Old Mate returns to show his mates his city in SATC’s follow-up spot via TBWA\Adelaide
UPDATED TO INCLUDE NEW SPOT: The now famous ‘Old Mate’ returned to Aussie TV screens last week in a tongue-in-cheek teaser advert where he and his mates swag through Adelaide airport ready for their South Australia trip.
The full 30 second advert (above) aired during the AFL Grand Final. In the spot Old Mate shows off his favourite new city to his mates, with the trio going on a range of South Australian adventures including driving across Sellicks beach, flying over d’Arenberg Cube and even dabbling in Adelaide’s laneway nightlife. Now his mates have the regret of not having come to Adelaide sooner.
A few weeks ago, the South Australian Tourism Commission and TBWA\Melbourne launched a new TVC featuring ‘Old Mate’, which consequently went viral. The sequel advert is going live today in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane in the lead up to the two biggest TV events of the year – the AFL and NRL Grand Finals.
To recap, the first tongue-in-cheek advert tells the story of ‘Old Mate’ who put off coming to Adelaide and South Australia for too long, only visited when he was too old and then regretted it. This stirred up debate across the country and Tourism Tasmania even waded in this week, creating a parody ad in response.
Market research indicates that while Adelaide is a rising destination, there are still many people who have put off coming to Adelaide and South Australia to “one day”, or its “on the bucket list”.
Following the phenomenal amount of debate in media and on social, Old Mate is back, and he’s brought his mates. The focus of the sequel advert going live today is Old Mate now showing off Adelaide – ‘his city’, to his mates. Now it is his mates who have the regret of not having come to Adelaide sooner, but they are consoled by seeing their Mate revelling in his new favourite city.
The new advert also features highlights from across South Australia including: d’Arenberg Cube, Sellicks beach, Adelaide’s city laneways and urban beaches.
The 15 second spot has been released today with the 30 second spot to be released this Saturday.
The Old Mate campaign to date has generated immense publicity. To date there have been over 662 articles, reaching 10.59 million Australians. The highest 2 days of domestic web traffic to southaustralia.com were also recorded on the weekend of the 7-8 September.
With great growth in domestic visitation to South Australia over the past few years (to March ’19, expenditure by interstate visitors grew 23% year on year), the mission is to continue this momentum and encourage those who haven’t been to Adelaide and South Australia yet, to come down and see for themselves.
22 Comments
Kudos to TBWA\Melbourne and South Aus Marketing Team. Funny, smart stuff.
This is what’s wrong with the brave new world we’re all playing in.
‘The Old Mate campaign to date has generated immense publicity. To date there have been over 662 articles, reaching 10.59 million Australians. The highest 2 days of domestic web traffic to southaustralia.com were also recorded on the weekend of the 7-8 September.’
Yet the article forgets to mention that people were looking at the work to deride and ridicule it. Contrary to popular belief, all publicity isn’t good publicity. The work made a laughing stock of the place.
Let’s be honest, TBWA Melbourne is pretty famous for turning out world-class entry vids for mediocre work. It’s all just spin spin spin with that place.
They expected the uproar and leveraged it to their advantage – well done
Brave. This is bloody excellent Advertising, they’ll reap the rewards.
can’t wait to visit that airport
Reinforces the idea that South Australia is a travel destination for old people.
Don’t go now, wait until your old like old mate.
That is literally the opposite of what the ad is saying…
Television advertising is subject to low involvement processing.
People pay little attention to the nuance of the message.
They will take old people and South Australia.
So now it’s the old time mafia boss coming to Adelaide – still not exciting this particular consumer
Well played TBWA and SATC. When the critics go loud. Go louder. SA has never been so famous!
“And then when everyone gets back (from blowing their own trumpet) we’ll Great Thunberg to come up the Gulf with a fleet of brightly coloured sails. One for Shiraz, one for the Flinders Ranges and one for…”
I seriously might be missing something here, but WHY did this cause any stir in the first place? I just cannot fathom what the controversy was all about, really. Please tell me.
I’m not picking holes in the ad, I just really do not know why it is in anyway controversial.
thank you.
My criticism of the first spot was it didn’t celebrate the location at all. You were so focussed on the story, everything else (the limited scenery you do see) is lost. Now all we’re seeing is the inside of Adelaide airport. As somebody that has never been to South Australia, this doesn’t do anything for me. It neither creates desire or FoMo. Who approves this stuff?
It’s a teaser, can’t y’all read?
Create a campaign so bad that it gets loads of PR, and then follow it up a few weeks later with another. I wish i thought of that.
My take:
Client is angry at response to launch ad. (Let’s be honest, it went viral because it was crap). Would probably like to start all over again with new agency, but….if they do that they’ll be admitting to wasting public funds. (Not a career move and embarrasses minister and government). Now trying to advertise their way out of the hole they’ve dug for themselves, only to realize they’ve just made the hole bigger.
South Australia isn’t exactly the place you go for a family holiday, unless you’re OK with your kids whinging about how bored they are being dragged around wineries.
It really is the short-break holiday domain of empty nesters and retirees. The campaign isn’t not that far off the money in that perspective, but because of the age casting it does come across a little bit like ‘Visit South Australia before you die’.
Don’t leave visiting South Australia till you’re old.
Seems pretty simple. And funny. What’s all the fuss about?
Dear Rocket Scientist,
Nothing’s simple about this campaign other than to recognize it’s wrong from beginning to end.
Creating a visual asset of old men/people to deliver ‘Don’t leave visiting SA till you’re old’ is just plain stupidity.
This campaign simply confirms that ‘you can leave visiting SA till you’re old’.
To work, this campaign requires ‘the SA promise’ to be the vibrant, young, exciting opposite of the old mates – otherwise there is no juxtaposition for the ‘oldies’ to work off.
That’s why the agency has to get the old mates to act young and ‘exciting’ – because what they’re surrounded by isn’t.
‘The reality’ of the SA experience means this campaign can never deliver the idea the agency sold to the client.
The sooner they drop this campaign, the sooner they can stop wasting taxpayers dollars on positioning SA as the place you visit after you’ve visited everywhere else.
This is still the worst thing SA tourism have done. It does nothing for pride, it is self serving, ad wank. Says nothing for the place, and if ‘word of mouth’ is the aim. You’ve done it with ‘ad wank’. It’s like a child doing a poo in the middle of the room, and every cant stop talking about it. It smells. It makes the child famous. But it’s crap. A million times over. *Insert continuous criticism here.
…but the first Old Mate came on at the movies the other night, and when the punchline delivered, a good 10-15 people sniggered and laughed in the audience. I sunk deeper into the chair, rolling my eyes, cringing at it. But half the audience thought it was funny. I personally think its crude and negative. This new ad is trying to save face and bring a positive spin to a terrible campaign. It doesnt. The whole thing is gross and uncomfortable.
i still don’t get all the fuss. the original old mate ad made me snigger. i like the casual language of the line. i like how it makes fun of the old codger for not visiting. it features SA locations. the idea is literally about not leaving visiting SA until it’s too late. it’s a nice little story to string together a bunch of SA locations.
i think a lot of you ad wankers have disappeared up your own bums.
or you have all forgotten how to react to 30sec ads with a little joke and narrative.