Today, The Outsider examines slogan recycling, object lessons in capturing the codger market, and the restaurant industry’s grammatical crisis.
Building a stronger slogan
As befits a State Government run by the Left faction, Jay Weatherill’s regime is committed to recycling.
This week he rolled out a new slogan for the lead-up to the election campaign – “Building a stronger South Australia”.
As The Outsider has reported (possibly too many times…), marketing guru Neil Lawrence is helping state Labor with its March 2014 election campaign, and the “Stronger” slogan is partly his handiwork.
But isn’t it just a teensy bit familiar?
Sure enough, back in 2011, Lawrence was brought in by Qantas to help it sell its “restructure” (or, to put it another way, it’s massive cost-cutting exercise).
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And the first step in the campaign? Building a stronger Qantas.
Consarn it you whippersnappers!
ABC duo Matt Abraham and David Bevan continue their reign of glory with unprecedented dominance of the breakfast radio ratings.
This week’s ratings showed the pair again as Adelaide’s favourite breakfast radio program. They further increased their audience share, putting daylight between them and their nearest competitor.
However, as Hollywood tragically shows us, success is no guarantee of happiness.
They’ve been particularly grump this week, abruptly ending an interview with Opposition frontbencher Stephen Wade (because he wouldn’t answer their questions in the way they wanted), eliciting one of the longest on-air silences in memory from Premier Jay Weatherill (after posing a curly one he clearly didn’t like), and railing against the impertinence of roadworks on Hindley Street.
The latter is the revealing one. Matt, in particular, has a special hatred of anything that impedes motor traffic, and therein lies one of the secrets to the ABC’s ratings success: capturing the growing grumpy old man market.
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If you drill down into this week’s ratings survey, ABC891 leads in only one demographic – the over 65s, where 891 has cornered nearly 35% of the market.
Barely a soul under the age of 40 is listening. If you don’t remember home-delivered bread, you don’t tune in.
We’re sure, however, that the overall 891 figure is skewed by the gigantic nonagenarian following of evenings presenter and second-hand Volvo ambassador Peter Goers, another huge ratings winner who bestrides Adelaide’s after-dark radio scene like a crumpled Colossus.
You say potato, I say potato’s
The global hospitality grammar crisis continues – and this time it’s spreading from fruit and veg shops to Adelaide’s pubs and restaurants.
It’s not only misplaced apostrophes – the crimes against language are much more serious than that (and we once believed that wasn’t possible).
Take this sign at The Maid Hotel (please, take it):
What, in Roly Sussex’s name, are “canepes” and why the possessive apostrophe?
And then there’s the curious case of the Rundle Street vegetarian cafe, whose new sign says: “Vego and loven it”.
Surely it should be “lovin’”?
But maybe not. According to our research, “loven” is Middle English for “to love”.
However, the present participle is lovinge. So, technically…
We’ll stop now.
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