Sheilas come off the wheels

It’s a bit weird, isn’t it? I’m talking about that bit in the Sheilas’ Wheels advert where the brunette Shelia says: “..and visit our ace website!” with her all-too-English accent.

Everything else in the commercial has been in the same mock-Australian tone we’re used to from the popular ladies’ car insurance firm, and then she goes and drops this accent bombshell.

The joke kind of derails.

I mean, everybody knows Sheilas’ Wheels is a UK company – it’s actually a subsidiary of Esure. And we knew that in all probability the three women who star in their adverts aren’t actually Australian (in fact, one of them is. The other two are from the UK).

But for the sake of the antipodean joke that is the foundation of their entire brand, you’d think she could fake it, right?

As it turns out, copywriters at Sheilas’ Wheels also seem rather keen to distance themselves from the Australian identity they have carved out over the past six years. “No, we're not Australian and we don't sell insurance in Australia” is a mantra that appears over and over again on the company’s webpages.

So why the about face - why try deliberately to undermine the gag? Nobody really believes that an Australian-only insurance company would be advertising on British telly – and telling the joke this way is about as funny as forgetting the punchline.

In fact, the firm’s website is riddled with such strange inconsistencies. On one page for instance, pictures of the Sheilas are accompanied by their autographed signatures – all of which read ‘Sheila’. Yet on the next, the women are identified as Cathi, Emma and Carly.

We can only speculate as to the explanation for this. Maybe after six years of the same women’s car insurance marketing strategy, some staff at Sheilas’ have started to really believe they are Australian. Maybe the Sheilas themselves have started to believe it (in one case, they would be right).

But in any case: maybe it’s time for a new marketing strategy?

Labels: ladies' car insurance, women's car insurance