Wondering what overseas visitors will make of Australian Tourism's new ad - www.sowherethebloodyhellareyou.com

Queensland Prime Minister, Peter Beattie thinks its fine for Australian audiences but won't translate overseas.

sorry, that should be www.wherethebloodyhellareyou.com

Duh, can't get this right at all, Peter Beattie is Queensland's Premier, not Prime Minister.

I LOVE IT!!!! It's a very clever ad campaign. It makes me wish I could hop on a plane and go back to Australia right now!

What's to "translate", exactly?

Hi Pat, as a Canadian I think it was great, especially after the wettest January ever. The 'bloody hell' may offend a few people over the age of 80 but I doubt thats the target population.

I love it, and I think most other Americans will too.
Liz

Neil, I think Peter Beattie felt it would be tricky to translate for Asian and European markets, he wasn't objecting to the "bloody hell" bit for use in Australia; he hardly could after being sprung for using far more colourful language in public just the other day.

It sure makes me want to come back!!!

Pat, some people worried that it would either bemuse or offend North Americans, so I jumped to the conclusion that this was Beattie's theme. Rubbish, I thought. For a start, surely any ads placed in Asia (except perhaps the Subcontinent and Singapore) and continental Europe will by in the target country's language, which won't have a direct translation of "bloody hell" anyway.

weasel, I think you're right. An article I read reported that the Australian Tourist Commission has now segmented the market by "psychographics" rather than nationality. The horizontal slice they're targeting with these ads are people whose tastes and desires are similar irrespective of nationality. They're active, experienced independent travellers who like to engage with the local culture of the host country. The ad agency is the same one that came up with NZ's last successful campaign.

Pat, is Beattie the guy who won't pop for a rebuilt Tully River Crossing?

A/D

Bloody dunno where you are Pat and I dunno where I am as there is a fog as thick as pea soup here and I am freezing cold!
Anyway wern't we gonna pop Beatie'just çause he is stupid?

Beattie is a populist in the grand Queensland tradition. He also has the great advantage of having a turkey farm on the other side of the House.

Yep, Andrew, that's the turkey, but he's only a State Premier. But then we had a Labor Prime Minister who sold his loss-making pig farm to Indonesian interests for a very good profit.

Most Queenslanders I know haven't much time for Beattie, but have even less for Springborg or that bloke who looks like a budgerigar!

So, Pat, if most Queenslanders you know don't have much time for Peter Beattie, how come he keeps getting elected?

As for the ad - it's sort of clever - can't imagine it would offend "Europeans", especially the British, from whom the expression probably came in the first place.

The "Bible Belt" Americans? well, maybe, but that's their problem - they are so out of kilter they might as well be living on a different planet. Powerful and dangerous group, though.

Because, fuzzylogic, Beattie keeps getting elected because he's a better choice than the opposition. No kudos to him, look at the choices.

Great advert for Australia.Enjoyed it !!
However:
I am deeply offended that there were no free plane tickets for me to get back as quickly as I would like...




Muck

I don't know Pat, I reckon that if Mr Springborg had some PR people to work on him I reckon he would clean up really well. At last he can articulate the Queen's English somewhat better than Beattie and I think that Springborg actually had an education as well. As for poor old Quinn, I think that he is made for being a candidate on one of those fantastic makeover shows. Beattie just needs to go back to doing what he should have always continued doing and that was pointing speeding guns at unsuspecting motorists, running a State and trying to keep his Members in line is not working one little bit. However I guess he could always resort to getting some pseudo Ministers in the Parliament from wherever they got Dr Death from.
Thinking of running myself for the seat of Gaven where the local member got tossed out çause he went to Thailand to get a knee replacement and decided to stay there when he was supposed to be working! Just shows how much faith the Labour Party has in their very own understaffed hospitals when they themselves go overseas for operations! I think that it would have been much better to see one of their own wait around for as long as it takes everyone else to get treatment.
What is good for the goose is good for the gander or so they say!

Peter Beattie isn't educated, Liz? Don't a BA, LLB and MA count as education any more? His opponent Springborg is by comparison a high-school dropout. That doesn't worry me in itself, but we may as well get the facts right.

"His opponent Springborg is by comparison a high-school dropout" - that was ambiguously worded - he really is a HS dropout. To quote Seinfeld, "not that there's anything wrong with that".