Quote :

"SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia launched a new A$180 million ($133 million) advertising campaign Thursday which seeks to attract international tourists by swearing at them. "Where the bloody hell are you?" asks the new campaign launched by Australian Tourism Minister Fran Bailey. Bailey said the campaign will target potential tourists in China, Japan, India, the United States, Germany and Britain and would be rolled out in the next few weeks. It echoes the hugely successful "Put another shrimp on the barbie" tourism campaign of the 1980s, which featured singlet-wearing comedian Paul Hogan and which lured an estimated 250,000 American tourists to Australia. The new campaign, which can be seen on Tourism Australia's Web site (http://www.wherethebloodyhellareyou.com), features a series of Australian backdrops. It begins with characters saying: "We've poured you a beer and we've had the camels shampooed, we've saved you a spot on the beach ... and we've got the sharks out of the pool." A bikini-clad woman then asks: "So where the bloody hell are you?." Bailey and Prime Minister John Howard both defended the campaign against complaints about the use of the word "bloody," a mild profanity used to express annoyance. "It's a colloquialism, it's not a word that is seen quite in the same category as other words that nobody ought to use in public or on the media or in advertisements," Howard said. "I think the style of the advertisement is anything but offensive but is in fact in context and I think it's a very effective ad," he told reporters in Sydney. Howard complained last month about the decline of good manners in Australian society, blaming the drop in standards on increasing vulgarity on television. Bailey said the campaign had been tested in some of Australia's key markets and had been successful, although she gave no details. "This is presenting Australia as we are. We're plain-speaking, we're friendly. It's using the vernacular," Bailey told reporters. While the "shrimp on the barbie" campaign attracted thousands of tourists, its crassness caused many Australians to cringe. It was followed in 1995 by a A$100 million ($74 million) campaign -- then Australia's biggest single marketing and advertising campaign -- which sought to convince the world Australia also had culture. Bailey said Australia's tourism industry was worth A$73 billion and employed 500,000 Australians."

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyid=2006-02-23T141253Z_01_SYD6814_RTRUKOC_0_US-AUSTRALIA-ADS.xml

2/23/2006 3:08:52 PM

im goin

2/23/2006 3:10:18 PM

Quote :

"And Australia's like, WTF, MATE?"

2/23/2006 3:11:26 PM

I miss Australia.

Heaps.

2/23/2006 3:41:05 PM

when that bitch says where the bloody hell are you

thats sexy

2/23/2006 3:44:14 PM

bloody is far an awesome word to use

2/23/2006 3:59:21 PM

Instead of saying, "how are you doing", in Australia they say, "How are you going". Really took a while for me to get used to saying it. They also say "cheers" after everything.

2/23/2006 4:01:51 PM

^ i came back with that affliction

i'm all cheers this and cheers that

2/23/2006 5:04:47 PM

they complained about saying bloody but not about saying hell? interesting

2/23/2006 7:52:45 PM

Quote :

"It was followed in 1995 by a A$100 million ($74 million) campaign -- then Australia's biggest single marketing and advertising campaign -- which sought to convince the world Australia also had culture."

The only culture some people got is what they don't wash off their hands.

2/23/2006 7:55:25 PM

as opposed to America?

2/23/2006 9:40:22 PM

So when was everyone here in Australia?

2/24/2006 12:42:11 AM

i was gonna go to australia but then all these hasselhoff videos started circulating and i changed my vacation to vegas

2/24/2006 1:02:11 AM

Lived & worked there for a year (2000 - Sydney Olympics). It is truly the land of milk and honey.

2/24/2006 9:48:24 AM

i wanna go, i smiled at the summary of the site commercial

2/24/2006 10:02:04 AM

Jan-July 2005

I got to work with wallabies and surf.

2/24/2006 10:34:17 AM

I was there for 2004, and it seems like yesterday.

2/24/2006 5:18:10 PM