25 January 2010

Things have changed - Finally explained

| johnboy
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[First filed: Jan 24, 2010 @ 17:35]

There has been a lot of interest around town as to the whys and wherefores of the “Things Have Changed” ads running on late night TV promoting the sides of Canberra normally only recorded here on RiotACT.

AlexCoble has come to the party, youtubing it, and posting this explanation:

#11
alexcoble
(Newbie)
14:43, 24 Jan 10

Hi everyone, I’m a first timer to RiotAct – my friend sent me this link as I was part of the team to actually create the “Things have Changed” ad. I have now uploaded it to YouTube;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFug5nM5LqE

A local woman by the name of Wendy Breakwell wanted to appeal to the 18-25 year old market with this ad, making Canberra look more urban and grungy. The ad was created by Neon Productions and Cre8ive. We worked on it over the course of a year while Wendy was trying to get the campaign noticed. She has put it up on Go! and wants it to eventually become a nation wide campaign for Canberra. The version on YouTube is a previous one with the shots of “brodburger van”and the “number plate”, as these were only added recently by an outside source.

To contact the team who produced the ad, please email coblealex@gmail.com

I am now involved in a company called LightShadow Studios as well as DV Australia who can supply filming, editing, photography, animation, training, graphic design and web design.

Thanks

Alex

So there we go.

The Things Have Changed Ad

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A friend of mine down Gippsland way tells me that they have been getting bombarded with this ad on the local commercial channels lately.

First time I’ve seen this. Great clip – but then I like Bob Dylan. And nary a public servant (in work garb)in sight.

Rawhide Kid No 22:09 pm 28 Jan 10

Holden Caulfield said :

Well I still haven’t seen it. zazoo would you mind putting it back on YouTube please.

Saw it on GO last night.

Golden-Alpine said :

The video has now been removed by the user. Why?

Could it ba a Copywrite thing?

Holden Caulfield10:22 am 28 Jan 10

Well I still haven’t seen it. zazoo would you mind putting it back on YouTube please.

A few things:
Definition of fame? Dominating the conversation when you’re not even there. No surprises here, people are talking about the ad and this city. Seems to me people are thinking. Has Canberra changed? Does it have soul? Maybe it has and maybe it hasn’t but this is making people think and clearly someone has enough belief in this place to put their money where their mouth(and ideas) are. Do you?
This is beyond ‘See Yourself in Canberra’. This is not about making people come here – you’ve missed the point entirely if you think that – it’s as much for the people who are here already. The thing this ad is selling is ‘thought’.
It never ceases to amaze me how these things draw out the nay-sayers. ‘Looks like a bunch of criminals put it together?’ Gotta love the armchair experts – well shit mate, you do better! You can sit in your loungerooms and whinge about the price of parking or when your bus is late or if it’s ‘pay week’ or you can do something to make a difference. Open a red burger van, take your llama for a drive. My neighbor walks their sheep on a pink leash – what do you do? If you hate the place (and hate really is a strong word) then move!! Life isn’t about sitting around waiting for opportunity to present itself to you on a silver platter.
Put up, shut up or get out there and make a difference.
I loved the ad.

Gungahlin Al3:36 pm 27 Jan 10

damien haas said :

Al, it irritated me as well, so i googled. This is what i found.

http://ourguide.com.au/WebPages/ACT_Canberra.html

Sure Damien. But I put systems on standby in my home to reduce energy consumption. Plus I pay for the Canberra Times (yeah I know – stop laughing), which is meant to include a TV Guide, which by definition, should include all available stations.

So to anyone from CT who may read this: I’ve taken to grabbing copies of the Sydney paper from the gym because it has a full tv guide. I would presume others have also gone to other sources. This of course means I can throw yours out unviewed – not good for those businesses paying to advertise in your guide is it?

GardeningGirl2:59 pm 27 Jan 10

vandam said :

I think it makes Canberra look thug like and can’t believe something like this has made it to TV. The last thing we want in this city are people on skate boards flying around the city and little punks that have no respect for anyone.

My parents, visiting from interstate, were almost knocked over in a shopping centre once, not an isolated incident from what I’ve seen. That aspect of the ad bothers me too. Is “urban and grungy”, ie the worst of big city life, really the thing we’re aspiring to?

H1NG0 said :

Wow, you guys have a lot to whinge about don’t you? Someone forks out some money to try and promote Canberra and all we can do is slam it. Nice work.

It could have been done better and cheaper. If no government money went into it then we can’t really complain too hard, but it’s all just a bit try hardy.

Wow, you guys have a lot to whinge about don’t you? Someone forks out some money to try and promote Canberra and all we can do is slam it. Nice work.

To be honest the first time I saw the ad, I thought they’d got together a bunch of petty criminals to put the thing together.

I think it makes Canberra look thug like and can’t believe something like this has made it to TV. The last thing we want in this city are people on skate boards flying around the city and little punks that have no respect for anyone.

I think the ad is a waste of money. I hope the taxpayers (ie me) are not paying for this. We can do much better.

Al, it irritated me as well, so i googled. This is what i found.

http://ourguide.com.au/WebPages/ACT_Canberra.html

Gungahlin Al10:26 am 26 Jan 10

Oh and it seems the clip has been pulled from Youtube.

Gungahlin Al10:26 am 26 Jan 10

I kind of liked it. Was very low key, which would be why many would have missed it.

Or perhaps lots haven’t yet discovered Go yet, seeing as how the bloody Canberra Times doesn’t believe any of us want to know what is on it or 7-2, but are happy to have programming for One’s endless American sports repeats…and of course pay pay pay TV.

Golden-Alpine9:55 am 26 Jan 10

The video has now been removed by the user. Why?

Thing have changed…except Canberra’s design studios. They’re still stuck in the 80’s it seems.Got to feel for those underpaid grads who worked weekends for low pay at Cre8ive/Neon Prod. on this horror of an ad.

They must have shot the nightspot shots an hour before the ‘OMG…My first beer!’ crowd got there and vomited, started fights, p1ssed in alleys or got beaten up by overzealous security/cops.

Also, France has Parkour. Go there. It’s better.

Over the new year break I saw this ad played numerous times across three different states – NSW, VIC and SA. While ads on Go! are no doubt cheaper than the original free-to-air channels, such repetition must be costing someone a bit of cash.

As a music video clip, it’s ok. As an ad, I find it pointless.

I love Canberra, and fall in the target age range. But this ad captures very little that I like about Canberra. Since when have 18-25 year olds all loved parkour and skateboarding and walking around dark streets? It’s such a silly stereotype.

Tourism ads work best when they promote the things that are unique or attractive to a city. Of all the great things Canberra has, all the great institutions and events from the cultural to the bogan, this ad has none of those things.

These ads will not make one person come to Canberra. Unless there’s some idiot kid out there who is actually convinced that Canberra is the parkour capital.

When i first saw the ad i thought it strangely apt that the alpaca and brodburger van are fun quirks of canberra that ‘the man’ is trying to ban/close. Nice to see that we can promote Canberras quirks as well as memorials and museums.

+1 for the alpaca. The song is ‘Things have changed’ by Bob Dylan. I suspect that, other than the title lyric the makers of this vid didn’t really seriously consider the wider implication of the lyrics (aint no reverie about how things have improved rather it’s the exact opposite – things have changed for the worse).

Sample lyrics are:

‘People are crazy and times are strange, I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range, I used to care, but things have changed, This place ain’t doing me any good, I’m in the wrong town, I should be in Hollywood’

It’s kinda like a promotional campaign that was dreamt up by Ed Wood. The song actually undermines what I assume is the intent of the clip (to present Canb’y as a ‘cool place’ to be) as it’s effectively a song about being ‘out of touch’ with the world rather than ‘things are changing for the better’. From Wiki:

“Things Have Changed” is a song from the film Wonder Boys, written and performed by Bob Dylan. The song was released as a single on May 1, 2000. “Things Have Changed” won the Academy Award and the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. The director of Wonder Boys, Curtis Hanson, also created a music video for “Things Have Changed,” filming new footage of Bob Dylan on the film’s various locations and editing it with footage used in Wonder Boys as if Dylan were actually in the film.

Wonder Boys by the way is a great little film (curious to know how/if they got the rights to use the song given Dylan’s work in cinema licensing is not exactly prolific – only ‘the Boss’ I believe is harder to gain approval from).

Swaggie said :

Repetitive shots, no message, no direction, just cheap and nasty with too many gimmicky FX that serve no purpose.

so perfect to market to the 14 – 25 year old group, huh?

Repetitive shots, no message, no direction, just cheap and nasty with too many gimmicky FX that serve no purpose.

That is a cute ALPACA in the clip! What is the song?

‘when anyone is working so hard to say they are cool they must, by definition, not be’ – kind of sums it up, Dylan (whilst I uh, respect the man) is hardly going to appeal to the age group specified (epic epic, epic fail). Most Australians would look at this and not understand why ‘things have changed’ is being used at all, ‘things have changed… from what?’ – simply because they couldn’t care less that Canberra exists at all and those that have heard of it (wake up call methinks!) think it’s full of overpaid Public Servants (that’s not pube bashing, that’s a moulded in concrete fact). The ad, sad to say is also just a ‘wee’ bit dodge (can’t say I’d be ‘racing’ to use the video services of these blokes). Brodburgers may be a local delight but slapping in a shot of a food caravan at night is hardly going to sell ‘Canb’y’ to the rest of Australia (I believe they have those in Melb, Sydney and elsewhere too)… And finally, where are the super mega-hot chicks in bikini’s and dudes with six packs (for the girls)??? oh… that’s right, there are none 🙁

Too long for commercial TV, but I guess that’s why it’s been shown on the digital FTA channels – until they can prove people are watching those, and not the ones they’re used to, the advertising space would be cheap.

Go national you say? I had heard about this ad once on Riot Act, but had never seen it (only got a set top box in one room of our house.

Then didn’t think any more of it until a friend in central Victoria was asking me where to go in Canberra when they pay a visit, and when I listed Brodburger they said “…are they the red caravan in the Visit Canberra ad that’s currently on high rotation?”.

Looks like its gone a little further than just the Canberra WIN network already! 🙂

All I have to say is if I was interstate, that ad would not make me want to come to Canberra. I live here and hate it and the ad does nothing to prove that Canberra is ‘urban’ and ‘grungy’. Far from it if you ask me.

> how many hours did you wait last time you went to the emergency room?

Not long at all actually….ever. If you’re waiting for hours & hours…then it’s probably not really an emergency at all.

troll-sniffer10:47 am 25 Jan 10

“as to the whys and wherefores”

Wherefore doth mean why, in truth, so thou hast stated simply put: ‘as to the whys and whys’.

Forsooth, this may have been thine intention but I harbour some doubts.

Aye, ’tis nitpicking I grant thee, but standards must be maintained or heaven knows to what depths this society will plummet.

Honeycomb is a fracking alpaca.
Llamas and alpacas are different things, but you couldn’t fit an adult male llama in a Mazda 121.
But he gets taken around the place to visit patients at hospices (like Clair Holland House) and other health services.
He is nice.

ABC Interview with the owner, Nils Lantzke
Article from “That’s Life” magazine

Good to see the Llama in the 121 bubble car got put in there…
I thought that the owner got in trouble for transporting it that way?

…so the advert is selling Canberra to 18-25 year olds? From elsewhere? To make them want to move to Canberra? Wow.

Hey everyone! Look! Our CBD looks as stark and alienating as yours does now. Come move here.

the best bit is “your local grass dealer” at 1:38

that is so shallow.

did i miss something, is canberra suffering from a massive population decline? as i recall canberra pop is growing at the highest rate in the nation and has some of the highest housing costs in the nation… why advertise for *more* people to move to canberra?

make it a little more livable for the current residents first. how many hours did you wait last time you went to the emergency room? seriously, in the nations capital this is the best we can do?

stop pissing away money on image and focus on the reality, i reckon.

liked the soundtrack tho.

But what’s the advert for? What’s being sold and who’s buying? Straight question. Not being sarcastic or cynical. Just want to know.

what’s changed? canberra was this funky when i came here in the late eighties – just had to squint a bit to see it…

Interesting idea, but obviously way too long, and the production values aren’t high enough to run nationally. I also think it’s a tiny bit naff, when anyone is working so hard to say they are cool they must, by definition, not be.

Kill the narrative, reshoot about 30 seconds of the most interesting footage and use a different song, it could be good.

unfortunately this is the first time i’ve actually seen the AD Campaign – heard all about it on here but never seen it. Thanks for posting it – it’s a pretty cool ad – i’m impressed.

When was the ad shot I wonder? I think I saw that llama being walked in the rose gardens of Parkes only a few weeks ago!

This needed explanation?

Who was stupid enough to not get it simply by watching it?

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