IT’S ONLY FEB 4 BUT AFR’S NEIL SHOEBRIDGE NAMES COMM BANK WORST AD OF 2008
Well, if the Comm Bank marketing team believe only the Australian ad industry hate their ‘Determined to be Different’ campaign, highly respected Australian Financial Review marketing journalist Neil Shoebridge feels the same, putting the boot in well and good, calling the spot “simply a shocker”. Read by every major business leader (no doubt including Comm Bank CEO Ralph Norris) and marketer in Australia, Shoebridge writes in today’s AFR: “Just five weeks into the new year and a clear contender has emerged for the title of the worst ad of 2008. Given how woeful this specimen is, it is hard to imagine it will lose its title as the year goes on.”
Shoebridge concludes that the ad is “confusing, misdirected and a sorry waste of CBA’s time and money.”
Ouch! Ralph Norris must be thinking how the Bank can get out of this PR nightmare. Heads might roll in either the Comm Bank marketing team or the American agency (real life and on screen) gets the chop.
94 Comments
The follow-up cricket sponsorship ad is even worse.
It’s clear that Goodbys had no understanding what-so-ever of the market down here and tried to cover that up with their concept of an advertising agency with no idea what-so-ever.
But as crap as the campaign is, the real culprit is the CBA marketing team. We’d all be winning gold if it wasn’t for the rubbish standard of marketing divisions in this country.
It’s time to see marketing teams held to task instead of agencies.
Fire them now.
Who won last years?
i’m with 12:03. as the marketing director of a brand nearly as big as Comm bank said to us, rather than being determined to be different the comm bank should be determined to be predictable. leave ‘different’ to apple and nike.
Nuff said.
I agree. I caught a glimpse of the follow-up cricket promo ad and couldn’t believe what i was watching. Guess there will be a few vacancies at Goodby’s in the near future.
It’s way too early to be calling any ad, let alone the Comm bank effort ‘worst ad of 2008’. It seems Shoebridge, like many of your bloggers is a tad premature.
Let’s just see how the campaign develops, huh?
Agree. This ad is total rubbish.
I don’t blame the client (although clearly they must be held accountable for approving the concept). I blame the Account team – who I can imagine went in and sold “ice to the eskimos” and talked the client into it. Muppets.. the lot of them.
It did smack of suit creative, and if the bean counters are saying it’s crap….
what were they thinking, or not?
I’m gazing into my crystal ball here, and wondering if Campaign Brief can run a book on how long before heads roll in the Comm Bank marketing department, and how long before the whole advertising account is back with an Oz agency? For the record, i’m going to predict next month on the former and by the end of the year on the latter.
I can’t wait to see the episode where the “fictional” Aussie marketing team fires the “fictional” American ad agency for producing such crap. Now that will be funny.
Anyone who has the energy to still care about this should discover redtube.
over it.
I think we do have to factor in another possibility…
Goodbys would have to be one of the great US agencies, and I assume they went in with a fair few ideas, and baring in mind the absolute client muppets we deal with day in, day fucking out – I wonder if this was actually the client’s preferred direction.
Amusingly, the ad just reminds me of the woeful misery I have to go through attempting to sell work to absolutely any client in Australia.
People in glass houses shouldn’t throw rocks. The Australian Financial Review are spending a fortune these days on a campaign which has to be a contender for “Worst Campaign of the Year”. An intelligent, thoughtful, clever publication is promoted with an endless line of tortured, stupid, unfunny puns. (Example; Purse Pective. Cheque magnet.) A very pale imitation of The Economist ads.
Goodbye to Goodby’s
Very well put by your client, 12.35.
The suits at Goodby’s are the only one’s who have done thier jobs well
A classic example of advertising people actually thinking that the world gives a shit about advertising. Nothing like including a few ‘in’ jokes that would make sense to about 0.0001% of the population.
And I don’t know whether 1:15 is being sarcastic or not, but somebody actually wrote this shite for the account team to sell.
Good on you Neil. Yes, it is a “shocker”. How do ads like this ever see the light of day? Surely, there was a presentation process whereby clients had the opportunity to speak up.
Were they intimidated, inexperienced, overawed by the reputation of the agency, or, worse still, did they think it was good?
This campaign (I assume it gets worse) is embarrassing.
CB talks about “heads rolling”. If I was in charge of the Comm Bank the marketing department would look like a bowling alley.
Yes, Comm Bank were determined to be different, regardless of the brand.
Neil has always been a good judge of poor creative and his article in todays
Financial Review ask some interesting questions.
It’s not just the CBA marketing team that should be held accountable.The CEO of the bank approved it no doubt.
We have to give credit to both Goodbys and Commbank marketing team. They may not have had good judgement for a good ad campaign. But, they are true salesmen. Anyone who was able to sell this crap to the client/superiors must be good for something.
Decided by a handful of anon bloggers and a trade journo or two.
if I were Goodby’s I’d be shit scared.
to 3.49
But you’re not. You’re just someone writing messages on a blog.
This melodramatic negativity makes for boring f*cking punditry. The salacious blow-hards who’re anticipating waves of sackings after this calamity will probably be disappointed. Why? Because their predictions are more motivated by the fact that an overseas agency got a big account here. (Get over it. It will happen again. And, when we pull our heads in, it will happen in reverse.)
As for the ad being a waste of money because it’s an ‘in joke’… well i don’t work in a bloody paper factory, and i thought that the Office was funny. (Fine – their Office comparison was a poor one, but the point remains.)
I couldnt give a sheiserhaus whether Goodbys or Buckman get the boot or not over this – but we’re constantly begging for the opportunity to produce more innovative content executions – and whether this is the first time its been done or not, and whether its successful or not – its at least pushing the agenda.
Hi all
There seem to be two issues at play here; one being whether the Premise is any good i.e. Determined to be Different, and the other being whether the Premise is well communicated.
I am not privy to what changes Which Bank is making in order to deliver on the Premise, but it would seem to be that the main aim of Which Bank should not focus on being Determined to be Different, but to be Determined to be Better – mind you this then missed out on having alliteration in the tagline, but it does seem to make more sense.
By saying Determined to be Different, it becomes a problem as there are simply too many banks doing too many different things to allow Which Bank to be Different every time. And being Different for the sake of standing out does not make sense – it also implied that being worse that other banks is ok, as long as you are Different. If Which Bank things that being being Different it implies being better, then it seems a bit of an arrogant position, as if they are truly going to be realictic, they would acknowledge that their competitors do trump them in certain areas. So I would say that by starting off with a shaky premise, it makes any campaign difficult. People, and I could be wrong, would probably prefer a consistently high level of service.
The second issue is the execution of the Premise. It is only the first ad of what is hopefully going to be a consistent campaign, so it is a little bit hard to judge perhaps. However, creatively it does have similarities to other well known campaigns, and it does seem to be a bit self indulgent. Go to any suburban shopping centre in the west, and you will see that the majority of the population are not as “media savvy” as we may at first presume. Hence the self referential tone will be lost on a lot of people. And yes, it is confusing. A back to basics approach, where it is clear Which Bank is focussed on providing services quickly, efficiently and at a fair cost would appear to have more effect. The graphics do look good, but I am not sure that in these economic times people want this tone from a bank – I would have thought solid, reliable, and fair are relevant keywords. The fact they felt the need to actually have written Michael Bay lets the ad down a bit – the whole idea about being referential is that you don’t have to re-state what is going on to those who may not know.
It is fairly clear to the unbiased eye that the campaign isn’t off to a great start. However, if the Premise itself is flawed, then it doesn’t matter what future executions come out, the campaign will have problems.
I am hoping that the ads that are yet to come, even with the questionable strategic direction, are much better; if they turn this round and come up with something that we all feel does communicate the proposition in an effective, and unique way – I would hope that the knock on effect would be positive for our industry on a creative level.
Perhaps the issue is not so much Australia’s creative ability, but our ability to sell ideas. My guess is the latter.
Cheers
The launch ad didn’t rock my boat but maybe the second, third, fourth and fifth might.
I for one have the patience to wait and find out. I’ve got better things to do with my time than spend it sharpening my knives to butcher someone having a crack.
Just like you 5:05, just like you.
Goodbye Silverstein
If anyone is ineterested in some real comments from non industry people (ie the target audience) I recommend reading the comments on you tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2v89M3lhlKA
sample below: – 6 pages of comments and counting!!!
michaeltbear (2 days ago)
OMG some of you people have got to be kidding right? The Joke is that the bank does not want this flashy ad, they don’t feel the need to spend up big on gimmicks but they do like the tag line ‘determined to be different’. It wasn’t actually made in America, that is a studio in Australia with actors from Australia. The whole thing is an ad
‘Why would anyone go to the US to make an ad for Aussies’
1banshee (2 days ago)
Thankyou…You hit the nail on the head right there !!! If viewers cannot see the point it is delivering then advertisers really need to “dumb” down their productions that are flashed across our screens. sheeesshhh.
beergoggles69 (20 hours ago)
Well, Michael Bay is a real director/producer (tranformers among other things) and they really did create that over the top ad, even if it was tongue in cheek. so they kinda… did… make a flashy ad.
jstevens85 (2 days ago) Show
How many other Australian bank advertisements have you watched on Youtube and commented on before. Seems to me that this ad was worth every penny. It has grabbed people’s attention and has got people talking.
I think it’s a bloody funny ad and I’ve written some bloody funny ads, won lost of awards and sold lots of product.
Have you?
So Commonwealth, you go to an American agency and throw cash at them in a bid to be ‘different’.
If you threw the same amount of many at any decent Australian agency and you’d get a relevant, great ad from people who understand the market.
Ridiculous.
But surely they have achieved the goal of being “Determined to be Different” . Who says different has to be amazing creative work, different can alos be really amazingly totally fucking shit that no one else has contenplated ever doing can it not. I have never seen any other ad generate this amount of feedback and be so oustandly crap so it must be different yes! Well done all involved.
I really think you’re all deluded. It’s totally interesting for the Australian market.
There’s so much crap on tv coming out of our agencies. It has ‘dared to be different’. More than I can say for the mediocre work that Aussie creatives churn out at a rate of knots.
I reckon you’ve played right into their hands.
Terrible work. Just terrible. If you have to wait to see more of the campaign for it to get better than it’s obviously failed. You have one go at getting people to engage with your campaign. This campaign has lost that go.
The sad thing is that it’s such a wasted opportunity. It’s not like they had a million mandatories to put it there. They just needed an insight delivered in an entertaining way. Surely not that difficult.
Is it okay to say I think it’s a brilliant ad? This campaign will probably be looked back on as one the biggest ideas ever seen in Australian advertising. I’m not from Goodby’s or CBA either, I simply think it’s extraordinary in a good way and way, way, way ahead of anything else out there. Well done to everyone involved, looking forward to seeing how you develop the campaign.
You people need to pull your heads out of your you know whats!
People are actually talking about this ad….. And as far as it being produced by an offshore agency, shame on all you Australian Agencies that drove them to do it!…Are you the people that are providing the dubbing for the Offshore produced FMCG ads that grace our screens at dinner time?….No wonder CBA went offshore they obviously have outgrown you all
At least the are Determined to be different…not like you lot!
6:22PM is right. You gotta go elsewhere than here to find a real opinion.
This was also posted on YouTube:
HomerzHome (1 day ago)
Awesome work. This is obviously the start of something. I guess we’re going to see more of these guys. I read in the papers the Aussie ad industry people don’t seem to find it funny… guess they wouldn’t since they’re the butt of the joke. I reckon the public will find it funny… taking the piss out of ad wankers!! and from a boring old bank who would’ve thought it.
Maybe you’re all haters cos a little piece of each and every one of you plays a starring role.
Sure it stretches reality a little, good comedy often does. Let’s see where this goes.
wtf is the Marketing business so desperate for a commentator we’ll take him as the word.
I’m with NAB, so hopefully all this won’t reflect on my interest rate!
I agree with 7.32pm – it certainly is different and i reckon it’s great. i’ve seen it on tv twice now and it really grabs your attention. Mind you, i haven’t seen any other of the ads yet.
Big call to be slamming an agency of Goodbys credibility – particularly from all the award winning creatives we have here in Australia……hhhmmm
Shit.
Thanks to all the industry guru’s like Neil and Peter Bray for commenting on this ad. You’ve really made a difference to my life.
From now on I refuse to comment on the ad incase the bank of goodby’s see it as ‘generating massive amounts of PR’ which is probably what it’s intended to do…
Or is the wood getting to thick to see the trees for the intelligentsia of the australian advertising ‘industry’?
Goodby’s aren’t dumb. After all, they did ‘Got Milk?’ 20 years before all the hack Aussie copywriters started writing ‘Need hardware?’
10:16 …. That’s all well and good – and a lot of agencies have great historical case studies here in australia as well but the issue is not what they have done before.
And 9:35… you’ll find that a lot of very highly awarded creatives are Australian buddy. A lot.
As for this … the idea is lacking any strong direction. it is neither strategically sound or particularly entertaining, or funny for that matter.
Strategy aside, even on a pure entertainment level, the whole ‘agency presenting to client’ mockumentary formula is hardly new or fresh thinking. Seen it way too often. Truth in advertising probably did the best job of it. Let’s see … about TEN years ago.
That long comment above is boring turgid pretentious long-winded and over-thought. It’s an ad. Get over it. Move on.
The bank took a risk on a number of levels and everyone is going nuts over one ad. I watched TV for a few hours last night and was totally depressed. If I was starting my career I would find another profession or get on a plane. At least the CB ad stands out and I don’t mind watching it.
I think TV advertising in this country has hit an all time low aside from a few scam ads done by the usual suspects.
Nobody seems to be talking about all the other woeful bank ads out there.
It’ll be return to fucking yawnsville soon. And Australian clients will be be even more inclined to doing boring stuff.
I worked in the States for a number of years. Many clients there strive to do work that stands out. Here most clients aim to not fuck up or stand out. A big difference.
Careful what you wish for.
To all those people who think we’re knocking it because it’s not an Aussie ad, rest assured we’re not.
A true blue, died in the wool Aussie agency with Paul Hogan as it’s CEO and a bunch of young Aussie Surf Lifesaving nippers as it’s creative team could write this ad and we’d still all think it was a torrid pile of steaming dog shit. Even if it was a Aussie cattle dog that laid it.
This blog has seen a remarkable amount of evidence for the multitude of reasons Australia is, quite simply, doing some of the worst work in the English speaking world.
Turn on the TV any night, I challenge you to find more than two ads a year you’d be genuinely PROUD to have on your reel.
We’re, on the whole, responsible for predictable, formulaic crap. And I count myself deeply within this camp – not through lack of trying mind you.
Americans and Brits realised long ago that the concept of the USP and the ESP were long dead. Categories are simply too competitive to be different, and a genuine point of difference can last weeks – if not days.
We have to understand that our consumer doesn’t think like a planner – or indeed an advertising creative – they make often make decisions, important ones, on their gut feel – their simple liking of a brand.
And this new spot, odd as it is, is one of the ads we simply can’t seem to justify or like because it doesn’t meet or tickboxes for ‘what makes a great ad.’
We have to, maybe, re-evaluate these tickboxes – as a Gorilla banging a drums for Cadburys did more for them than all the Aussie style ‘consumer banging on about the benefit’ ads they pumped out for years. Why? It was funny, it was memorable. People sent it to their mates and suddenly Cadburys was seen as a mate who mate them laugh, as opposed to a mate who constantly tried to sell them something.
Sure, we’ll call it ‘sponsored entertainment’ but maybe, just maybe, it’s just too new and too different for us to get.
And maybe people out there will see this silly ad and think – fuck? Comm Bank?
There is of course, the sour grapes in losing out millions of dollars of ad revenue to the ‘Septics’ – and that hasn’t exactly pleased the masses – but that’s for another post.
Most people on here musn’t be paying much attention – two things
National Australia Bank
and
Clems Melbourne.
James is consistantly hitting the nail on the head creatively and consumer-ly with every thing that comes out of that place.
I want to work there. Sorry guys it just shits me when people say ‘oh australia doesn’t do anything decent except scam’. Unfortunately most of us work in agencies with self serving creative directors bent on stealing every decent brief that all we do that is decent, is scam.
Its easy to be different. Its easy to stand out. And lots of creatives keep saying different and stand out is what we should all be trying to do. But I reckon most of them are just looking for the easy way out and then claim ‘well at least i”m different – at least it stands out – at least we’re trying to do something different’ as justification for either being lazy, being wrong or just self-indulgent. I don’t think Goodby’s is self-indulgent. They’ve done a lot of great work over a great number of years – no-one’s questioning their credentials as a great agency. But in this instance they’ve done something that ‘gotta be different’ creative people do in any field not just advertising – they got it wrong. That’s the risk you take when you want to be different.
When I first saw it during the cricket I honestly thought this was a prank, with a meaty glossy campaign to follow it.
After having spent a couple of weeks having looked at it from arms length, as well as following the knee-jerk commentary of both creatives & punters, I’m starting to think that I might see the point of it. I think the precious responses of bloggers are pretty much central heart of the campaign. TIme will tell though, unfortunately we might not get to see how it unfolds due to the knives that have been drawn.
9:07 Wrong example young man. The Gorilla is fun and that’s what Cadbury want for their brand. Its their version of people inside a big rolling plastic ball for Coke. As for being ‘too new and too different’ you’re obviously too new to this business understand how stupid you sound.
9:32 You’re as stupid as 9:07
Peter you have no business saying anything that makes sense on this blog. Well put mate.
My award for funniest comment goes to 9.32, who says at least one Australian agency is doing brilliant work. He/She/It then nominates Clems! Yes, the same Clems whose work for NAB is right up there with Commbank for irrelevant banality and sheer stupidity.
Silver goes to 9.07, who, in contrast, believes NO Australian agencies are doing decent work. Might be true. But Australian businesses are doing far better than the businesses in his/her/its beloved Europe and America so, bad as our advertising is, it must be working to some extent.
Honorable mention to 6.26 who has written all those funny ads and won all those awards and even sold the odd bit of product and thinks the Commbank ad is funny. I bow down to his wisdom and am shamed by his obvious superiority. If 9.32 is right, you must work at Clems. But if 9.07 is right, you must work in Europe or be very old and all those brilliant ads of yours were done years ago.
Or you’re a wanker.
Oh, by the way – of course the Commbank ad is crap. And I’ve never known a crap ad to get better because of the follow up ads. What usually happens is that the crap ad stops the follow up ads ever happening. Which is usually a good thing.
9.38 states the bleeding obvious – but in this blog it is confucian in its wisdom.
Being different isn’t the end; it’s the means to an end.
It’s the end that counts.
Different can be good. Different can be bad. Different can be bloody awful.
It’s the risk you take.
We can applaud Goodby’s for trying to be different. But that doesn’t mean we can ignore the fairly blatant fact that they got it wrong.
In this case, different really is bloody awful.
February 5, 2008 11:09 AM – Where do you work and what do you do?
I reckon this interesting Commonwealth Bank spot should go on during SUPERBOWL…It certainly seems to have caught all your bloggers and thousands of YouTuber’s attention! BRACKET BOY.
Please stop using ‘muppets’ as a pejorative.
I like muppets.
Okay, let me see if I’ve got this right.
The Commbank ad is crap because:
It has no insights.
It has no product benefits.
It’s an ad industry in-joke.
It’s the ad industry talking to itself
Fair enough. I agree.
But a year of two back you lot were dancing in the streets about another ad.
It had no insights whatsover.
No product benefits.
And it was the ultimate ad industry in-joke.
The ad was a parody of another ad.
A parody of advertising’s self-indulgence.
Amazingly, it was a parody of an ad most of the target audiend had never seen.
Sound familiar? Yet most of you thought, in its case, being different was enough.
The Big Ad. No promise. No insight. Nothing but an expensive rip off of a 20 year old British Airways ad.
But that, you say, was brilliant. Odd.
In the words of that famous red headed Aussie, so beloved of people north of Byron, please explain.
9.07’s tone of voice feels oddly familiar. I heard SB is back in town
12:45 since when did ‘everybody say Big Ad was brilliant?
Shane Bourne is back??!!! He’s funny on Thank God You’re Here.
Well boo hoo the CBA took their creative overseas. I’m sure this blog will really ‘show them’.
If you’re all convinced that you could do a better job then maybe you need to consider why you’re not being considered? But I suppose it’s easier to blame someone else. Whinging bunch of monkeys.
Get over it, it’s a f*cking ad, if it turns out to be a dog then you can all rejoice, safe in the knowledge that everything you’ve ever done succeeded.
This whole blog just shows why everyone thinks people in this industry are a bunch of w*nkers.
Never really used this website before but next time I need a laugh I’ll know where to come.
If this had been made by Droga5 Sydney, we’d be hailing the second fucking coming.
They gave the business offshore.
Deal with it.
I second 1.30’s scepticism.
seems like client marketers are fair game but as soon as one suggests a bit of journalistic influence or impartiality one gets edited – shame really
2.04 thinks we’re all a pack of winkers.
In my case, it’s actually a stigmatism.
I wasn’t really giving you a come-on.
Y0ou may well be right 12.45. But the Big Ad was actually F U N N Y.
CBA is try hard.
2.12, you’re so right. This is easily the best ad on Aussie tv for years. Droga5 have got some competition.
C’mon 12:45 … you’ve GOT to be kidding. Big ad was and is a brilliant ad on so many levels. It almost won a grand prix at Cannes so please don’t even try to compare this ordinary piece with big ad.
Not funny. It’s as simple as that.
Who cares if its funny or different as long as its right 5:25.
rubbish campaign. Seriously, who will bother watching an ad pretending to be sitcom about a bank and their ad agency. Content gone wrong. Can we get back to making communication please.
Crikey! Whatta blog! So this is what a bunch of flamin’ galahs sounds like?
I reckon the ad’s a rippa. Can’t wait to cop a squiz of the next one.
You little bewdy Goodby’s, good onya.
‘It [big ad] almost won a grand prix at cannes’ Well whooppee 9:06!
[If only the judge from Peru had agreed with the judge from Slovakia]..
For some reason they wrote an ad aimed at us advertising people. And even that didn’t work.
Another 70+ blogs on this ad in 24hrs. Must be a lot of creatives flat out at the moment.
If you want to talk about crap ads take a look at the new Rexona ad.
Amazing creative work here.
“two things
National Australia Bank
and
Clems Melbourne.
James is consistantly hitting the nail on the head creatively and consumer-ly with every thing that comes out of that place.”
OMG: I was just telling a friend this morning how I considered the NAB work so ill-considered, and a textbook example of an agency destroying a brand, rather than building on it. The new freestyle font and fluffy shit is absolutely at odds with everything the NAB stands for, and why its existing customers go there.
I suppose if the the Commbank ad was for an American chocolate bar company launching their brand in Australia…and if the send-up ad was full of over the top promises for the chocolate bar…and somewhere at the end of the ad someone actually said something about the chocolate bar…well, it might have been okay.
Y’see, that would be Americans taking the piss out of Americans, which works.
But Commbank is really about Americans taking the piss out of an idiotic Australian marketing department. I mean, who comes out worse in this ad – the agency doing a dumb ad, or the client who paid for it sight unseen and doesn’t even look at it twice?
Wrong product, wrong market.
Maybe this was one Goodby’s took out of their reject pile?
You’re missing the point, 9.16.
Sure there are a lot of crap ads on our TV, and (sight unseen by me) you might be right about Rexona.
But Rexona is not an iconic Australian brand. Rexona doesn’t spend tens of millions on its advertising. Rexona hasn’t made a big statement about going overseas to get the “great advertising the brand deserves.”
It’s the difference between going to the MCG to watch the Aussies play a Test match and going to your local oval to watch a team of 12 year olds: you expect something better.
We expected. We got disappointed.
Yep, they’re different.
http://business.smh.com.au/cba-lifts-rates-by-03-per-cent/20080206-1qht.html
HAHA
Commonwealth Bank has added extra sting to yesterday’s 0.25 percentage point rate rise by the Reserve Bank by lifting the interest rate on its variable home loans by 0.3 percentage points.
Good commercials have some truth buried beneath them, where is theirs.
‘Determined to be Different’ -please explain how the Comm Bank is different in anyway, shape or form?
To all those fans of the Commcrap ads, check out the comments on the news sites about the CBA’s rate rise. Amongst all the people crying poor you’ll find a hell of a lot saying “I suppose they have to pay for that crap ad somehow” and other similar comments.
Yep, it’s a winner of a campaign they’ve got there!
Determined to be different? Ha! How’s this for comments, pulled straight from the Herald Sun’s website:
“It’s just like their new ad… Determined to be different… Pass all costs to consumers and make more profits..”
“This is purely to pay for thier cr**p advertising campaign they have running at the minute. This bank is a deadset joke and should be shut down!”
“I suppose they have to pay for that stupid ad that is on TV”
Maybe the campaign is working, everyone seems to know the tag line!!! Ha! Sheer brilliance, and we all somehow missed it.
“OMG: I was just telling a friend this morning how I considered the NAB work so ill-considered, and a textbook example of an agency destroying a brand, rather than building on it. The new freestyle font and fluffy shit is absolutely at odds with everything the NAB stands for, and why its existing customers go there.”
What the fuck is OMG?
I didn’t realise emo’s were allowed on this blog.
Get off your fucking hack soapboxes and do some work.
The Commonwealth announced on Wednesday it was increasing its variable home loan rate by 0.30 per cent to 8.97 per cent following the Reserve Bank of Australia’s decision to lift official interest rates by 0.25 of a percentage point.
Now that’s different!
Suppose they have to pay for that American drivel somehow.
What a load of self indulgent crap – just the sort of stuff that makes the ‘real world’ think the ad industry is out of touch
If nothing else, I hope the CBA Marketing Team bought a heap of high quality duty free on the countless trips to and from the States – because all they they bought from their much lauded agency is a heap of the lowest quality bullshit
Let the games begin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFj0wutF5RQ
Ad number 2.
I’ll say one thing: at least they’re being consistent
Hmmm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7q_3wegb8g
Is it getting any better?
I couldn’t find any drying paint to watch, so I watched this instead:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SDjhcVani0
i wasn’t much of a fan of the mad max ad but this cricket one is clever – perhaps we are going to see a proper campaign after all.
interested to see reaction to this one – particularly Mr Shoebridges comments….
Are there any Muffins in the tea room yet?
1, Fire the entire marketing dept of Commbank.
2, Fire the agency
How did anyone approve such pure shit, as this is totally beyond me.
Looks like some cheap ass student film..
and then they go hike up rates.. dare to be wankers..is the new motto
This post is populated by red-blooded Aussies who hate it when an ad tries to take the piss of Americans and their misunderstanding of what Australia is.
Is that correct, or am I way out?
This rubbish is not only a total waste of shareholders money but an insult!!! This shows just how Ralph Norris as CEO is so out of touch with his customer base and what they want in a bank … you have not only lost my accounts but my trust as well
Hey Lynchy, just picked this up off BandT. I know it’s a rival publication, but since you’ve been running so much commentary around this campaign in the interests of being balanced I thought you should run it
http://www.bandt.com.au/dirplus/images/bttoday/newsletter/18_02_2008.pdf