The ACCC educates consumers about their rights in new campaign via 3rdspace Communications
3rdspace Communications has created a new campaign video that may have the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) asking for its money back – in a good way.
The content agency has created a video called ‘The Cut Off’, full of deliberate errors for the ACCC that sets out to educate consumers about their rights and how to use them.
Targeting Australian consumers and the Australian media, the video sees an ACCC spokesperson describing the essence of consumer guarantees, whilst several deliberate mistakes in the film serve to illustrate when a service is not up to standard.
“The Cut Off” focuses on the central message of “make sure you get what you paid for”, placing the presenter/consumer at the heart of the story. The video is appearing across online, social and digital channels.
It shows a presenter on a ‘walk and talk’ with a twist. As she discusses consumer rights and quality assurances, she’s increasingly interrupted by a series of errors from the crew who are doing a very shoddy job of filming her. Her frustration builds as she is cropped out of frame, left behind by the camera and has a microphone boom slam into shot. All the while she keeps delivering her lines with the key points about consumer guarantees and entitlements.
The film features a number of obvious gaffes, but to keep it interesting 3rdspace also added a harder-to-spot mistake to challenge consumers.
While most people will spot five fairly obvious mistakes the keenest viewers will spot the sixth. This ”Where’s Wally’ approach to the film increase engagement and start a conversation among the audience.
Says Rob Logan, head of content and founder, 3rdspace: “The original idea was to use a presenter with a down to earth tone, to tell consumers about the basics of the guarantee in a regular walk and talk format.
“But at 3rdspace we’re on a mission to rid the world of bland content, so we decided to push the format into new areas by exploring a more comedic slant on delivering the message. This will keep consumers engaged to the end by challenging them to spot the mistakes.
“It was also a real challenge for the experienced crew to make so many rookie errors during the shoot.”
Says Delia Rickard, deputy chair, ACCC: “We have been delighted with the response to the Consumer Guarantees video through our social channels to date: this is clever, funny and engaging content, which we hope piques social audiences’ interest and starts more conversations about consumers’ rights to a repair, replacement or refund under the Australian Consumer Law.”
ACCC
Director, Content & Digital Services – Shari Krasowski
Senior Designer – Vlado Korenic
Social Media Manager – Alexandra Pelvin
Media & Communications Adviser – Justin Yuen
3rdspace Communications
Founder & Head of Content – Rob Logan
Head of Business – Chris Austin
Account Manager- Daniel Lee
Creative Director – Paul Tilley
Creative Producer – Brook Lagana
Director – Rhys Day
DOP/Stedicam Op – Brendan Shaw A.C.S
Gaffer- Russell Fewtrell
Best Boy- Max Gersbach
1st AC- Daniel Abbott
2nd AC- Chantal Jack
HMU- Desiree Wise & Regina Carvalho
Audio Recordist, Post Mix & SFX – Mario Gabrieli
Editors – Nicole Hajimichael, Rhys Day
Colorist – Drew McPherson
3 Comments
Well done team. I was expecting a boring gov content piece but it made me giggle a lot so much I watched it twice and still giggled.
You achieved a very clever way to portray dodgy trade practices.
what were you thinking – it doesn’t make sense.If you really process it and really think about it it does – just – but its way to subtle for ‘consumers’ not in on the jokes of a bad production shoot. Also, a joke like this should be shot well – because the whole thing is badly shot it’s hard to tell where the joke bad bits are vs. the general lack of craft.
I also think its a great thing that the ACCC is advertising – I just wish it had chosen to do something that will work.
Hi Dave,
How many mistakes did you spot?