Blamed for “casting Australia as a nation of tone-deaf people and drawing on dowdy 50-year-old stereotypes“, the latest Tourism Australia campaign hasn’t gone down well on home shores since launching earlier this week. You can watch ‘There’s Nothing like Australia‘ here, but be warned: jabbing yourself in the ears with hot barbecue tongs would bring more aural pleasure.

Part of a £2.3m campaign, the 90-second television advert features Aussies singing off-key about drinking in the pub and “those furry things that bounce around in herds”. Directed by Michael Gracey, who was responsible for YouTube’s most-watched commercial of all time (the Evian Roller Babies), the ad has been condemned by many Aussies as an ’embarrassment’.

This is not the first time the Australian tourist board has launched a controversial television advert. In 2006 they came a cropper with their ‘where the bloody hell are you?‘ campaign, which was banned in the UK. Baz Luhrmann’s awardwinning Walkabout advert from 2008 also got mixed reviews. And back in 1984 their most famous advert of all was criticised for Americanisation when Paul Hogan slipped a ‘shrimp’ on the barbie, not a ‘prawn’.

Nonetheless, the Australians still have some way to go before beating the Danish Tourist Board, which currently holds the unofficial title for the world’s most misguided tourism campaign.

…

The idea of local travel is growing all the time, but is it still too niche for the big campaigns?

Continue reading this article on the Going Local Travel blog