Not all publicity is good publicity

ACCORDING to Dr Google, it was famous American showman PT Barnum who said: “I don’t care what people are saying about me, as long as they’re saying something.”

This notion that any conversation about you or your product, or your celebrity, is good advertising has been rehashed throughout the 20th century.

This was the period that gave us mass advertising; the century that created celebrity. Of course the Barnum banter is bunkum.

Bad publicity is not good.

Only in marketing land can this spin be true.

In reality, if your product gets too much bad publicity it loses trust and credibility, and you end up having to remove it from the shelves.

In an era of cancel culture we know that only rusted-on poetic hype-shysters can convince themselves that “there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about”.

Just ask Christine Holgate. When it comes to taxpayer dollars you have to spend them wisely; and when it comes to public messaging, 2020 proved that governments have to spend our money wisely.

You have to be clear and transparent. You cannot rely on design. If you want to change behaviour, the words matter more than the image.

They must be out there in multiple languages and, most importantly of all, the government department responsible for the campaign has to be 100 per cent convinced about exactly how it needs the change to appear.

If you’re not certain about the messaging, you end up with confusion. A messaging milkshake.

So, let’s talk about the milkshake video.

If you don’t know what these videos are, go to Dr Google and type in “milkshake consent video”.

There you will see a series of news stories about video content that was produced for the consumption of teenagers through schools, via a portal called The Good Society.

This is a teacher-student resource to discuss “consent”.

The video features young people talking about milkshakes and asking if one can try the other and … Look, you don’t need me to try to explain those six minutes of taxpayer-funded content.

It is out there on multiple platforms but if you try to find it in the forum that it was launched, forget it. This video was removed within days of being released by the federal authorities who commissioned it.

State education ministers (Labor and Liberal) have condemned the feds for this disaster. In Victoria, James Merlino described it as “cringeworthy” and in NSW, Education Minister Sarah Mitchell went with “woeful”.

The federal Department of Education, Skills and Employment has tried to justify its decision to release the video by saying “community members, teachers and school leaders were also consulted to ensure the content was engaging for students and consistent with community standards”.

But this is a nothing statement. “Consultation” means less than the breath it takes to form the word. “Consultation” is the branding used when they know they are responsible for something so beyond parody that they want to share the blame with others.

It is clear there has been no “codesign” with “key stakeholders”.

If the TAC had used the same advertising strategy, we would be facing a road toll that was out of this world.

If the Department of Education, Skills and Employment wants to talk about consent, why is it talking about milkshakes?

Taxpayers’ money has been thrown at this content but nobody in government will be held to account.

The PM will not march into the House and thunder: “Well, Stuart Robert and Alan Tudge can go!”

It’s a lot more than a few Cartier watches, but nobody will be stood aside for empathy training.

Behavioural change in our community does not appear out of thin air. It takes more than a pastel backdrop and exaggerated comedy to make people think twice about the choices we make and the lives that we lead.

The shame of this situation is that the discussion has been hijacked by marketing ineptitude.

The story of how bad this video was, was not the conversation that the video was designed to create.

It was not good. It was just bad. Ross Mueller is a freelance writer and director.

IT IS CLEAR THERE HAS BEEN NO “CO-DESIGN” WITH “KEY STAKEHOLDERS”. IF THE TAC HAD USED THE SAME ADVERTISING STRATEGY, WE WOULD BE FACING A ROAD TOLL THAT WAS OUT OF THIS WORLD.