This ad for Betta Electrical is causing a bit of an uproar here in Australia. Church Groups have claimed the ad by Sydney agency De Pasquale is "tacky and offensive". Still waiting on what the Rabbi and Mullah think of it, although I suspect their respective versions of the ad would have been slightly different, but let's not go there.
Personally I'm outraged at the Church Groups outrage. These groups have a monopoly on hang-over prime time TV from 2.30am-5.30am each night and a 24/7 cable television channel in which to pimp their beliefs. Outrage is coming home at 2.30 in the morning after a night on the piss and the only thing on the box is wall-to-wall TV evangelists like Benny Hinn's 'Miracle Crusades' or phone sex ads. Give me the phone sex ads any day, they make more sense and I reckon a few of those girls are miracle workers too in their own special way...
Anyway, enough ranting. Here's the ad :
A spokesperson for Betta has suggested the ad may be pulled if "community outrage grew". We'll it's on the interweb now, so unless the Church Groups have a Simon Wiesenthal type character that can track down and remove religiously offensive virals, then this half-arsed attempt at censorship has failed.
Catholic Archbishop of Sydney Cardinal George Pell said "The advertisement is interesting because it shows how commercialised Christmas has become,"
Indeed it has Archbishop, and it seems the ad is working.
Cardinal Pell is presented with a High Definition Plasma TV
I love this new campaign from CP+B. The guy in the white shirt at the end is the closest they came to a punch in the face. He looked like a kid at Christmas when he finally got what he wanted.
