The Gruen Transfer, on banning religion.
The Gruen Transfer is a comedy show on Australian ABC TV. A regular part of the show is the ‘Pitch’ segment where two advertising agencies are pitted against each other and challenged with selling the contentious ideas. The big worry with some of the subject matter is the possibility of the government seeing it and thinking it’s a great idea. This though, is a worry with all satire.
In this segment a campaign for banning religion was proposed. The idea of banning religion is just as silly as making it compulsory, but some of the points made here are rather telling. In the second segment there is a shot of the Twin Towers burning alongside the words, “The message gets twisted,” so perhaps the author might do well to avoid standing close to anyone wearing a coat with the DuPont logo on it.
For me the most telling thing was that they had agencies decline to give it a go for the first time. It's almost as if they think that some religious types are a bit thin skinned about it and prone to fly off the handle, but that'd be silly.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't sure that this was not part of the comedy routine, but its worth mentioning. Most people are able to laugh at themselves and take a joke, even though in this day and age the correct thing to do is be offended.
ReplyDeleteI imagine a few will be pissed off but probably not enough to have much of a commercial effect. It is probably more that the companies involved were so PC whipped they are afraid to do anything.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteWe're from Loud and Clear, the creative agency in Melbourne who produced the first ad.
Thanks for featuring our work on your site!
No worries, I liked both angles used, but yours was a great ad.
ReplyDelete