Advertising
For more than twenty years Ultra Tune has been known for their controversial and critically acclaimed television advertisements. Ultra Tune has always strived to differentiate itself from the competition by producing entertaining advertisements. Early advertising – which included the "Dancing Car" in 2001 and later "Dam Girls," "Top Cop," and the "Paper Bag Guy" were light and feel good. More recently, though, Ultra Tune has upped the ante and evolved in a different direction to increase awareness of the brand, products, and services, producing a series of controversial television advertisements.[12][13][14]
2014 saw the introduction of controversial Rubber Girls advertising theme (Originally Laura Lydall and Joanna Hill and later Laura Lydall and Parnia Porsche). The Rubber Girls concept was first introduced to herald Ultra Tune's foray into the lucrative Australian tyre market and featured the Rubber Girls dancing whilst wearing skintight rubber latex suits with the tagline: “We’re into rubber” on free to air television. It was the most complained about advert in 2016 with 418 complaints and the 2nd most complained about advert of all time.[15][16][17]
Due to the success of the Rubber Girls advertising theme Ultra Tune introduced the "Unexpected Situations" Series. It was created by Buckley and loosely modelled on the highly successful Trunk Monkey advertising series from the USA.[18] In the Unexpected Situations series the girls find themselves in a range of outrageous and unlikely circumstances with their motor vehicle only to be assisted by Ultra Tune to overcome their predicaments.
The television campaign created significant controversy for the company with one women's group calling the commercials "sexist and demeaning" and requesting the immediate banning of the advertisements.[27][28][29] In response, Buckley claimed the advertisements were intended to be lighthearted and funny given the extremeness of the predicaments. Buckley further claimed "political correctness had gone too far" and launched an extensive social media campaign which garnered much online support for the series.[30] Laura Lydall and Parnia Porsche wrote an open letter to The Age newspaper in response to the media criticism.[31]
UltraTune announced the controversial advertisements had been incredibly successful doubling Ultra Tune tyre sales.[32]
Following the campaign, the Advertising Standards Bureau received several complaints regarding the Ultra Tune ad series. The complaints raised were regarding discrimination of gender, exploitation and or vilification of women, sex and nudity, violence and health and safety. The board determined that the adverts do not breach any of the codes that they adjudicate on and dismissed all of the complaints in February 2017.[33][34][35][36][37]
In October 2018 Ultra Tune announced that Charlie Sheen will star in their upcoming Unexpected Situations advert to air in 2019. Filming commenced in Melbourne, Australia whilst Charlie Sheen was on tour in the country and also stars Parnia Porsche, Tyana Hansen, Imogen Lovell and Laura Lydall.[38][39]
In October 2019 Pamela Anderson announced she was travelling to Australia to film a new advert for Ultra Tune.[42] In November 2019 Pamela Anderson was seen filming for the advert on a beach on the Gold Coast of Australia, alongside Warwick Capper, Laura Lydall, Tyana Hansen and Parnia Porsche.[43]
- Unexpected Situations No. 1 (Train Wreck) saw the Rubber Girls broken down in a convertible BMW on a railway crossing with a fast approaching train but managing to free themselves prior to the impact.[19]
- Unexpected Situations No. 2 (Helicopter) saw the girls selecting the wrong gear when parked on a cliff top sending the vehicle plummeting off the precipice, only to be saved by an Ultra Tune helicopter.
- Unexpected Situations No. 3 (Car Wash) saw the girls in a convertible mini entering a car wash. Upon entry their retractable roof fails to close leaving the girls saturated inside the vehicle.
- Unexpected Situations No. 4 (JCVD) saw the girls returning to their vehicle in an isolated car park only to find the car disabled with a flat tyre. They are then confronted by a threatening street gang and as the tension mounts Jean-Claude Van Damme appears and after a tense stand-off the gang recognises Van Damme and a party atmosphere ensues. The girls call for assistance and the Ultra Tune technician arrives to change the tyre. Ultra Tune released both 30-second and 60-second versions of this television advertisement which screened extensively during the 2017 Australian Open.[20][21]
- Unexpected Situations No. 5 (Muffler) saw the girls stop at a set of traffic lights shaking the car's exhaust system loose, creating a fire which quickly spreads. The girls respond by vacating the car and using fire extinguishers to douse the flames. When it becomes apparent the fire cannot be contained they flee just before the car is engulfed in flames and explodes just prior the Ultra Tune Road Side Assistance technician arriving. The advert has provoked some strong reactions since its release.
- Unexpected Situations No. 7 (Charlie Sheen) sees the girls (Parnia Porsche, Laura Lydall, Tyana Hansen and Imogen Lovell) driving in a convertible near the harbour on the way to the beach. Their brakes suddenly fail and they lose control of the car and crash into the water. Luckily for them, Charlie Sheen is fishing on his yacht (named ‘Winning’ – a reference to a famous Sheen quote) and he lets them on board. Porsche asks for a phone and Sheen assumes it is for a selfie, but Porsche is exasperated and instead wants to call Ultra Tune Roadside Assist – who turn up jokingly asking if it is boat trouble – as the car is slowly sinking into the sea.[40] Warwick Capper stars as the Captain of the yacht. The ad was received well by audiences compared with previous instalments of the series and a small number of complaints were refuted by the Advertising Standards Bureau.[41]
- Unexpected Situations No. 8 (Pamela Anderson) sees Warwick Capper driving along a beach and being distracted by seeing Pamela Anderson and losing control of the buggy. Having crashed the buggy in the sand, a huge wave envelops him and he is saved by the Ultra Tune girls (Parnia Porsche, Laura Lydall, Tyana Hansen and Jennifer Cole) and Pamela Anderson in a Baywatch-style slow-motion scene. It ends with the Ultra Tune technician arriving, who questions 'car trouble?' to which Anderson replies 'Capper trouble!' and he offers to give Capper mouth to mouth.[44]
