ANZ Ad Complaints – get a life

Recently the ANZ bank has been airing a series of ads portraying a bank that has what you would describe as dodgy and pathetic customer service. This is in contrast to their reasonable and caring form of service. In their fictitious bank, there is the manager called Barbara. She is narky and shows disrespect to all her customers even lying to them in a round about way to avoid their complaints.

Now she is a fake, made up, fictitious and think tank creation character, yet people have seemingly taken this advertisement to heart. One complaint to the Advertising Watchdog of Australia said "I Believe this ad is sexist and ageist, and vilifies mature female bank employees, specifically those named Barbara". Another said "It is already a well-known fact that people over 45 are discriminated against in employment and recruitment".

So their complaints believe the ad targets women aged over 45, with red hair, go by the name Barbara and work as a bank manager? That's an awfully specific group that the ANZ has managed to single out. Who actually looks into this kind of thing that much? So if it were a Male, with brown hair, aged 30 and called Kevin, would that be acceptable? Or would that be deemed offensive to all Kevins who work at a bank, aged 30 and have brown hair? No it wouldn't be offensive because the males out there wouldn't care. They see the joke in the ad and have a laugh and move on. That's what the ad wants to do, give the audience a laugh and remind them ANZ have good customer service, is that a crime? Because if it is, we should remove all humans from television advertising and replace them with James Cameron's Navii people, that way no single person could be ridiculed.

The second complaint which claims it is a 'well known' fact that women over 45 are discriminated against in the workplace when looking for jobs. Where is this fact? Who decided it was a fact, let alone calling it well known? I didn't know they were hard done by, my own mother is over 50 and has recently changed jobs without fuss. There wasn't a case of discrimination there. People over 45 may have trouble getting a job as the younger people may simply be better suited for the job through experience, knowledge, speed etc. Or maybe they are better looking and it's a retail job, we all know sex sells so put up with the fact employers are going to choose a younger person over you.

To all Barbara's over 45, red hair and speak with ''occa'' Australian accents, get over yourself if you think your hard done by. Does it make it hard to get through your day? If it does then you need professional help because at the end of the day, its only an 30 second TV advertisement.