What does the latest Ford posters say about the company?
For one it says they are frightened; frightened that their ever dwindling market share is going to vanish completely into an Australian heat haze.
Why else would you feature a poster campaign where the logo is larger than the product and the proposition is even smaller still.
Ford will stop manufacturing cars in Australia later this year, and it’s my guess that these ads are more about propping up confidence in the dealer network, than they are about selling vehicles.
Given the new car sales figures for 2015, they should be worried.
Ford were 6th, with 70,454 sales (down 11.6%) and behind, of all manufactures, Mitsubishi with 71,752.
2015 was a bumper year for car sales with 1,155,408 vehicles sold – a 3.8% rise on the previous year.
Holden and Ford were the only companies to post a sales decline, with Ford having its worst year since 1966. Even the Mercedes-Benz C-Class comfortably outsold the Ford Falcon.
It appears that Australians have already given up on Henry.
Casting.
Thursday, January 14th, 2016The latest installment of the long running Australia Day Lamb Campaign has been released.
This highly regarded series of ads started in 2005 and stars Sam Kekovich. Sam has always been very forthright in his approach to eating lamb, especially on Australia Day, and he castigates anyone as being un-Australian if they disagreed.
In this day of inclusiveness Sam’s brutal approach could be misconstrued as being overtly nationalistic.
Enter Lee Lin Chin, the legendary newsreader for SBS.
This is an inspired piece of casting, that brings a new face to the Australian Meat and Livestock campaign. It proves once and for all that you don’t need to be a white Australian male to enjoy a lamb chop.
Not surprisingly the latest commercial has still received a number of complaints, this time from the vegan community. They believe that the torching of the kale, by the commandos, borders on violence towards those; “…soap avoiding, hippy, vegetarians” as Sam described them in the original ad.
Good ads stand out by being controversial – this one is no different.
The sales figures also back up the success of the campaign, with butchers reporting that lamb sales skyrocket by 35% around January 26th.
Watch the Australia Day Lamb 2016 ad here.
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