The world’s in a spin

Gruen is back to make hilarious sense of 2017’s big, bizarre and brutal issues, writes Seanna Cronin

OVER the past nine years, Gruen has grown from the show with the funny name to one of the ABC’s most successful titles.

The popular panel series, which reveals the dark arts of advertising, branding and spin, returns to our screens for its ninth season – and that’s not counting Gruen’s spin-offs, Gruen Nation and Gruen Sweat.

“There have been so many different versions of the show, whether it be the original Gruen Transfer or the different ones around politics and Olympics,” host Wil Anderson says.

“What the show has really become over the last few years is all of those things encompassed in one show.

“It’s a prism through which we can look at the world now. It’s not a show about advertising but it uses advertising as a lens to explain the world.”

Gruen is a ratings juggernaut for Aunty. Last year’s season finale out-rated both The Bachelorette and The X Factor.

As the worlds of advertising and marketing have evolved over the past decade, so has the show, which was originally named The Gruen Transfer after the term for designed disorientation cues in retail environments.

“Advertising and marketing are so entwined with our lives now,” Wil says.

“The leader of the free world started his presidential campaign as a branding campaign.

“Ads on your phone know more about you than you know about yourself. I think our show is more relevant today than it ever has been.”

Wil and regular panellists Todd Sampson and Russel Howcroft have become known for their witty banter and insider knowledge.

“You don’t just work on the show while you’re working on the show,” Wil says.

“No matter what else I’m doing, if there’s something in the paper or I’m at some function and I hear people talking about something then these things go into a file you keep. We all come into meetings with dozens of ideas.”

Wil says the team isn’t afraid to chop and change segments – as long as the panel discussion remains at the core of the show.

“This season you might see less clutter in the show and more room for our experts to be experts,” he says.

The Pitch, where two firms create fictitious ads based on a timely but bogus brief, is here to stay and Wil says the season kicks off with a whopper.

“The first one is a campaign to get North Korea to not aim their bombs at us,” he says.

While the threat of nuclear war is frightening, it’s great fodder for Gruen.

“When you look at it through the prism of marketing, it’s a multibillion-dollar industry,” Wil says.

“The big things you fight wars with have to come from somewhere – that means they’re being sold. How do you buy one over the other? Once you start looking at the world through that Gruen prism it’s hard to stop.”