Clive Palmer loves replicas. Replica Titanics. Replica dinosaurs. Replica replicas. Replicas! He loves them; Blade Runner might be his favourite movie – who knows? He loves replicating things so much that for his latest ad in support of Clive Palmer, Clive Palmer replicated an ad created by 303Lowe for Gruen Nation’s ‘The Pitch’ segment, in which competing agencies create an ad spot to persuade audiences that an otherwise questionable variable [selling bottled air; banning swearing; lowering the drinking age to 16; Clive Palmer] could be a good thing. Noted Gruen Nation on Facebook today:
“So, last year during Gruen Nation, we challenged two agencies to come up with ads for Clive Palmer. One of them, from 303Lowe, scissor-cut the speech of other politicians to create a collage of apparent support for the zany Queensland billionaire.”
“Clive’s people immediately rang and asked if they could use the ad. You know, for real. We offered a firm no in reply. We hold the copyright on Pitch ads and it would be wrong for the ABC to provide support to a political party. Clive’s operative asked for our response in email form as well because ‘Clive doesn’t always take no for an answer’.”
“Though he did in this case. Sorta. Palmer United hasn’t actually used the Gruen ad, but its new commercial, running on Queensland stations this week, seems flatteringly familiar…”
