Qantas advert. upsets Australians

Press, 30 March 1989, Page 6

Qantas advert. upsets Australians

JOHN CALLAN

of NZPA Sydney A television advertisement Qantas is screening in the United States has upset Australians because it praises New Zealand and pokes fun at Australia. The commercial delivers a wry putdown to Australia in promoting the airline’s new Auckland-Los Angeles service. The script goes: “Here’s a place for your next vacation... “Nice scenery, beautiful mountains, lots of friendly people, and best of all it’s New

Zealand and not Australia.” The chairman of the Federal Opposition’s tourism policy committee, Mr David Jull, is not happy about what he sees as “bad mouthing” of Australia. “This is a disgrace,” he said. However, a Qantas public affairs spokesman, Mr David McLachlan, said the advertisement had to be seen as the continuation of a marketing theme the airline had been using in the United States since the 19705.

“For the past 25 years we’ve been using a grumpy koala complaining about things like crowds of American tourists flying to Australia and keeping koalas awake with

their clicking cameras,” Mr McLachlan said.

“The campaign has worked extremely well with Americans who see Qantas and koalas as the same thing. They think the ad is really cute.”

The commercial was one of several Qantas was running on American networks at present, as part of the airline’s annual advertising budget of $270 million. “It’s a bit of a storm in a tea cup really. We promote Australia as a destination too, but we have other services which we like people to know about,” Mr McLachlan said.