News location:

Canberra Today 12°/15° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Funny, dumb or brilliant?

In a bid to reach young Australians, the Australian Bureau of Statistics have released a YouTube animated series called “Melrose Mews” to help promote this year’s Census.

Industry experts say the production value of the five episodes is at $35,000.

According to the head of the Census program Paul Lowe, the ABS developed the series as part of a range of tactics specifically targeted at young people aged 18 to 34.

“The ABS has found this group increasingly harder to count in the Census, due to a range of factors, including reluctance to actively participate and low levels of awareness of the Census,” he said.

“The videos were designed for screening via YouTube, and as such, take a different and more light-hearted approach to other Census communication and advertising activities. They complement other activities designed to engage young people in the Census and encourage participation, including the Census Twitter account, which links Census statistics with pop culture and current events to make Tweets relevant, topical and humorous.”

Although the ABS won’t reveal how much the Youtube series cost to produce, a spokesman said the overall Census program has cost $440m – $159m of that money contributes to Census staffs’ salaries.

Let us know your thoughts.

Who can be trusted?

In a world of spin and confusion, there’s never been a more important time to support independent journalism in Canberra.

If you trust our work online and want to enforce the power of independent voices, I invite you to make a small contribution.

Every dollar of support is invested back into our journalism to help keep citynews.com.au strong and free.

Become a supporter

Thank you,

Ian Meikle, editor

Share this

13 Responses to Funny, dumb or brilliant?

Dave Edwards says: 21 July 2011 at 2:22 pm

This is what happens when statisticians try to do something hip and edgy.

Seriously though, WTF?

Reply
Poppy says: 21 July 2011 at 8:57 pm

I’m right in the ‘target audience’ for this and it was so offensive I had to turn it off. If any of my friends overseas see this I am going to be mortified.

Reply
Bianca says: 21 July 2011 at 9:42 pm

I’m really offended by this.. I’m 22 and can appreciate the importance of a Census without a brainless cartoon…

Reply
BMB says: 21 July 2011 at 10:57 pm

Shouldn’t your headline have read ‘Senior public servant approves use of the word bugger in government advertising campaign’!?

Reply
PeterJ says: 22 July 2011 at 11:12 am

I think its good that government do something a bit different. Good one ABS for trying to do something different.

Reply
Johhno says: 22 July 2011 at 2:03 pm

Bianca – try going out more…. and Poppy, you dont have to be overseas to be cool, apparently. Save your stressing out for when it counts, like when the carbon tax arrives, the climate packs it in and Kingston is overrun by boat people.

Reply
James T says: 22 July 2011 at 3:22 pm

I think it is good! Something totally different, the graphics are cool! the voices not so much, but hey it looks cool!

Reply
Louise Transtey says: 23 July 2011 at 5:43 pm

I want to be in the target audience, and I think they are uber way tre cool. Good graphics, script is a bit weird though. New Zealanders are a bit weird but, so I guess so no worry, it’s all relative. Boyeah!

Reply
Brendan P says: 25 July 2011 at 1:31 pm

The dialogues gets a bit long-winded when talking about the benefits to the census. We get it guys! But the animation is pretty cool.

Reply

Leave a Reply

Related Posts

Follow us on Instagram @canberracitynews