Trev the bee cops another spray | Render Man breaks road rules
This week, the RAA backs in its mascot after a public health warning, and you can still flout the law in North Adelaide despite being digital.
Trev swarm warning
InSider often passes the RAA shop on Grenfell Street as we chase news through the city, and each time we are disturbed by the company’s marketing mascot bee “Trev” lurking in the window.
But last Sunday, it wasn’t Trev that caught our eye as usual, but the alarming sign warning of a bee swarm.
Now, we’ve swatted Trev around before – he had our newsroom abuzz when he emerged all over Adelaide in May. What Trev doesn’t know is InSider is actually anaphylactic and allergic to bee stings.
So Trev, now it’s personal.
Because diligent journalism is important to us, we did some digging.
As the tiny sticker on the bottom right of the warning sign says, it’s the property of the Adelaide City Council. After a quick look on Instagram, we found the RAA beat us to it and shared a picture of the comical sign placement, with a caption indicating the council was the perpetrator.
You might like
Their Instagram caption read: “It’s good to see @cityofadelaide has a great sense of humour. Have you spotted Trev in our RAA Shops?”
To that we say, how could we not? Try as we might, there is no escaping the hideous thing.
But we hear the council did not place the sign on the Grenfell Street footpath, as bee swarm management is a job for private pest controllers. The council has since taken the errant sign back into custody.
After striking out with the council, we knew what we had to do: put a call in to the hive-meisters themselves.
After an awkward introduction, we were told the RAA media team is very familiar with InSider (and its beef with Trev). We thought they might bee.
The RAA assured us they don’t know who put that sign there and it definitely wasn’t them, and then offered the sting in the tail that their mascot is allegedly a big hit.
“InDaily’s Insider said when the campaign launched that Trev’s ‘existence laughs in the face of God’ so it’s highly unlikely a quick spray of any kind will do anything to dampen his (or our) enthusiasm,” RAA chief marketing officer Michael Healy said.
“In fact, Trev is proving to be so incredibly popular and (largely) adored and talked about in every single demographic, that the RAA brand tracking has never been a more pleasing read,” Healy said.
Incredibly popular and adored, hey? Well, we’re certainly talking about him. So knowing it wasn’t the council, and wasn’t the advertising bigwigs at the RAA, the sign-thief remains a mystery.
Sur(render) yourself, jaywalker!
Stay informed, daily
As regular readers know, InSider finds great joy in taking a very close look at the renders that hit our inbox every time a new development is announced, and finding that computer-generated man or woman who is doing something out of place.
In April, we spotted a clear violation of netball rules within the state government’s $40 million Barossa sports development announcement. Now, Adelaide City Council has had its turn, in what was surely a blatant attempt to once again feature in this column. We will oblige.
Earlier this week, the council released plans for an upgrade of O’Connell Street. Those plans were accompanied by renders which were surely pored over for hours by the commissioned artist and, you would think, at least one person at the council. What a lovely, detailed render. Nothing looks amiss. Unless…
What’s that? A bloke in clear violation of rule 234 of the Australian Road Rules, which states “a pedestrian must not cross a road, or part of a road, within 20 metres of a crossing on the road”?
While there are exceptions to the rule, none include being a digital render rather than a human being. Therefore, Render Man is liable to cop a $2500 fine. Hopefully, he (and the council) will be more careful next time.
No need to thank us for catching this one for you SAPOL, you’ll get him next time.
Job wanted. Not willing to cycle
News hit this week that the ABC managing director David Anderson has resigned. He has been under tremendous pressure to step aside and the 54-year-old will now be looking for a new job.
InSider can help him out with some head-hunter in-depth research we conducted this week.
First up Dave, check out our Corporate Ladder section as a good place to start your job search or at least see who your competition may be.
Second, you should return to the city of your birth: Adelaide.
Having grown up in Seaton and then the Adelaide Hills, you can tap into Adelaide’s (in)famous closed ring of jobs for the boys – although there is no indication that you went to any of the right schools.
A warning, however, falling back on your first job as an Adelaide bike courier – which ultimately landed you at the ABC in Adelaide as a utility attendant after colliding with a bus in the CBD and looking for a safer job – isn’t a great option because we dare say that traffic has only gotten worse since you pedalled your deadly treadly around our fair city.
InSider is glad to note, though, that Anderson probably has his future plans well in hand, citing a 2018 Sydney Morning Herald interview in which he reacts to being asked if he ever gets tired of sacking people with the response: “‘Sacking people’… I don’t like the expression”.
“I’ve had to sit down in front of people, yes, many times, and propose that their role has been made redundant, and that’s something you never, ever get used to – something I know that’s coming my way one day.”
