Aussies are the New Cavemen

I’ll admit, I was pretty psyched when I saw a new Fosters beer ad, in the classic style.

Bailout! How topical!

Turns out, my excitement betrays my deeply ingrained arrogant American ignorance.  American marketing company Digitas opened up in Australia in March and this month it launched a three-ad television campaign, bringing back the decade and a half old slogan, “Fosters. Australian for beer,” after a three year silence.

Well, g’day, I say, throw another shrimp on the barbie. I love hearing the way real Australians talk. (That’s not a knife.) All Americans do. So hats off to Digitas for reissuing a crucial chapter in our continuing education in Aussie English.

But is our linguistic learning up to snuff? Perhaps not, mate. A discussion on the Australian media blog mUmBRELLA suggests that not only is that not really the Australian definition of “Bailout,” but these guys don’t even sound Australian.

mazzy
18 Aug 09
8:36 am

OH dear
– I do not think their accents were actually Australian, more like that cockney english you here on the Simpsons etc.
And that cut up shirt on GPS – AS IF any outback bloke would be caught dead in that “Flinstones” like wardrobe.

trying to hard but not enough.

[Ed. note. I just learned something else: Aussies have no respect for the homonym.]

Wait. So you’re telling me everyone in Australia doesn’t dress like this guy?

Well, that am news to me. But just as I’ve learned that not all cavemen are too dumb to buy auto insurance (this one was always my fave) I’ve also learned, thanks to Mazzy, that not all Aussies look like Larry the Cable guy. With intelligent commentary like this flowing down under, I’m sure that it’s only a matter of years before they figure out how to install a real GPS. (On their kangaroos, naturally.)