Celebrate 'Straya Festival my cobber Digger mate!

Perplexed about my use of the Australian vernacular? Well, you might well be if you're in Shanghai this week. It is officially 'Celebrate Australia' Festival Week in Shanghai. This Austrade-sponsored marketing event is aimed at increasing Australia's export markets in China.

With various promotional events linked with this festival being staged in locations such as Xintiandi, M on the Bund, the Shanghai Grand Theater and Fuxing Park, this campaign is definitely aimed at the more affluent segments of China's population.

After arriving in Shanghai, I quickly appreciated how much emphasis on capturing the Chinese trade & tourism market by various Australian governments and businesses. Due to many hours spent commuting on Shanghai's metro, I've been witness to an inundation of ads promoting tourism in Victoria & Queensland, fly to Oz using Qantas, and to drink Jacob's Creek wine. Anyhow, how does this YouTube-linked video (above) relate to this? Well, this is the current in this long string of promotional campaigns to get Chinese to come to Australian shores and spend their RMB. This ad is also part of the controversial Australian tourism marketing campaign launched last year. I first noticed a Chinese version of this ad playing in the video screens of Shanghai's metro stations early last week. What I found a little bit hilarious is that these screens are usually ignored on the platform of the metro stations, but in the times I've seen this one played, there was always and avid collection of viewers. Could the reason for all the attentive viewers be this?