People love to complain about TV advertisements — too many, too loud, too crude.
So how come The Gruen Transfer on ABC TV (Wednesday nights at 9pm) is rating its socks off?
You have to congratulate Andrew Denton on a great concept.
Who would have thought that a program celebrating the marketing genius behind those annoying program interruptions would actually be so appealing to so many people?
And how did he get the ABC to buy a program that is crammed with ads, marketing messages and commercial logos?
It’s possible the ABC thinks this thinly-disguised (as comedy) celebration of the advertising industry is actually a damning critique.
ABC Managing Director Mark Scott has said he believed the ABC’s ad-free (well, relatively speaking) environment was ideal for the new show: “We can enter this space because we aren’t owned by any advertiser, but the Australian people.”
Who is he kidding? And what ‘space’ is talking about? (Dear Mark, please use English).
There are no critics of advertising on this program. No advocates of more controls or higher standards. No-one arguing that advertising damages society. There are no devotees of Vance Packard (The Hidden Persuaders), Noam Chomsky (Manufacturing Consent) or Clive Hamilton (Affluenza).
Of course, Denton knows that a serious and thoughtful program about advertising would be boring. Instead he opted for a glib, faux critical approach that keeps the laughs coming.
Mark Scott doesn’t seem to have been let in on the joke.
We are modestly amused, not shocked or concerned, as the show’s panel reveals the many oh-so clever strategies and techniques they use to get us to buy their clients’ stuff.
The cynicism and amorality of advertising is very much on display. The panel discussions are littered with the same superficialities, s-xual innuendos and sexism that are used to make their ads, in the words of one panelist, “fun and interesting.”
The show’s industry representatives are never guilty of underestimating the importance of what they do. One panel regular equated the big beer ad with the JFK assassination: “everyone knows where they were when they first saw it.”
Nevertheless, ABC Managing Director Mark Scott also reckoned that advertisers would be nervous at being “carved up” on the ABC. Dear Mark, news flash, no-one is getting carved up.
It’s more likely that the advertisers who get the star treatment on The Gruen Transfer, and there’s a lot of them, will be extremely happy about getting their messages in front of a million-plus ABC viewers, for free.
Scott should watch the program and ask himself why the ABC is promoting the advertising industry.
Thank you Trevor!!
I thought I was the only one who thinks that the Gruen Transfer was not actually funny or insightful (or anything really).
The panel is made up of all those people you try and avoid at parties and the ‘insight’ into the industry is nothing new (just taken from Youtube and MediaGuardian). It’s obvious the panel members are just fed lines by Will ‘Wooden’ Anderson, so they can just regurgitate scripted quips. It just seems to me that the ABC just don’t quite get comedy. I can see so much effort that’s being put in to these panel shows but they just look so scripted and never hit the mark. Some notable exceptions to this would be the first series of The Chaser’s War (not the second series) and both Chris Lilley’s shows. Everything else just doesn’t hit the bullseye! It’s such a shame as I feel they are so close to making real comedy that has the potential to be exported and make the ABC a tidy sum in the same way BBC Worldwide works.
Keep grafting ABC, and one day it might all just fall into place!
of coarse aunty is promoting and softening viewers up that advertising is good for all of us there is no critical anaylsis its just four people trying to outsmart arse each other with their unfunny comments poq to this nonsense
I think people wouldn’t want a “Media Watch” of advertising, but by discussing the manipulation of ideas that go into advertising decision making, viewers are given a head start to critique for themselves. Anything that promotes critical thinking while not being boring is a superb achievement. (Chaser, Newstopia etc…)
It’s very funny and shows cleary how people can be conned by advertising. Surely that’s a good thing. Even a convincing campaign can be run to advocate the consumptionof whale steaks, to spare the lives of poor cattle, represented by a “spokesbull” with a cute name.
Lighten up Crikey!
Antique cynic, with a degree in Communication Studies, otherwise known as Manipulation Theory.
“coarse aunty” – oh dear!
btw: I watch the show with my kids and we enjoy the light-hearted look at the advertising game.