Advertising in Australia

The marketing in Australia is so overtly sexual. I attribute the absence of this in America to the high population of uber-conservatives in the bible belt beating everyone over the head with their copy of 'Going Rogue', who never like to let us have any fun. I find these advertisements and marketing strategies extremely entertaining, and they're actually quite effective. I read studies about the increased brand recognition when using more edgy forms of advertising versus their less offensive counterparts. Clearly there are definitive advantages to marketing of this sort. I wonder how the pet grooming place here called 'Heavy Petting' fares against the other pet groomers. It already has the distinct advantage of being memorable. Besides that, and one in San Francisco called "Paw-trero Hill Groomers" (it was located in Potrero Hill...God, I love puns) I can't even think of the name of a single dog groomer I've ever seen.

Last time I was in Australia, there was a very popular (and quite memorable) Eclipse gum campaign was running in the city. The ads showed up on bus stations, sides of buses and billboards. Here is one of the more popular ads...



Other taglines in this campaign include “Get some!!”, “Bring home a couple tonight!”, "Freshen up your old pick up lines!", "Clean breath, talk dirty" and another few so raunchy, that I'd rather not post here.

This all kind of resurfaced for me last night, walking around and seeing some of the names of places and marketing ploys. All of these pictures were taken within a few block radius, FYI...




These gems are for a pizza by the slice joint on Oxford street. The pizza there looks like absolute garbage, however given their creativity and the fact that they provided me with entertainment, at 3AM, I would happily patronize this place. I equate this example to giving money to a homeless guy who has some great talent or trick. Normally I probably wouldn't give a random homeless guy on the streets any money (San Francisco's abundant population of homeless people has made me pretty jaded about giving money to any of them) however if that homeless guy in question is able to provide me with some entertainment, I will happily fork over a few bucks. A good example of this is the San Francisco 'Bush Man' - A homeless guy who has made himself so famous by jumping out and scaring people, he is in several guide books.



But I digress...



Shockingly, this establishment does not sell vodka or gin.



As with before, this is NOT the kind of place you're going to find a rake or a shovel, but you will DEFINITELY be surrounded by tools...and maybe a hoe or two. HEYYYOOOO!!!!


As I mentioned before, this was in about a 3 block radius, so expect more of these to come as Sydney is quite large, and there is no shortage of 10 year old boy brained people here (myself included) who will continue to find this type of marketing incredibly entertaining and make it very likely we'll shell out cash for shitty products that we don't need. But hey man, marketing works.