Australia's tourism ad restricted for "bloody" in UK

The end of last month we reported on Australia's new tourism campaign featuring the tagline, "Where the bloody hell are you?". Now the UK's Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre has restricted the ad.

"How anyone can take offence at a beautiful girl in a bikini on a sunny beach inviting them to visit Down Under is a mystery to me," Federal Tourism Minister Fran Bailey said.
Tourism Australia managing director Scott Morrison said the ban, which applied only to the use of the word "bloody" on commercial television, was "a marketer's dream."
"We would have preferred the ad to run the way we first made it, but we can still run it the way it is cut now, which says 'Where the hell are you?'," Mr Morrison said. "It is not as if it is not going to be shown on UK television. It will be shown. It will just have that slight adjustment to it. It will be run in its original format on the internet, in cinemas and everywhere else."

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AnonymousCoward

- March 9, 2006 - 21:59

Many Australians have taken umbrage over the banning of the Australian Tourism ad featuring the word "Bloody", by the censors in Britain it was announced here on TV news tonight.
Bloody is seen as a genuine Australian colloquialism and part of the national character here and not to be edited out by a lot of under educated poms.
If they don't want to come tell them to bugger off, was the opinion voiced on TV here.
Others think it will only serve to drive the message home further as freedom of speech is permitted in Australia but not apparently in England.
Anyway why bother, it's cheaper to go to Bloody Spain.

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caffeinegoddess

- March 10, 2006 - 15:53

Chatter about this over at Mefi. In the comments, Mefi user languagehat gives some background on the word "bloody."

Also it seems that the Tourism Australia chairman Tim Fischer is hoping for an appeal on the ruling.

Tourism Australia was warned months ago the ads would breach a list of words that can not be used in ads in Britain.
Jess Huth, who worked on the Tourism Australia account for M&C Saatchi in London, said it always believed the ad would be banned.

But she said Tourism Australia was determined to press ahead with the campaign and did not consider an alternative wording to "bloody".

"Everyone thought it's very likely it wouldn't get through but it's something they wanted to try and thought maybe they could argue the case," Ms Huth said.

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