An eBay Australia TV ad campaign has launched featuring well known cricketer Shane Warne. The ad campaign, which you can check out below will be airing nationally on TV an also web TV services over the next few months.
The ad campaign plays on Shane Warne’s (affectionately if not originally known as Warnie) reputation for, shall we say, getting into scrapes. The ads focus on how he never seems to learn from his previous mistakes and features the slogan “But Did You Check eBay?”. The ads show Warnie regretting purchases that he didn’t make on eBay where he paid over the odds for a selection of devices. You can view the two ad spots below.
Several things are obvious from these two TV ads. Firstly, they set a suitably Australian light-hearted tone that is wry enough not to be cloying. And they do also speak to the strengths of eBay that many merchants will approve of. They note the number of small retailers on the site and also note range and price as other key attributes of the marketplace. And that makes sense: in Australia there has been criticism of Amazon (which launched there last year) for threatening the livlihood of Australian businesses when it was cast as an incoming behemoth that consumes all in its way.
It’s always good when a marketplace invests in serious advertising campaigns and this eBay Australia TV ad is one of the better ones we’ve seen from eBay globally in recent years.
We’ve created a campaign that reflects the strength of our Australian business, without taking ourselves too seriously. We have some 40,000 Aussie stores on the platform, and we’re committed to offering the best prices on the top selling products in the country. Collaborating with Warnie has given us the perfect opportunity to remind Aussies of this strength, and have some fun along the way.
– Julie Nestor, chief marketing officer, eBay Australia & New Zealand
