Transport for NSW and the Transport Minister, Gladys Berejiklian, yesterday launched their new campaign to make Sydney commuters, either regular or irregular, to take up and love the new ticketing smart card, Opal.
However the more disturbing is that the ad, which features a gentleman dressed up in lycra (I mean come on - that's for going to gym or bike riding at best) with his head popping out from a massive black adult Opal Card. Even later on within the TV Ad which is hitting the airwaves in Sydney and regional areas, features two children in green lycra with little green Opal cards surrounding their heads for the children's Opal Card.
I am sorry but not only should the fashion police be called, the Minister herself should be charged with fashion horrors of the extreme to the public!
Now whilst the campaign won't win any awards for creativity (as you can tell it wasn't a big budget nor even thoughts out properly), it does go to help someway highlight the strengths of the Opal card versus current queuing issues for paper tickets.
Instead it does however highlight a huge issue, mainly relating to the still non-existing Gold Pensioner/Concessioner Card, which is slated to still come "later this year" whatever that may mean but highlights that such a TV should not be placed up as the full rollout has not yet been completed, with the remaining bus network still yet to be completed along with Light Rail service which won't happen until early 2015 at this stage.
For example, a family may have a disabled child who is of a pension age, but the parents may have the adult Opal Card, however because of this they will still have to line up, queuing to still get a paper ticket for their child.
The same could be said for grandparents. Where their grandchild might have the children's concessioner green opal card, but the grandparents don't, meaning they too would need to line up and queue to obtain their paper tickets before continuing on their way.
We here at Transport for All NSW have sent enquiries to both the Opal Card Centre, Transport for NSW and the Transport Ministers office, the last stating that enquiries can take up to one month to at least 2 months for a response (which is quite poor for a ministers office).
If you haven't yet seen the Opal Man TV ads, here they are for you below:
We are hoping the current incumbent NSW Government comes to their senses and announce the Gold Concessioner/Pensioner Opal Card soon, but sadly we doubt this will occur.
What do you think of the new TV campaign? Do you think Opal & TfNSW should have waited till the full roll out of all opal cards to the whole transport network is completed? We would like to hear your thoughts and suggestions
A) please get someone to edit/proofread your comments before publishing as it is very difficult to understand your train of thought with parts of words missing.
ReplyDeleteB) my first impression was "oh look, it's the same principle as a gloryhole!" Just what the TV needs with Rolfe Harris also on the screen - NOT!!
Excuse me Colin, that's not what I am trying to say and I take offense to you using the work gloryhole!
ReplyDeleteIf you are willing to be proof reader than I will GLADLY send all posts to you. You have to remember that these posts are done either before or after work for me whilst either on the train or bus!