Re: Does anyone else despise the SA Great ads?
Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 4:49 pm
The snakes and ladders ad is dodgy in a number of ways.
For a start, if you read the stuff churned out by the experts in the SA Great/Premiers Dept ivory tower you realize that the choice of this board game as a basis for the promotion is an intellectual follow-on from the thrust of the previous campaign: ‘SA is fiercely competitive’.
Remember that campaign? Well in the corridors of SA Great/Premiers Dept it was the talk for weeks, therefore everyone else must have been aware of it too…
The choice of snakes and ladders carries on the idea of competitive advantage, but injects fun and humour. It’s a game! It might be a game if you’re a securely employed public servant earning plenty with fantastic conditions, but presenting important decisions about business and quality of life as a game when we're heading into the worst recession in memory is at least questionable.
What’s more, the choice of snakes and ladders as the game metaphor is odd. At first glance (and a glance is all a lot of people will give the promotion so it has to work at that level) ‘snakes and ladders’ might say ‘negatives and positives’.
What a sales pitch. ‘Sir, let me tell you the negatives and positives of owning this car…’
A minor point, but the minor points add up, and it wouldn’t be the first time the bureaucrats have got a promotion drastically wrong – look at the national ‘Where the bloody hell are you?’ tourism campaign. It turns out the message people got was ‘No-one’s coming here any more.’ So they thought, why should I go then? Everyone else can’t be wrong. The only winner was Matthew Clarke, who got Laura Bingle.
The information in the ad is suspect too. As has been pointed out, statistics can be misleading, to say the least.
The ad suggests that SA has the cheapest housing in mainland Australia. How does that line up with the 3rd quarter 2008 figures of the 5th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey 2009, which claims SA has the 12th least affordable housing in the world. Perhaps more prospective immigrants to SA would read such surveys than would see the SA Great ad.
Here’s a link for the survey: http://www.demographia.com/dhi-ix2005q3.pdf
That brings up another point. What is the purpose of showing the ad to South Australians? Maybe the scheduling of ads here indicates the real purpose of the ads. They are a none too subtle ‘feel good about ourselves’ effort by our media savvy government in the leadup to the March 2010 election. You can almost see the puppet strings, leading back to the clever media managers in the premier's huge Media Unit.
Have a look around the SA Great site.
http://www.sagreat.com.au/membership/membership-news
Numerous lunches and launches; lots of events, wineries, Kangaroo Island – you get the idea,
At least someone at SA Great has twigged that the organization should be promoting SA to people outside the state, rather than to those who are already here. Even so, that idea is presented as a brilliant new strategy. Hmm. On the site goes, heavy with jargon about 'brand positioning' and so on. The people concerned could spout the stuff in their boozy sleep, between lavish lunches and launches.
By the way, note also that the list of current SA Great members is not available on the 'current members' link. I queried SA Great. ‘Commercial confidentiality’ I was told. How many times has the government used that smokescreen? It's universal, like 'computer error'.
I hate to hammer the same point, and I probably did go over the top complaining here about what I see as the dominant voice in public life being the orchestrated one of the Premier's Department/SATC/SA Great etc clique, or combine. But after all, the government's management structure controls the whole conglomerate through the simple mechanism of funding/housing/superannuating its officials, and their constant flood of media releases reflects the fact.
I am really pleading for other, fresh voices to be heard. Fresh voices may even prevent mistakes and give us better government. Look at the $100 million wasted on the unnecessary and failed wine centre. There were plenty of people begging the government not to go ahead with it, but they were ignored. Moreover, SA Tourism, SA Great and the rest of the government managerial caste wanted it, as they would want any new edifice. SA Tourism and the Adelaide Convention and Tourism Authority even pushed a Park Lands site for any wine centre rather than the more logical Waite Institute site because the Hackney site was within walking distance from the Hilton and the Hyatt!! In the short time the centre was losing thousands a week as a wine centre, how many people made that trip on foot? Three? Remember, too, that SATC estimated 'visitations' to the wine centre at about 3000 per week! In fact, the centre struggled to get 5% of that.
Ironically, the Premiers Dept, SATC, SA Great etc are now principal users of the building for their launches, lunches and dinners. It's like John Bannon's move into a penthouse in Garden East - a development salvaged from the disaster of Bannon's State Bank. The sales in the Garden East development were a tiny repayment for the tens of millions of public money lost by State Bank subsidiaries Beneficial and Oceanic Capital on the site.
Wayno is dead right - a change of government probably will not result in these fresh voices and new angles. The 'ruling clique' is well-entrenched, and well protected. We can only hope.
For a start, if you read the stuff churned out by the experts in the SA Great/Premiers Dept ivory tower you realize that the choice of this board game as a basis for the promotion is an intellectual follow-on from the thrust of the previous campaign: ‘SA is fiercely competitive’.
Remember that campaign? Well in the corridors of SA Great/Premiers Dept it was the talk for weeks, therefore everyone else must have been aware of it too…
The choice of snakes and ladders carries on the idea of competitive advantage, but injects fun and humour. It’s a game! It might be a game if you’re a securely employed public servant earning plenty with fantastic conditions, but presenting important decisions about business and quality of life as a game when we're heading into the worst recession in memory is at least questionable.
What’s more, the choice of snakes and ladders as the game metaphor is odd. At first glance (and a glance is all a lot of people will give the promotion so it has to work at that level) ‘snakes and ladders’ might say ‘negatives and positives’.
What a sales pitch. ‘Sir, let me tell you the negatives and positives of owning this car…’
A minor point, but the minor points add up, and it wouldn’t be the first time the bureaucrats have got a promotion drastically wrong – look at the national ‘Where the bloody hell are you?’ tourism campaign. It turns out the message people got was ‘No-one’s coming here any more.’ So they thought, why should I go then? Everyone else can’t be wrong. The only winner was Matthew Clarke, who got Laura Bingle.
The information in the ad is suspect too. As has been pointed out, statistics can be misleading, to say the least.
The ad suggests that SA has the cheapest housing in mainland Australia. How does that line up with the 3rd quarter 2008 figures of the 5th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey 2009, which claims SA has the 12th least affordable housing in the world. Perhaps more prospective immigrants to SA would read such surveys than would see the SA Great ad.
Here’s a link for the survey: http://www.demographia.com/dhi-ix2005q3.pdf
That brings up another point. What is the purpose of showing the ad to South Australians? Maybe the scheduling of ads here indicates the real purpose of the ads. They are a none too subtle ‘feel good about ourselves’ effort by our media savvy government in the leadup to the March 2010 election. You can almost see the puppet strings, leading back to the clever media managers in the premier's huge Media Unit.
Have a look around the SA Great site.
http://www.sagreat.com.au/membership/membership-news
Numerous lunches and launches; lots of events, wineries, Kangaroo Island – you get the idea,
At least someone at SA Great has twigged that the organization should be promoting SA to people outside the state, rather than to those who are already here. Even so, that idea is presented as a brilliant new strategy. Hmm. On the site goes, heavy with jargon about 'brand positioning' and so on. The people concerned could spout the stuff in their boozy sleep, between lavish lunches and launches.
By the way, note also that the list of current SA Great members is not available on the 'current members' link. I queried SA Great. ‘Commercial confidentiality’ I was told. How many times has the government used that smokescreen? It's universal, like 'computer error'.
I hate to hammer the same point, and I probably did go over the top complaining here about what I see as the dominant voice in public life being the orchestrated one of the Premier's Department/SATC/SA Great etc clique, or combine. But after all, the government's management structure controls the whole conglomerate through the simple mechanism of funding/housing/superannuating its officials, and their constant flood of media releases reflects the fact.
I am really pleading for other, fresh voices to be heard. Fresh voices may even prevent mistakes and give us better government. Look at the $100 million wasted on the unnecessary and failed wine centre. There were plenty of people begging the government not to go ahead with it, but they were ignored. Moreover, SA Tourism, SA Great and the rest of the government managerial caste wanted it, as they would want any new edifice. SA Tourism and the Adelaide Convention and Tourism Authority even pushed a Park Lands site for any wine centre rather than the more logical Waite Institute site because the Hackney site was within walking distance from the Hilton and the Hyatt!! In the short time the centre was losing thousands a week as a wine centre, how many people made that trip on foot? Three? Remember, too, that SATC estimated 'visitations' to the wine centre at about 3000 per week! In fact, the centre struggled to get 5% of that.
Ironically, the Premiers Dept, SATC, SA Great etc are now principal users of the building for their launches, lunches and dinners. It's like John Bannon's move into a penthouse in Garden East - a development salvaged from the disaster of Bannon's State Bank. The sales in the Garden East development were a tiny repayment for the tens of millions of public money lost by State Bank subsidiaries Beneficial and Oceanic Capital on the site.
Wayno is dead right - a change of government probably will not result in these fresh voices and new angles. The 'ruling clique' is well-entrenched, and well protected. We can only hope.