In 2013 ‘Lowest prices are just the beginning…’ was still front and centre on their brand new stores.

But by 2018 they had added a cheeky ‘Our Policy’ disclaimer in front of it.

And then in 2021 they got out the paint brushes.

Painting it over.

Until it was gone.

Turns out the slogan was quietly dropped in early 2020 – from news.com.au.

It’s one of the most well-known and high profile advertising slogans from one of Australia’s most loved retailers – but not for much longer.

Bunnings is quietly pulling the pin on its famous tagline.

“Lowest prices are just the beginning …” is, well, ending. At least for now.

The home improvement giant has confirmed to news.com.au the slogan has been slowly removed from the side of its stores, uniforms and its advertising.

Bunnings confirmed to news.com.au the slogan had vanished from TV screens and the airwaves last month and was progressively being painted over on stores, where it has been seen for 25 years. New stores built since 2018 haven’t sported the tagline.

Footnote

In October 2021 a print advertisement in the Adelaide Advertiser happened to reinstate the ‘Lowest prices are just the beginning’ line.

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With ‘Prices so low, you could almost pay by myki‘ being the tagline, can you imagine a more Melbourne scene than a tram passing Flinders Street Station?

But what about the destination displayed on the front of the tram.

It reads “109 Melbourne”.

Putting on my pedant hat

Railfans love to critique the “wrong” tram being used in a photo, and in the case of this advert, the tram pictured is B2.2011 – a high floor B2 class tram which entered service in 1989.

But route 109 doesn’t use B2 class trams – it’s predominately run by low floor C class trams, alongside a few older A class ring-ins.

And route 109 doesn’t even pass Flinders Street Station – the closest it gets is Collins and Swanston Street.

So that’s the deal?

Taking a closer look

Plenty of tram routes pass along Swanston Street at Flinders Street Station – routes 1, 3, 5, 6, 16, 64, 67 and 72.

Most of them having ‘Melbourne University’ on the front when headed northbound.

But the tram featured in the advertisement appears to be headed southbound, so could have one of eight different suburbs listed on the destination board.

However there is probably a simpler answer – LED destination boards are quite tricky to capture with a camera due to their high refresh rates, often appearing blank or garbled in photographs.

So the graphic design probably just photoshopped in something to the blank display, based on their memories of the Melbourne tram system.

Could be worse though

I spotted a photo of an Adelaide tram at a Melbourne bank a few years ago – with the ‘Adelaide Metro‘ part of the logo photoshopped out.

Someone has realised they’ve got the wrong photo for their project, and decided it’s easier to photoshop out ‘Adelaide’ instead of finding a more appropriate photo.

Footnote: Myki balances

In reality you’d have a hard time buying designer furniture with a Myki card budget – the maximum topup amount is $250, and the maximum balance on a myki card is $999.99.

May I suggest catching the route 109 tram to Ikea Richmond instead?

Footnote: B2 class tram destinations

The LED destination displays on the B2 class trams replaced their original backlit flip-dot displays in 2016.

The flipdot displays on the side destination boards were the source of the ‘twinkling’ noise that could be heard if you sat in the centre of the tram, and there was no other noise.

The feint sound coming from the individual pixels of the display, as the transitioned from ‘on’ to ‘off and back again.

Image sources

• Adriatic Furniture Launches Made For Melbourne Campaign Via The Sphere Agency: B&T
• Adriatic Furniture Facebook post
• The Sphere Agency Facebook post

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‘Vote 1’ signs for Monique Ryan, an independent candidate looking to unseat treasurer Josh Frydenberg in Kooyong, an electorate 30 kilometres away in Melbourne’s leafy eastern suburbs.

But a few days later, her posters were sitting discarded in a pile, replaced by ads for Tim Wilson – Liberal member for Goldstein, at risk of being unseated by independent candidate Zoe Daniel.

But even the deep pockets of “freedom boy” couldn’t keep his face on the back of scooters – he joined the pile of rejects, replaced by Eric Kolmeyer, Liberal Democrats candidate for Scullin, in the outer northern suburbs of Melbourne.

And the washup

With the election now over…

• Monique Ryan ended up ousting Josh Frydenberg in a tight race.
• Tim Wilson conceded defeat to independent Zoe Daniel.
• And as for Eric Kolmeyer – a middling 3.7% of votes, sitting behind Labor, the Liberals, Greens, United Australia Party, and One Nation.

A note on mobile advertising

Theoretically a motor scooter with a noisy two stroke engine causes less pollution than a truck mounted billboard.

But advertising towed around by pedal power are the cleanest option.

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Coming to cinemas?

In March 2020 I spotted a bus with advertisements for ‘Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway‘ – in cinemas March 19.

The pandemic saw that date canned, the film being released a year later on 25 March 2021.

And in September 2020 I found a big advertisement for ‘Trolls World Tour‘ – in cinemas March 26. Did they mean 2020 or 2021?

Turns out it was March 2020 – the film was again delayed, eventually being released on 17 September 2020.

By December 2020 film studios must have learnt their lesson, and realised that your release date could be pulled out from beneath you – ‘The Dry‘ was advertised as ‘In cinemas soon’.

On 11 December 2020 the film premiered in Melbourne, with a full theatrical release following from 1 January 2021.

The bottom falls out of the ad market

With everyone stuck at home, why would an advertiser bother spending money putting their message out onto empty streets. As a result buses were stripped of outdated advertisements.

Or covered with ‘house ads‘ for the Pigeon Project market research program run by outdoor advertising company JCDecaux.

But one winner

One company making money from people stuck at home was online streaming services – and they splashed out big on bus advertising. Amazon Prime Video was one.

Stan.

Disney Plus.

And Hayu.

And trams too

Travel writer Tim Richards was stuck at home in Melbourne, and discovered that trams were still advertising the cancelled 2020 Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

Sigh, those trams from the alternate dimension where we didn’t have a pandemic and the Melbourne International Comedy Festival took place are still leaking through to our dimension: pic.twitter.com/EvlSnKtG0T

— Tim Richards (@Aerohaveno) September 12, 2020

Further reading

Over on Curbed they wrote about a similar phenomenon elsewhere in their piece ‘The Zombie Billboards of Locked-Down New York‘.

Standing on a subway platform now, it looks as if Riverdance’s big 25th anniversary show just opened, David Byrne’s American Utopia is still enjoying a limited Broadway run, and Mrs. America, the Phyllis Schlafly miniseries, is set to hit Hulu next month — April 2020. In stations across New York City, LaKeith Stanfield and Issa Rae have now been touching foreheads in ads for The Photograph for two Valentine’s Days. It’s the same on the streets: Cars driving into the Midtown Tunnel from Queens throughout the year were reminded that A Quiet Place Part II was supposed to open on March 20; the film won’t hit theaters until this May, but the billboard stayed up nearly until March 2021.

The zombie ads have stayed up simply because no one is buying new ones.

And over at Wikipedia they have an article detailing the “impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cinema“.

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While a competing property developer says “don’t pay a premium for facilities you may never use”.

You’ll find the water park at ‘Jubilee‘ estate – located on the very edge of Melbourne at Wyndham Vale.

Between Ballan Road and the Regional Rail Link tracks.

The $10 million water park features water slides, a splash zone for children, leisure pool and 25m lap pool.

While the cheaper ‘New Gardens‘ estate is in the dirtbowl between Rockbank and Melton.

They promote a ‘future train station’ on their masterplan.

But trains won’t be stopping there any time soon – so you’ll need to drive 3.5 kilometres down the road to the recently opened Cobblebank station instead.

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At North Melbourne station work was continuing on the new concourse, with a massive steel and timber crash deck at the city end of the platforms allowing construction to continue while trains continued running below.

While in the rail yards next door I found a since-retired Hitachi train shunting into the sidings.

In both views note how much sparser the CBD and Docklands skylines are – the current explosion of apartment developments had yet to take off.

Down in Geelong the first two stages of the Geelong Ring Road looked ready to drive on.

With only the white lines remaining to be painted.

I mentioned crate men recently – and July 2008 saw a plague of them across Melbourne’s west.

Jumping a fence at Newport.

Atop the WC Thomas & Sons flour mill.

Riding a crane in Spotswood.

And having a smoko atop a South Kensington roof.

I also spent a morning at Newport photographing a procession of citybound trains.

First was a V/Line train hauled by diesel locomotive A62.

This unit has been stored since 2013, and probably won’t run again.

I also saw A85 with the Waurn Ponds – Lyndhurst cement train.

The last cement train ran to Lyndhurst on the Cranbourne line in 2009, with the traffic moving completely to road in 2015.

And finally the train I was waiting for – The Ghan liveried locomotives NR74 and AN3 on a freight train ex-Adelaide.

Given The Ghan runs between Adelaide and Darwin, what were these two engines doing in Victoria? The answer is simple – they were due for scheduled maintenance at the workshops in Melbourne, and the easiest way to get them there was to pull a freight train headed this way.

At Southern Cross Station massive advertising banners are nothing new, but back in 2008 a company called Intralot was.

July 1 saw the company start operations in Victoria, selling ‘scratchie’ lottery tickets in competition with incumbent operator Tattersall’s, after winning 10-year licence from the state government. By 2010 their Victorian operations were bleeding money, leading the company to sell out to Tattersall’s in 2014, restoring the previous monopoly status.

And I end this month with a train trip north from Seymour, to the Murray River town of Tocumwal.

Normally only traversed by freight trains, I was travelling on collection of museum pieces restored by the Seymour Railway Heritage Centre.

Our train had a V/Line locomotive up front to assist.

And what looked to be the entire town of Tocumwal coming out to greet us.

On the way we passed the station building at Murchison East.

Destroyed by fire in 2014.

And Mooroopna.

Destroyed by fire in 2018.

North of Shepparton we passed oil terminals that were once served by rail.

As well as a fertiliser depot, the rail siding covered with rust.

But it wasn’t all doom and gloom for rail freight – the container terminal at Mooroopna was still being used to load freight trains.

And the railway line itself wasn’t being neglected.

With track crews hard at work.

Replacing timber sleepers.

Allowing the thrice weekly freight train to Tocumwal to keep running.

Footnote

Here you can find the rest of my ‘photos from ten years ago‘ series.

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Their staff paste up new posters when it is time to change over the advertiser.

As well as replacing the billboards inside motorised panels.

And troubleshooting digital panels that display the advertisements upside down.

But in December 2017 the deal came up for renewal and local firm Adshel (a division of media company Here, There & Everywhere) won the contract.

Adshel has won part of the Metro Trains Melbourne outdoor contract – which will run for seven years – and will see Adshel launch 150 digital screens across Melbourne’s CBD and inner city railway stations. Stations include Flinders Street, Melbourne Central, Parliament, South Yarra and Richmond.

By early 2018 JCDecaux billboards at stations started to empty out.

And posters were left in tatters.

‘Out of service’ tags began to appear on motorised advertising panels.

As contractors began to physically remove the advertising panels from stations.

Leaving just dirty marks on walls where they once hung.

Or witches hats where they once stood.

The exception seems to be the subways at Flinders Street Station – they were cleaner than they have ever been!

However the demise of visual noise wasn’t to be – ‘bumblebee boxes’ started to appear at stations, marking the site of digital billboards for incoming operator Adshel.

With new screen being installed in April 2018.

Conveying an excitement about outdoor advertising that nobody outside the marketing industry holds.

While simultaneously managing to cover up directional signage at stations.

Seeing a station without advertising just wasn’t to be.

A footnote on PTV

Over on Twitter someone pointed out the Public Transport Victoria posters at stations along the Frankston line, on panels once branded JCDecaux, but now with black tape covering the name.

The panels appear to have escaped the changeover to Adshel, the aging posters inside falling to pieces.

Possibly the panels were transferred from JCDecaux to PTV at some point in the past, and are not part of the new contract?

And at Flinders Street Station

At Flinders Street Station the JCDecaux advertising panels on each platform once housed the emergency assistance buttons.

These panels have since been removed.

Requiring the help points to be relocated to the pillars that support the platform veranda.

I wonder who is footing the the bill for that work?

And advertisements elsewhere

The new contract doesn’t affect all advertising on the Melbourne rail network – APN Outdoor holds a separate 10 year contract for the ‘shouting’ advertising screens at City Loop stations.

Along with large format billboards at railway stations.

And roadside billboards located on railway land.

And to make things even more complicated, Southern Cross Station is excluded from the advertising contract covering the rest of the rail network, thanks to it being separate entity subject to a 30 year long public-private partnership.

There JCDecaux still manages the advertisements, where they have just deployed a new range of digital advertising displays.

But what about trams?

Back in 2011 a similar changeover occurred on the Melbourne tram network – Adshel won an exclusive contract to manage the advertising at tram stops, a role previously shared with JCDecaux.

However this changeover was a lot less wasteful – instead of throwing tram stops in the bin, the old ‘JCDecaux’ names was removed, and the new ‘Adshel’ placed over the top.

The same logo switcharoo is currently underway for a second time, following the success of JCDecaux over Adshel in the most recent round of tram advertising contract renewals in 2018.

And a final note on Flagstaff station

The Adshel screens blocking the directional signage at Flagstaff station were eventually fixed – the proper sign was moved higher up the wall, allowing the temporary paper signs to be removed.

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From the 2006-07 V/Line annual report:

Understanding customers even better

The experience of the past year indicates significant potential for sustained patronage growth as long as V/Line continues to develop and offer the services that people are seeking.

The challenge now is to attract new customers from three identified key future growth markets:

• Families – Melbourne and regional
• 50+ market – Melbourne and regional
• Tree changers – regular commuters at key locations

Selling the benefits of rail

Movers’ Campaign – V/Line initiated a targeted direct mail program for the first time. Using Australia Post’s Mover Redirection data, people who relocated to an area served by a V/Line commuter service received a mail pack containing information on local train services and an offer of a free weekly ticket from their local station to Melbourne. At the end of June, more than 850 people had taken up the offer.

Unfortunately promoting further growth in the commuter market wasn’t such a good idea given a politically motivated 20% fare cut pushed patronage through the roof from 2007, so in 2007-08 V/Line changed tack:

In 2007–08, V/Line’s direct marketing program to people moving house in our catchment areas exceeded expectations, with 18 per cent of those contacted taking up the offer of a trial ticket. About 40 per cent of these have indicated they would use V/Line more regularly as a result of the promotion.

While the regular commuter market still accounts for the majority of our patronage growth, with most peak services operating at capacity, some off-peak and counter peak services have spare capacity that could be better utilised – particularly on weekends

The solution – promoting travel on off-peak services.

This year we trialled a new Family Traveller ticket to attract day-trippers to Melbourne or country Victoria. The trial was successful and demonstrated the potential for growing the family tourism market. The number of trips made in January 2008 was 20,000 higher than in the previous January.

As well as travel in the reverse direction.

Working with councils, tourism operators, the Department of Transport, Tourism Victoria and the Victorian Government, we launched a $1.3 million ‘See Things Differently’ advertising campaign to put V/Line – and regional Victoria – into the minds of Melburnians.

Key to its success is that the campaign promoted use of off-peak, outbound train services during quieter periods such as during the middle of the day, or on weekends – making more efficient use of existing services, crucial to our push to deliver a more sustainable operation.

Even a tram featured in the campaign!

Today V/Line continues to promote off-peak travel to families as well as leisure travel to country Victoria.

But the explosion in commuter travel still continues to fill trains without any extra advertising.

Footnote

How does Australia Post’s Mover Redirection data work? From their website:

Target movers at the right time

Over 87% of movers use our Mail Redirection service, which means we know when and where they’re moving. A significant number opt in to receive marketing messages – and we can give you access to this receptive audience.

And the way to avoid these marketing messages – make sure you opt out of them when signing up to Australia Post’s mail redirection service!

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This is a TV commercial for the 2012 Australian Open.

So what the hell is this advert for?

Despite the first 5 seconds of the advert showing how a hypothetical product clears the head and nose, if you said ‘cold and flu medication’ you’re wrong – it’s actually a TV commercial for the 2017 Australian Open.

In September 2016 it was revealed that the two decade old Australian Open logo was on the way out, replaced by a stylised ‘A’ and ‘O’.

I wonder how they came up with such a insipid design – hotboxing in the Rod Laver Arena locker rooms?

February 2017 update

Spotted on Twitter: a new Korean budget airline has knocked off the Australian Open for their logo – or an American health food store.

Korean budget airline, Australian sporting match or American health food store? All with a similar logo. pic.twitter.com/cTSkm9Xnk8

— Will Horton (@winglets747) February 21, 2017

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The majority of tram stops have plain glass walls, with a single advertising panel at one end.

Bigger adverting campaigns need a bigger message.

So vinyl decals are affixed to the glass walls to provide a larger canvas

Occasionally extra features are added to a tram stop to fit the advertising theme – like these stadium style seats for a Fox Sports campaign.

Mock timber elements were added to the tram stop for this Bacardi campaign.

While this campaign for Mount Buller added fake plastic icicles around the roof.

And this noodle campaign added an entire Asian style roof to the tram shelter.

I wonder how much these custom tram stop additions cost the advertiser?

Footnote

Yarra Trams lease their infrastructure to outdoor advertising company Adshel, who bear the responsibility for cleaning and repairing tram stop shelters, funding it by onselling the space for marketing campaigns. As you can assume, revenue is usually the first priority – covering tram network maps.

And driving the construction of almost useless shelters such as this one.

One tiny seat, but plenty of room for two advertising posters!

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