That is the title for the latest Australian Tourism ad campaign - but maybe it should read 'Where's your bloody sense of humour?" It appears that the poms (aka people who reside in England) have lost what little sense of humour they had, or maybe it was swept away with all those torrential rains they get over there?
Hey, to be honest I love the poms! My parents are Irish and I have many relatives and friends that are English, or just happen to live in England. What seems bizarre to me is that the English actually have a wickedly funny sense of humour, which is why I mostly watch the American BBC. So what the hell is wrong with you pommys? Why the complaints about using the word 'bloody?' I have to give the poms the benefit of the doubt and assume that just like in America a few uptight individuals control the media are often heard, not because they say what the major populace feel, but because they say it the loudest.
So why am I even commenting on this commercial, well I just happened to read the Sydney Morning Herald online and saw this article:
TRUST the bloody Poms - they can dish it out but they can't take it. More than four centuries after the word "bloody" first appeared in English, British authorities have rejected its use in an advertising campaign to promote Australia as a tourist destination.
The controversial ad campaign, which asks tourists "where the bloody hell" they are, has hit a snag in Britain after regulators deemed the ad too blue to go to air.
Australia's peak tourism body will be forced to take the word out of TV ads and posters before its debut next week, a move that has delivered Tourism Australia something of a publicity coup.
It is taking out full-page ads in the British press directing readers to the website where the full "uncut" version can be seen. Such is the anticipation around the ad that Tourism Australia is already claiming 100,000 British visitors to its website. More than 700,000 Brits visited Australia last year, spending $3.4 billion, making Britain the most valuable market.
But the agency behind the ad, M&C Saatchi, is less amused. One of its partners, Bill Muirhead, has pointed out that the Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre - which vets all British TV ads - has allowed ads from companies such as FCUK to go to air.
"It's bloody pathetic," said Mr Muirhead, an Australian. "When you look at what's on air generally [in programming] then look at the sort of ads that get through then it's ludicrous. We are going to see if we can take legal action."
Next week he will join tourism executives to put pressure on the British TV networks to override the clearance centre's decision. Australia's high commissioner, Richard Alston, has already complained to the body.
In Australia the ad has attracted some complaints on which the Advertising Standards Bureau will deliberate soon. At least four ads with the word bloody are on air in Australia. The bureau's chief, Fiona Jolly, said: "We've never upheld a complaint before but we look at each ad on its merit."
The publisher of the Macquarie Dictionary, Susan Butler, said bloody's origins in English dated back to 1676, when it referred to someone who was a "drunk as a blood" - colloquial for a noble.
"Now that variations of the F-word have taken over from bloody it's now considered mild and quaint," she said.
I don't think it's a great idea to end an ad about tourism to Australia with the question "Where the bloody hell are you?" The obvious answer from abroad is "Working my bloody butt off to pay for the airfare."
Posted by: Rob Luke | March 11, 2006 at 05:31 AM