pushing more money off shore

This really pisses me off, and its not something that is limited to the current government either.

So, blatantly ripping off Graham Reid's blog:
"Kevin Saatchi, CEO of the New York-based advertising and media company RobertsAndRoberts, said yesterday he was excited about his company being offered the contract to re-brand New Zealand for the 21st century."

Link is above to the whole thing, but basically, once again, when it comes to promoting our country the best decision is to go off shore to find the creative talent to do this. WHAT? Way to back your own team. With a rumoured $75M 5 year contract, why is our government, in the current financial market, a) spending that much money? but b) spending it outside NZ? Shouldn't we be putting money back into our country?

Labour did it as well. Let's spend a whole lot of money on a 'Buy NZ Made' campaign, let's get Kiwi's putting money back into Kiwi's pockets, BUT we'll pay international agencies to do so. Paying M&C and Carat to do the campaign is sending money offshore.

I have a nice little pedestal to stand on while saying this, but I don't work for the only NZ owned and operated advertising agency, and the talent pool in NZ is fantastic, surely we should be using our own resources to work on our country?

I did love this: "Mr Saatchi, speaking from his yacht in the Cayman Islands..." awesome, what a fantastic representation of agency life. ugh.

By the way, KiwiBank - appointing an Australian agency - no better.

Updated: Have just been asked as to whether Grahams post is satire... it is possible. Still doesn't change my opinion on KiwiBank and Buy Kiwi campaign.

Updated further (thanks @officialfunning: @iChild I'd be just as angry if Kevin Roberts of Saatchi & Saatchi got the deal instead of, you know, Kevin Saatchi from Roberts & Roberts.): I would pull this post down, but I am more than willing to put up my hand and say - I'm a freaking idiot. I blame Crack Wednesday, 2 too many Castlepoints and 4 hours sleep.

National's TV campaign

I cannot believe that more of a fuss has not been made about National's televison campaign which is running at the moment. I have now seen 2 ads where John Key is sitting in the front passenger seat of a car and is turning around to talk into the camera in the back seat. HE DOESN'T HAVE A SEAT BELT ON and the car is clearly in motion.

I have 2 issues with this. 1. this is the man that wants to run this country and he doesn't abide by the laws (if he doesn't, why should anyone else?) and 2. what awful advertising agency (let alone the director of the ad) allow something like that go to air? What were they thinking? Not surprisingly I cannot find the video anywhere, but it just amazes me that someone let that onto the television. What's more, how did it get past TVCAB? Surely this ad encourages unsafe driving practices.

Talking about this with a friend the other day, he turned around and said, "if anyone made a big deal about it, it would work in John Key's favour" which somewhat blew me away to be fair. His reasoning was that the public would turn around and go back to the anti - 'nanny state' mentality and back Key.

Do NZers really hate Helen so much that they would support a non-law abiding Prime Minister. I was under the impression that those in Parliament already get away with too much, are we going to add this to the list as well?