‘An uneven ad and a uniformly negative reaction’

How the shortlived "abstain for the All Blacks" campaign was covered abroad.

Telecom were right about that All Black abstinence campaign. It was a roaring misjudgment, and it had to go. You’ve no doubt heard quite enough groaning and grouching already. But to test your patience: a taste of the reception abroad.

At Forbes.com, Caleb Melby was shaking his head in a what-were-they-thinking manner:

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It shouldn’t be hard to secure a few well-deserved brand love points by supporting your national sports team. It’s a seemingly selfless act that any person in their right mind would have a difficult time impugning you for. But some campaigns strike a nerve. This particular display is a bad mix of Man Your Man Could Smell Like ironia (a boat everyone is jumping on these days) coupled with a more basic, witless sense of humour. That makes for an uneven ad and a uniformly negative reaction.

A Washington Post blogger thought the cancellation of the Queen Street running of the sheep and the row around the aborted abstinence campaign would both be a blow to a country already suffering from something of an “inferiority complex”.

Still in the US (where there was a surprisingly large volume of coverage of the episode), Rich Chandler at NBC.com chortled:

In New Zealand’s defence, it’s an island out in the middle of nowhere populated almost entirely by sea lions and hobbits. So when they go a little off the rails and produce a Rugby World Cup ad campaign like this, it’s best to just shake your head sadly and move on.

The campaign had been ditched after the leak unleashed a “24 hour barrage of negativity”, said the UK online publication the Register.

“Public reaction in New Zealand was clear – this is a very bad idea,” blogged Jerry Greene at ESPN.com:

Still, you got to admire the bold attitude of this excerpt from the advertising copy about what the fans should do: “Throwing aside your natural instincts and lacy lingerie, standing proudly in your flannelette pajamas and whispering, ‘I love you, New Zealand.’ Even though the campaign failed, you know there will be young All Black fans for years that will embrace their lovers and tenderly whisper: ‘I love you, New Zealand.’”

There was much blowing of raspberries in the Australian press, but the best line by a mile belonged to former Wallaby and wit Peter FitzSimons. Were New Zealanders to “abstain until the next time the All Blacks win the World Cup”, he wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald, “it is entirely possible an entire race of lovely people will be wiped out.”