Australia Post encourages business to “Zing Their Thing” in new campaign via Marmalade
Australia Post has released a new national campaign via Marmalade Melbourne to promote parcel services to small and medium businesses that trade online.
The campaign uses a metaphor to represent the different products and services that small businesses may provide. The metaphor, called Zing, is a red furry ball that comes in any size.
Says Marmalade creative director, Neil Mallet: “Your Zing can be a product or service, a business idea, but it is definitely your passion. And Australia Post can get your Zing, whatever it is, to your customers. A simple premise with an engaging execution.”
Says John Moore, Australia Post’s general manager of marketing and customer experience: “This campaign defines a new direction for Australia Post parcel services. It highlights the customer focus within the organisation. When Marmalade first pitched, Zing was one of those standout ideas. Even down to the fact that Zing, for those who haven’t noticed, is in PMS 186, the Australia Post red.”
Adds Lisa Gumbleton, director of client service at Marmalade: “Small businesses often suffer similar growing pains. They need service providers they can rely on to take care of online/ecommerce delivery and logistics, so they can get on with the business they know about. Like producing their Zing.”
The campaign will launch with television, online film, press, outdoor, online and DM.
Agency: Marmalade Melbourne
Creative Director: Neil Mallet
Creative: Frank Trobbiani, Neil Mallet, Brian Thacker
Producer: Beaver
Production Company: Jungle Boys
Director: Trent O’Donnell
DOP: Simon Chapman
Production Co Producer: Nicola Patterson
Digital: Amnesia Razorfish
37 Comments
Seriously People…
There is no information about this,
If you want people to use your service I think it would be a great idea to put more about it,
2nd thing is,
When the advert shows someone typing it into to the Aus post search box “ZING” you try it and see what happens.
0 – searches found.
Could someone please Fedex the client a better idea…….
Seriously nice.
searched it on google. http://www.zingaustralia.com/ this came up second.
confuzing
Aust Post get your Search going ASAP. “Zing” returning no results (on mobile)
certainly somezing missing when you search zing on google or client search box….
meditate on that!
This is the work of experienced ad people, yet it has all the hallmarks of the work of absolute beginners. More shame the client for going along with it.
According to the blurb which accompanies this work, it purports to advertise a new Australia Post service for small & medium businesses which trade online.
Not that you’d get this from the advertising, even if one had the mental agility of Einstein.
No, from the mouth of the ‘talent’ in one of the commercials “Zing is the new ‘in’ thing, and because it’s so popular, it’s blown my mind – and yet it’s brought it all back together too…” And immediately after that gobbledegook, this gem ” People want the now – without the balance of the Zing, I’d just…whoah!…” Yes, that’s directly from the script. Are you feeling better informed about Australia Post’s new parcel service for small to medium businesses which trade online now? Maybe I’m a bit thick, but I’m not feeling any the wiser.
The thing about advertising is it’s supposed to be a balance between informing, entertaining and branding. That can be tricky at times, but this work fails miserably no matter how charitably you view it.
It shames the entire industry.
There seems to be a trend in advertising at the moment to make your message as incomprehensible as possible. Presumably that’s because it’s uncool to make the message too obvious. This work, however has gone out of its way to completely obscure the message. Presumably in an attempt to be ‘different’ and ‘edgy’. Well, it’s neither.
And when it backfires – as it surely will – it’ll make the job of selling genuinely innovative, creative, breakthrough work even more difficult, if not impossible.
I would, however compliment whoever is selling this sort of work to clients, because there’s a lot of it about. Think VW Touareg ‘Sleeper’, Virgin Mobile ‘Medieval’, Telstra ‘Mime Artist’, and now this.
Perhaps some truly awesome marijuana is being consumed at those meetings. How else to explain the approval of this work, and the following remarks of the Australia Post client:
“This campaign defines a new direction for Australia Post parcel services. It highlights the customer focus within the organisation. When Marmalade first pitched, Zing was one of those standout ideas. Even down to the fact that Zing, for those who haven’t noticed, is in PMS 186, the Australia Post red.” John Moore, Australia Post’s general manager of marketing and customer experience
Please pop an ounce in my Post Office Box at your earliest convenience. Thank you.
Prefer the ‘part of every day’ campaign 1000 times more than this.
What a stupid zing.
Old CD guy makes some good points here.
It’s just a rather poorly executed imitation of the eBay ‘It’ campaign.
the thing about zing is there’s nothing amuzing, interestzing, amazing, engazing, surprizing or relevant. I don’t get what a zing is or why I’d want to post one. Stupid lazy work.
We’ll be calling.
zing a ding ding!!!!
rubbish.
Oh, my…
Old CD guy makes some great points. He leaves one out though: there is some serious talent down at Marmalade. And that is those that are bringing in the business, because some of the clients are, on paper at least, drool-worthy. Shame the work hasn’t lived up to the names on the door.
Nice work Bones.
Ummm….
Oh, right…okay….
Errr…..
What was th….
Nahhh!
PS: Old CD Guy – please never mention Virgin’s “Medieval” ads again. Never. I’m still in shock that anyone could create anything so utterly stupid and get away with it. It should never, ever be mentioned in polite company.
If Marmalade’s pitch was successful (and produced) why was Badjar Olgilvy announced as the successful ABTL agency?
Atrocious work, the copywriter should be shot.
C’mon. They’re not that bad. Well done guys.
You can look at it this way, several agencies probably missed out on this piece of business. I’m sure you can get an sense of their dignity by some of the comments here.
I like Zingbo. Could have been more violent, but I likey.
Fair bit of justice in this win by Marmalade over Badjar Ogilvy. Yep, you know it.
“Several agencies probably missed out on this piece of business”
This could be said of every campaign. Negative comments tends to be balanced out by the biased toil of agency whips – “Amazing work”, “So good I just soiled myself” etc etc ad nauseum.
You just need to look at the positive consensus that a great campaign gets to see that the industry acknowledges fine work.
I think it’s fair to sat that Zing Their Thing doesn’t fall into that category.
The production is okay. They’ve tried to do the “Office” thing with the dialogue, which they almost but don’t quite pull off.
But what they’re selling…God knows.
Classic client comment about why they bought it:
“the fact that Zing, for those who haven’t noticed, is in PMS 186, the Australia Post red.”
My god.
The humours a bit light but still nice idea.
Good job Marmaloids!
Is there something wrong with me? I quite like them. A couple of the shots are weak, but nice idea. Only big problem is the ZING search – what a fuck-up (it’s only a ‘paid’ ad on the side of the Google page).
Yes, 1:01, it’s you.
I can only assume the client is very inexperienced (or stupid) for signing off on this ridiculous drivel. It does nothing to identifying the brand, or selling a product or service. It is not even clear what a “zing” is, and there is no information on the website to follow-up on the concept. Very amateurish. I dont blame agency for trying to sell them this weak attempt at advertising – if the client had not agreed to go for it I am sure that they would have come up with something better.
I think that auspost missed the mark with this one too – Get back to basics and make us laugh more – or better yet – try to ace one like yellow pages remember the not happy jan …that is a lucky strike however …jackpot for value
WTF??
Sorry NM.
The old Singo stuff was better than this.
Makes me feel nothing.
NM, you just cant top the Singo stuff – True legend in my mind.
YES,ZING YOUR THING. ITS POSITIVE,CLASSY. AFTER ALL ITS ALL ABOUT ZING? GREAT JOB MARMALADE.