Australian wine brand Yellow Tail had as much success as the Falcons during yesterday's Super Bowl, with the 30-second spot said to have “humiliated” and “embarrassed” Australians.
The effort, which ahead of the big game was being heralded as the first wine brand to advertise during Super Bowl in nearly 40 years, has been widely derided by viewers following the game on Twitter.
The campaign, created US advertising agency Burns Group, features an animated kangaroo flipping meat on the BBQ and a man dressed in a yellow suit dubbed the Yellow Tail Guy. There's also a cameo appearance from bikini-clad Australian model, Ellie Gonsalves.
The Yellow Tail Guy asks Gonsalves, as she passes on the beach: “Wanna pet my roo?”
It follows a difficult week in US Aussie relations which has seen Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull become the butt of a tide of jokes and memes.
Turnbull was mistakenly referred to as Trumble by President Trump's aides after the two leaders had a reportedly frosty phone call over the fate of a thousand refugees due to depart Australia for the US under a deal Turnbull made with former president Barack Obama.
Alongside the TV activity, which ran in 70 local market networkers due to Budweiser's exclusivity deal, Yellow Tail ran a host of activations and social media activity.
https://twitter.com/bobmoz/status/828394822033510400
https://twitter.com/divabooknerd/status/828467357383135233
https://twitter.com/dknoepfle/status/828395372053553152
https://twitter.com/PeterPhelpsMLC/status/828434275066195968
https://twitter.com/stevehind/status/828394791599738882
https://twitter.com/chaskitchen/status/828411227432898560
https://twitter.com/LaurieGoldberg/status/828394833488142336
https://twitter.com/RevEnFuego/status/828409566618476545
https://twitter.com/paulfabretti/status/828409902464802816
https://twitter.com/azalben/status/828394568886452224
https://twitter.com/Michael_AC23/status/828409650236227584
https://twitter.com/KeeblerOrganElf/status/828398116982386690
https://twitter.com/samwe11er/status/828397009400782848
https://twitter.com/emilyhwalt/status/828417256166137857
https://twitter.com/RepresentPledge/status/828394709319954432
https://twitter.com/Jo_Tovey/status/828395056382013442
Not everyone hated the Yellow Tail Super Bowl ad:
https://twitter.com/JordanTPennell/status/828581506662723584
https://twitter.com/CAPT_Irrelevant/status/828557347949654016
https://twitter.com/Australia/status/828417138666844160
Despite the reaction, AdNews spoke to Twitter to determine the social sentiment and found it was mostly positive.
The top five retweeted Tweets mentioning the brand are all positive or neutral, including @EllieGonsalves who has been retweeted more than 16,000 times alone, which could have skewed the results towards a more positive result.
AdNews has approached Yellow Tail for a comment.
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