Vote now for Confidence in W.A.
In what can only be described as a truly unique collaboration, the key players in W.A’s media and advertising community have joined forces in an effort to lift consumer confidence across the state.
The goal is simple: to spread the word about all things good happening in the West and restore some of the consumer confidence that keeps everyone in high spirits.
A huge range of material has been produced for the campaign by 303, Marketforce and The Brand Agency, to run across press, radio, television and outdoor.
The Vote Confidence campaign commenced with a series of 5 and 10-second tvc’s and supporting press ads teasing the launch of the official voteconfidence.com.au website.
On Sunday night all was revealed in a stirring 90-second television spot that aired simultaneously as a road block across participating networks. The Case For Confidence was articulated in an accompanying full-page press ad and will continue to be supported across all media over the next two weeks via a series of evidencing messages.
Stage three of the campaign will be an official announcement of theelection result and the organisers are very confident that it will be a positiveone.
The campaign is an initiative of the Glass Half Full Committee, whichincludes radio stations 96fm & 6PR, Mix 94.5 & 92.9 and Nova93.7; television stations Channel 7, Channel 9, Channel 10, GWN andWIN; Community Newspaper Group, Rural Press, The Sunday Times and The WestAustralian; Adshel outdoor media; and agencies Marketforce,303 and The Brand Agency.
“It’s been a mammoth effort and the way that everybody involved hascome together for the cause has been fantastic,” said Marketforcecreative director Andrew Tinning.
“The creative teams from 303 and TheBrand Agency have been great to work with and the support that we havereceived from the local production industry has been awesome. On behalfof the committee, I would like to thank Adstream; Brainestorm; DiscusDigital Print; Double G; Jenny Cohen Casting; Location Equipment; MickMcDermott – Director of Photography; Mills Wilson CommunicationsConsultants; Red Bee Media Australia; Thom Perry Photography and ZZProductions. Without their generosity and willingness to pitch-in, thiscampaign would never have seen the light of day.”
Watch the TVCs and cast your vote at www.voteconfidence.com.au now
Radio spots:
Credits
Print: David Donald and James Wills, The Brand Agency
Radio: Mike Sequeira and Mark Fretten, 303
Television: Andrew Tinning, Marketforce
Production: Danielle Glenister, The Brand Agency
Website: Josh Bernard, Mike Nicholas and Brendan Lewis, Marketforce Digital
Account Service: Brendan Lewis, Marketforce; Alan Taylor and Jenna Hardie, 303; Colin Mackay-Coghill, The Brand Agency
PR: Marie Mills and Susan Bell, Mills Wilson
45 Comments
What utter West Australian crap – no matter what amount of clicks or sign ups you get with this campaign, you can’t help the fact that WA is part of the Australian economy and that ‘our’ being the countries economy is part of the worlds.
There is a lot of ‘free time’, be it agency or media that could have been spent on charities with real need rather then on a back slapping feel good exercise.
Were any of the people involved with this campaign hurt in their own back pockets as a result of the economic crisis?
This is so crap I can’t help but ramble – confusing consumer confidence with the emotion is packed full of insensitivity – people out there please don’t feel bad for not buying a house if you still can’t afford one, don’t feel bad if you are still un-employed and don’t rack up credit card bills on consumer goods if you can’t afford them. We all know to well that confidence doesn’t pay the bills.
Isn’t it a little counter productive to reveal who ordered this campaign? The first paragraph of the story might have well as read, ‘In what can only be described as a truly unique collaboration, people with a vested interest have joined forces in an effort to lift consumer confidence across the state’.
HA HA HA HA HAH AH AH AH AHAH AHAHHAHAHAHAHAH
The economic crisis being tackled by those directly affected by reduced revenue in media sales. wow.
The promotion of spending without responsibility got us all in this mess in the first place. CONSUMERISM MUST DIE!!!
Truly hilarious and scary at the same time.
Wow. There’s never been a better time to stoop even lower as an industry. I might vote earth but i’m not voting for confidence: I’ll save my money or spend it wisely which is what you all should be doing.
Vote keep your jobs more likely!
9.19, I couldn’t agree more.
This is self-serving crap of the worst kind, makes me embarrassed to be from WA.
Imagine what you could have achieved if you put all that time, money and resources towards a worthy cause, like say, I dunno, sick kids.
Terrible, terrible stuff.
9.19-So did you vote yes?
Makes me want to poke out my eyes and rip off my ears so I don’t have to see or hear it. What an embarrassment. Big Brother (the Orwell’s version not 10’s) would be proud. The Smiley Man says, “I order you to be happy”.
God help us.
Traditional media companies team with traditional agencies – the band is playing as the Titanic sinks. Thank you for making the end of an era so succinctly. Woman and children first.
this is such bullshit. i wouldnt trust the majority of the people on the committee for a start…vote of confidence that you’re going to be made redundant, vote of confidence that you’re comparing the size of your ‘manhood’ more like it. serious, this is embarrassing.
I know he was only the spokesperson but I had to laugh whilst listening to JD on the radio the other day.
‘Vote confidence’ – as he was pushing the next person out of his front door.
What a scream!
Wow, the number of people whom have been made redundant from those media companies and ad agencies would be sufficient enough to open another big agency and then they can produce an anti-voteconfidence campaign and then win over their clients.
What a monumental waste of time and money. The reality is this may undo any current positive perceptions due to the public’s completely normal aversion to spin – if you’ve gotta tell me it’s ‘all good’ then surely the reality is ‘it’s all bad’.
(And by the way, that’s the wrongest looking ‘worm’ I’ve ever seen!)
Lot of negative sentiment on this post. Bit unfair when it was put together by the leading creative houses that Perth has to offer.
Oh please 7:17.
It’s the medium and the message that are all a bit wrong. Someone got conned.
That Half a Glass is certainly Full.
@717. What are you talking about? Your comment makes no sense. Are you suggesting we shouldn’t (rightly) criticise this load of dross because it was put together by Perth’s “leading creative houses”.
What are you smoking?
7:17 See you at church on Sunday.
Oh no. Please tell me you’re joking – you’re in on that terrible vote for confidence campaign? Please enlighten me – what is the motivation of all these radio stations and tv channels (NB the commonly accepted less intelligent stations well known for their biased reporting) to collude and present to us selected statistics which don’t show the whole picture?
This campaign disgusts me! It is patronising to those of us who the economic crisis has affected in a severely adverse way! I have lost my job and my home, and this bulldung about being confident is getting rubbed in my nose on every possible occassion. And worst of all it is presenting lies.
All involved with this campaign should be disgusted with themselves for promoting lies to the general public.
This is a generic ad to promote blatant consumerism, whatever the cost. Its the people with money trying to con us to spend, spend, spend, to make them richer.
I hope the real people in WA, will not be conned. Its a pity the money used wasn’t put to a better cause, like all the homeless people living with confidence in the cold!
I have no idea what this campaign is all about, apart from all the advertising and media companies in Perth giving each other reacharounds.
This should not of seen the light of day. I feel sorry for all the suppliers who got conned into doing this. So the media companies are hurting, boo hoo.
Good to see the WA editorial policy is to only put through the negative comments. Clearly CB is part of the glass half empty committee. Look forward to reading all the column inches you devote to job losses shortly. And to all the negative posters… if you are industry hang your heads in shame; this campaign is simply making manifest what you spend your every working day doing in encouraging profligacy.
Wonder if a pre-emptive campaign like this in the UK would have helped save (ex WA creatives) Levi and Dave’s jobs at Saatchi London? Something the far less talented anonymous naysayers on here might like to ponder.
wow there are a lot of angry people out there! It seems people have a problem with the principle behind this campaign which is fair enough given that it sounds like most of the posters are victims of the downturn. I’m sure that the agencies and media involved actually went into this with good intentions and that it is not some evil alliance as some are suggesting. At the end of the day it must have been a tough brief for all who participated and as someone who doesn’t hail from agency land I actually thought the ads were really funny and that the out take was very positive.
It would be interesting to see what the public reaction has been.
I like it.
I probably would have expressed it in a different way – made more of the Glass Half Full Society name, sounds more intriguing than simply Confidence, which feels a bit too close to the strategy – but overall it’s a big idea and an interesting story. Nice job to all involved for making something this unusual happen.
10.26 – the problem is, is that this campaign is patronising to everyone who HAS been affected – essentially they are minimising the pain we have been through and saying it’s not all that bad. You try to find a job right now. Also, many people I know are angry because this campaign is blatantly ignoring the statistics that unemployment is a massive issue right now – and not getting better. If you want to make people feel better, first acknowledge that they are going through tough times, don’t dismiss their pain.
But I’m sure people in marketing know this. They just want us to $pend $pend $pend.
As for you, 6.40 – I love your argument. Oh if it (that is, a campaign encouraging millions of WA’s who are already in debt to further do so) saves two peoples jobs who are “more talented” than us plebeians, then it’s worth it? Not pretentious at all are we? Shame.
Why do some here think that all the naysayers are ‘victims’ of the downturn?
I am doing very well thanks, but still think that this is an embarrasing pile of ill-considered crap concieved by old-model agencies for even older-model media. I can imagine the ammount of mutual ass kissing that was going on during the creation of this shit. Hope the production companies were paid properly and not expected to do the old ‘help us out’ bs.
I think the reasons to hate it expressed here are far better reasoned than anything supporting it.
My favour comment so far is the one accusing CB of just choosing the unsupportive comments – I trust this person hasn’t read the ‘news’ section of the crazy happy man site.
Isn’t it just the Lamb tv without the irony?
I really like what Tom Moult had to say a while back about the ‘looming’ economic crisis… something along the lines of the news outlets that sensationalised it, even caused it are now feeling the pinch because advertisers go ‘oh, it’s a recession… lets cut back on ad spend’.
Why the hell should we reward them?
They brought it upon themselves, lets find new channels to peddle our wares.
7.17 says.
Perhaps the brief should have been sent to Host then…
7.46pm
“As for you, 6.40 – I love your argument. Oh if it (that is, a campaign encouraging millions of WA’s who are already in debt to further do so) saves two peoples jobs who are “more talented” than us plebeians, then it’s worth it? Not pretentious at all are we? Shame.”
Mate, you are SERIOUSLY in the wrong profession.
TIMELINE
Panic sets in as advertising revenue decreases.
Brainwave – Hey, we can advertise for free! Let’s do something about it!
Objective: Raise the consumer confidence index so advertisers book more.
Idea: Smiley face political guy tells everyone how great things are. They’ll believe that.
Result: Cynicism from colleagues / Oops. We’re too late / One Big Mistake.
For a start, this campaign is not pre-emptive. Consumer confidence is already rising, interest rates are steady and will probably increase, unemployment is still increasing, but the share market has been rallying since March and people are spending their stimulus package rather than saving it.
Secondly, no matter how touchy feely you want to get, this campaign has been put together by some of the doomsayers who help spread bad tidings front page after front page, so it really is a little hard to take seriously.
Thirdly, the motivation of the campaign is to increase spend on media via an increase in consumer spending. It is transparently self motivated.
The advertising industry is an industry of selling. We sell products, services, ideas, politics, messages and attitudes. To mix up what looks like a social marketing campaign with blatant consumerism is pretty crude. To listen to the media tell us things are fabulous and go and spend more is a big ask.
At least it makes you laugh…… but slightly worrying that the ‘award winning’ (if thats what they are) creatives who came up with this couldn’t have found some better vision or at least a real lollipop man?
Advertisers are the last people that should be trying to manipulate the economy. Advertisers and Media outlets shouldn’t be trying to play economic God and dictate the way the economy flows, its so dangerous that it could cause a worse collapse than before.
We never had a recession like the rest of the world and in case you Yes voters never studied Economics you need a slight downturn to steady average wage vs average costs. For example house prices are still 4-5 times the average wage.. in a normal economy they should be 2-3 times. That is just one small example that is coincidently left out of their website and campaign.
And when you go on the website to vote no your hit with a response saying “NO. I BELIEVE THAT THIS GREAT STATE OF OURS IS IN A HOPELESS STATE AND THAT THE FUTURE’S SO BLEAK I’M OFF TO GET FOG LIGHTS FITTED TO MY CAR” ummmmmmm wtf? Don’t put words in my mouth, I think no because you haven’t proved your point and its coming from a very bias committee.
Its a campaign to keep the rich, rich and the poor, poor… I think your average West Australian should pick up on that, or you’d like to think so.
Also why would companies want to support this? All its going to do is inflate their media costs.. because if it is a positive yes vote, what will happen?
Will we have all the reps coming around saying look at the confidence figures we can’t discount you as much or we have so little availability that we can’t discount you as much.
If you are truly in this industry for the right reasons (to help the client) you would vote no. If your in the industry to make profits and only care about job security then you my friend are in the wrong profession, you belong in politics so you can take your same contrived, bias, internal, ideologies and ban late night shopping.
Hmm, wastefully put unused resources to work in on a campaign which will make no positive impact for their own industry or others… is the entire world void of economic common sense? If you are not making ads or getting ad revenue due to a down turn in the economy, the way forward is to stop wasting resources in that area, so they will be allocated to an area where they will be productive, not engage the industry in actions that bring no return. Further more, if this ‘campaign’ was able to convince some people to stretch credit even further, it is only delaying or making an inevitable downturn worse. The way for these industries to TRULY help the economy is to become better and more efficient marketers for WA business.
7.17
Courtney, now thats creative, think I might buy something while Im here.
OMG! Honestly, no wonder so many locals are hammering this piece of twaddle.
It is just so cringeworthy.
I wonder if they paid to use the smiley face icon? It is owned after all.
A pathetic piece of poorly conceived and executed propaganda.
http://www.forbes.com/2006/05/08/walmart-smiley-trademark-cx_po_0508autofacescan08.html
Apart from being confusing and self-serving, the idea and execution are horrible! If this is what the best creatives in Perth came up with, then maybe we should go overseas from now on. Its like they hired a team of students from TAFE to put this together (no offense to TAFE students, but I did go to TAFE, so I’m speaking from experience). And did anyone get permission to use the smiley face from Smiley World? It IS a trademarked symbol, you know?
this advert is so tacky and really doesnt make any sense to me? What are they pitching for or selling? Time to tackle some real issues about people and the environment not waste money on stupid smily faces!
If this is an indication of WA thinking perhaps they should secede after all and not embarrass the rest of the nation
What utter crap! Mind brainwashing selfish self serving inhumane arseholes who created this thing to make nieve people believe everything is great so they go spend and even if it means things dont go so great and we end up in a depression. Thats ok these new people who thought everything was great and confident coz of these selfish mob will suffer if the worst happens….
Well done you selfish crims.
What i cant believe is here i am unemployed. Dead Broke Facing bankruptcy. Almost homeless. Cancer treatment. Depression. Breakup with girlfriend. WOW i feel real confident in my future at the age of just 38!!!!!
Tafe students…. LOL.
I first of would NOT have come up with “confident campaign” AND most definetly NOT a smiley face! AND NOT a young mans voice over, that smells of brainwashing and belittling.
Some advise to Perths best creative minds! HIRE SOME NOT SO HAPPY PEOPLE TO BE EMPLOYED IN THE INDUSTRY. SOME DEPRESSIVES… THEN YOU MAY GET A BALANCE IN THINKING.
Better approach would be a more subtle campaign.
One positive to come out of this is my faith in the public. I love all these negative comments. Makes me feel warm like people arnt all stupid like i thought.
Ok….these comments are biased toward dumb in the down side as yes i am sleep deprived. Maybe more antidepressants and id like the commercial. ahaha
Why so negative everyone?
I think its great, for those who are naive and buy into it, well they get to feel a little bit better about their state in these tough times.
And the rest of us that see through it? Well we get to have a laugh at it.
When there are so many completely obvious ads already telling us to buy buy buy, what is really so wrong about one giving people faith in our state?
Even though I understand and empathise with some of the comments above, I’m surprised by the level of negativity this attracted.
After all, the basic idea is not completely stupid. Economic downturns are caused by a crisis of confidence (and greed too – I’ll pay that). So, if we boost confidence, maybe we can help end the downturn?
It’s not rocket science but, hey, it might just work…
So I just wonder a couple of things.
1) Some of the comments above are pretty personal and make some harsh assessments of the people involved – is that based on any actual first-hand knowledge? Because my experience of most of these people is quite different.
2) All those people who hate this so much – what incredibly smart, positive, credible alternative are they willing to put forward?