THE POWER OF OUR COMMUNITY!
WESTPAC AD CAMPAIGN:
Over the Easter weekend, Westpac launched an advertising campaign suggesting Ukraine is a country where you may experience credit card fraud. The advertisements appeared in the print media and on television.
The hypocrisy and irony is the fact that Westpac has recently been the subject of a Royal Commission into banking fraud.
Considering Ukraine doesn’t even make the list of top countries with credit card fraud (funnily enough Australia does) this is just another negative that falsely portrays Ukraine as an unscrupulous country.
Ukrainian Organisations and community members were encouraged via social media to write and lodge a complaint.
The Association of Ukrainians in Victoria (AUV) has just received a reply phone call from Martine Jager – Digital & Advertising Officer from Westpac. Apart from the fact that she couldn’t get off the phone fast enough she gave us the usual rhetoric: “It was never our intention to offend. We just picked a country that many Australians do not travel to and they would be surprised to see an entry on their credit card”.
In any case the advertisements will be withdrawn so thank you to all community members who took the time to voice their objection and educate the advertising department at Westpac. Ms Jager commented that they have been inundated with complaints and will now retract the advertisments.
We advised Ms Jager that Westpac would be better off trying to help a country like Ukraine fight corruption than make it a subject of their advertising. We also told her that their timing was terrible – during our Easter – and that the message they were sending was not a light-hearted one but destructive to a country wanting to get out of of this hole of corruption – created from its former USSR days.
Thank you to all members and community organisations who took the time. A very well coordinated response thanks to the Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations