This Baffling South Australia Tourism Ad Invites You To Visit Adelaide And Cry About It?
The ad features an old man, known only as "Old Mate", weeping in various iconic Adelaide destinations.
Well, South Australia Tourism’s latest ad is here, and it’s safe to say it’s…extremely baffling. The new TV ad, which is presumably intended to encourage people to visit Adelaide, simply features a montage of an old man crying in various parts of Adelaide.
A big mood, I guess?
It gets weirder. Over the course of the ad we see the old guy, known only as Old Mate, crying on a bus, in a vineyard, on a pier, and on the roof of Adelaide Oval while decked out in full climbing gear. Meanwhile, all around him younger people happily enjoy Adelaide, totally ignoring the dude crying into his shiraz beside them.
And as if Old Mate hasn’t suffered enough, the ad concludes with an abrupt voiceover: “don’t feel sorry for Old Mate — it’s his own damn fault he didn’t visit Adelaide sooner.”
In short, it’s an extraordinarily grim tourism advert, and people have a few questions. Chief amongst them: how the hell is this ad supposed to make us want to go to Adelaide? Older people have slammed the ad as ageist and insulting, while younger people mostly seem to be baffled.
Trust me when I say: the latest tourism campaign for Adelaide of the grimmest things you'll see in a while https://t.co/3d7Ykx9BKX
— Connor ? O'Brien (@mrconnorobrien) September 1, 2019
Can barely see #Adelaide through old mate’s tears pic.twitter.com/AbLWWNjw6E
— Nick Harmsen (@nickharmsen) September 2, 2019
Come to Adelaide, sit in a park, see one pier, cry about it. https://t.co/nnm2iJDnsB
— Rick Morton (@SquigglyRick) September 2, 2019
“Adelaide: add one more to your list of life’s regrets”
— Harry Saddler (@MondayStory) September 1, 2019
And look, it could be worse — as some viewers have pointed out, it’s arguably a step up from previous Adelaide tourism ads that seemed to suggest visiting South Australia would end in murder.
No look I think it’s a significant step up from “you will definitely be murdered” from a few years back. https://t.co/uW3gQsHmpF
— Jane Howard (@noplain) September 1, 2019
Mostly, though, it’s simply baffling to think that someone sat down to consider the best possible way to encourage people to visit Adelaide, and came up with…this. It’s not even a standalone TV ad — there’s even a travel blog on the South Australia Tourism website, authored by “Old Mate”, which is confusingly both a guide to visiting Adelaide in your 70s and a warning not to visit Adelaide in your 70s lest you shrivel up with regret and die.
“I know what you’re thinking. Adelaide?” Old Mate writes. “Isn’t that the sort of place you go in your twilight years, to while away the hours in a dated doily-clad BNB, with an Agatha Christie novel and a glass of port? That’s what I thought. And that’s why I’m writing this to you, full of regret.”
You can watch Old Mate having a cry about Adelaide below.