A zero budget campaign, launched by two ad industry creatives, has gone viral on social media telling everyone to Stay the Absolute F**k Away from regional Victoria during the pandemic lockdown.
Art directors Guillermo Carvajal and Jess Wheeler say the response has been overwhelming.
The pair, who used to work together at independent creative agency Fenton Stephens, now have an online shop for their campaign postcards with proceeds going to charity.
"We'd been hearing report after report of Melburnians breaking the lockdown and heading to regional towns, against medical advice, and staying at holiday homes or attempting to get into hotels," Wheeler told AdNews.
"The situation was quite distressing for the locals as these towns aren't built to handle an outbreak."
So they thought: How can we help get this message across to people from Melbourne? That the way to help right now is to keep away.
"A postcard seemed a simple device to house a normally inviting message, but instead use what's great about these locations as the very reason NOT to go there," says Wheeler.
They started with Phillip Island, Apollo Bay, Lakes Entrance, Heathcote, Mansfield and Portland.
And have since been inundated with requests from other towns.
"So we’ve made four more for the most requested regions,” writes Carvajal on Facebook.
"While it’s a bit of fun, we feel that the more we do the more it will get watered down, so we, unfortunately, cannot do every town.”
One comment on Facebook: “You should work in advertising.”
The campaign grew from a frustration of people ignoring lockdown.
“Personally, we don’t think the concept of ‘stay at home’ is all that complicated to grasp. It’s three words,” says Carvajal.
“Three words that don’t actually require you to do, well, anything. In fact, it takes less effort to follow the instructions than to disobey them. But as we enter our second lockdown, amid the highest infection numbers to date, the gravity appears to have eluded some of you.
“And after hearing about the jam-packed highways out of the city heading towards regional Victoria, despite very clear instructions NOT to leave your primary residence on top of pleas from the towns themselves to stay away, we’ve just about had it.
“There is no room for common courtesy anymore. You are going to kill somebody."
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