.
We saved you a spot on the beach
and we've got the sharks out of the pool.
We got the roos off the green
and Bill's on his way down to open the front gate.
Your taxi 's waiting
and dinner's about to be served.
We've turned on the lights.
And we've been rehearsing for over 40,000 years.
So where the bloody hell are you?



And this is New Zealand's parody of the previous ad:

Got you a nice house in Auckland.
We've fired up the P labs. (=clandestine drug labs)
And we've pulled the boy racers off the footpath.
We're putting on the haka every couple of minutes.
We've got most of the urine out of the pool.
And Winston's on his way down to open the front gate
They call me xenophobic...
So, where the bloody hell are ya?





This is the hysterical story of how New Zealand was created after an earthquake and The Bit That Broke Off became Australia and how New Zealanders went to The Bit That Broke Off to seek fortune and fame and how New Zealand wants now to claim their Kiwis back from all over the world and hook them all up.

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