Australian bank stand-ins free lucky ones to see Football Final

I love the idea behind this campaign created by Clemenger BBDO in Melbourne. The National Australia Bank sponsored a contest and picked 20 lucky winners who couldn’t go to the Football Grand Final game held September 29th because they had to work (like they could have gotten tix if they’d wanted to).

The conceit is a lot of fun and we get to know some lovely people doing some interesting jobs as well as the well-meaning cast of ‘stand-is’.

However, the silliness of picking people who are nice, but ill-equipped to do the stand-in jobs they are elected to do — fire fighter, bee keeper and crocodile handler are three — confuses things. Is this real? Or is this a silly bit of advertising. The contest was real, and 20 lucky people were chosen.

But who really took over for that fireman? I mean, really. I’m sure they created follow-up video on the stand-ins during game day, but aside from a short ‘3 Stooges’-like promo of the big day I didn’t find anything.

The stand-in’s should have been experts — say, a one-handed croc handler and a retired fire fighter. This would have made the idea far more authentic, and given them the chance to capture some great stories behind the stand-ins as well. Humor is easy to find. Using experts would have enabled the humor to have been real, even touching. The fact that they went for the silly, was a lost opportunity.

Here’s the promo video for the advertising campaign. You can also go to the NAB campaign site here:

Thanks to Creativity Online for sharing this.