Taxpayer dollars have just been washed away
One of my favourite things about being an Aussie is our love of abbreviating pretty much everything. It’s endearing, it’s easy, it’s unique, and it’s just so ‘us’, so that when a visitor or new arrival asks where a good place for ‘Brekky’ is, that’s a win in my book.
We are the only country in the world that calls Mcdonald’s ‘Maccas; and so the clever head office overlords recognised the genius of crowd-sourced guerrilla marketing and rebranded some of their restaurants as ‘Maccas’, because why wouldn’t you?
Which brings us to what can only be described as the masterclass in ‘Marketing Fails’ by our weather peeps at the BOM.
Did I need to write the Bureau of Meteorology in full for you to know who I’m talking about?
Strictly speaking I should have, newspaper style is to write a title in full first, then abbreviate, but with a brand recognition that great, I could probably get away with saying BOM with nobody rushing for a Google translation.
Anyway, revelations emerged that could have been ripped directly from a script for Utopia, the iconic satirical comedy highlighting Government waste and ineptitude, except this was real, and cost us real taxpayer dollars, which is why it came to light because that’s what the new mob in Parliament House have vowed to do, and good on them, I say.
Anyway, after the absolutely horrendous fires, and then the equally devastating floods, you would think that the BOM would be prioritising their staffing levels and their forecasts and their warnings, which for anyone on the land or facing natural disasters or simply
waiting for rain to stop or start, need to be timely and accurate.
While this may have been happening, so too was a two-pronged exercise, the first where an agency would spend a year on re-branding the BOM at a cost of around $70,000.
Yes, you heard that right, re-brand a brand we Aussies have already affectionately termed ‘The BOM’, and can you guess what they came up with?
‘The Bureau.’
Of course, after publishing a media release to demand the groundbreaking new term be used as the
preferred title and providing the new twitter account names that would be used, rookie error.
The hapless media agency had failed to secure them prior to tweeting, allowing them to be quickly scooped up by mischievous keyboard agents of kaos, because with this level of amateur-hour incompetence, how could they not?
Days later, Minister for Environment and Water, Tanya Plibersek, discovered that as victims in NSW and Victoria faced the latest devastating floods, another consultancy contract from the
previous LNP government had brought the total of this fatuous ‘brand refresh’ fiasco to $220,296.
Since that has been publicised, the BOM has now backflipped and said we can call them BOM if we want to, quite a handy directive since their phone app is literally called ‘BOM Weather’.
But to have spent over $200 grand of taxpayer money to circumvent our affectionate, easy abbreviation?
They really don’t deserve it. Bureau of Massive Cockups?
Just focus on the forecast, BOM, and leave the branding to us.