On January 19th, the Advertising Standards Board (ASB) announced that the new Australia Day Lamb ad campaign from Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) was ethical, and that the now infamous commercial featuring an assault on a vegan’s home would be allowed to remain on air.
To the MLA, the result was probably inconsequential. It had already done what it was meant to do: receiving 1.8 million views on Youtube alone, trending across social media, and inspiring expats around the world to share videos of them enjoying lamb in the spirit of the commercial.
By the time the ASB had concluded their investigation, it was already the most complained about ad in Australian history, beating out Ashley Madison’s ‘someone other than your wife’ campaign. The bulk of complaints focused on the violence, though many others found issue with the depiction of vegans and the lack of respect for Indigenous Australians due to the ad’s title: Operation Boomerang.
Originally airing nearly two weeks ago, the tension Operation Boomerang created is still being felt. A quick look at the video’s shares across Facebook reveal users are insulting vegans for their efforts to have the ad pulled from air (though the figures show they aren’t the main body responsible). Replies often came in the form of videos featuring animal slaughter, or arguments about the validity of Australia Day celebrations, adding fuel to what was already a raging inferno.
The MLA wanted to offend, and they did. It’s powerful marketing at a time when political correctness threatens to run rampant, and the vegan trend shows no sign of slowing down.
But how far is too far? I had a look at the online reaction to two of the more popular controversial clips from late-2015 and early-2016.
Youtube personality Nicole Arbour’s video Dear Fat People has received over 9.5 million views over the last four months, and was met with far more indignation than Operation Boomerang, including articles from Time and Salon. The video called for fat people to be ‘shamed into losing weight’, and was released at a time when Nicole was working as a choreographer on an anti-bullying film. As many predicated, Nicole admitted to staging the scandal which launched her career and has made her “thousands of dollars so far”. Two months later, she followed it up with a video called Dear Black People. It opens with Nicole justifying everything she’s about to say by introducing her ‘black friend’, who stands silent for most of the clip.
Meanwhile, in Japan, news host Gaijin Pot recently posted an announcement regarding a wearable translator. The announcement was accompanied by a video in which a man proves the device works by approaching random women and asking them to kiss him. The ad is cut in such a way to make light of the women who run from the strange man gently touching their arm as a machine around his neck tells them of his intentions. The translator was met with intrigue, but the context of the video was the primary reason it has been shared over 82,000 times in less than two weeks.
The device was created by Logbar, designers of the Logbar Ring, which Business Insider said “…might be the worst product ever made”. It came as no surprise then, that Logbar reacted to the criticism by announcing that the women in the ad were all actresses. Apparently portraying sexual abuse and then later announcing it was staged makes it fine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6ngM0LHxuU
Compared to the above, Operation Boomerang hardly seems like a drop in the ocean, but it already has media outlets and industry websites slating it as the best campaign of 2016.
Undoubtedly, it will spawn imitators, though just how many remains to be seen. Is controversy for controversy’s sake really the trend we want to see in 2016? As the ad most complained about in the history of Australian television is returned to air, should we be starting to question where the line needs to be drawn between innocuous jokes and the targeted alienation or indecent depiction of certain groups?
I don’t think Operation Boomerang crosses the line, but I do think it’s helped distinguished where the line’s drawn. Scandalous advertising certainly has its place. Ostracising people – especially at a time when equality is such a prominent issue – does not.
What are your thoughts on the Operation Boomerang, Dear Fat People, and the wearable translator? What about other controversial advertising campaigns? Let us know in the comments.