Seeing a lot of ads for Dick Smith’s new all-round “Aussie foods” venture. And while I freely admit that his motives may be pure and wonderful, the whole thing strikes me as odd as highly disingenuous. This may be just me, but I think many would feel the same way.
I’ve basically taught myself to distrust all that advertising that tugs at nationalism as its primary motivation. Aussie this, Australia that. Most of the time it attempts to be subtle, but it still manages to be grating, often xenophobic, and always conniving. It’s a cheap and sometimes nasty way to do advertising, and it usually a way to hide all the problems with your product.
Then Dick Smith comes along with a new venture, and overt nationalism is the *only* point of it! In some ways it’s too ridiculous to believe, and as Sallie keeps reminding me, his jam is awful and much of the fruit for it is sourced off-shore anyway!
In a year where we are going to be beset with an awful amount of negative and nasty nationalism in the media via the federal election, this tactic is just something I don’t need.