Enjoy the Gruen

Much sadness in this space to discover that one of the greatest television series in the world, The Gruen Transfer, was being geoblocked from Australia. If you have not had the opportunity to see the show, it is Mad Men meets Crossfire -- a somewhat no-holds bared look into advertising.

Produced by the Australian Broadcasting Company, Gruen enters its third season this "winter" -- summer here in the states. Fortunately for the rest of the world, ABC has relented in the copyright based restriction during the Aussie elections. And, the show gets recast as the Gruen Nation, focusing on the political race.

You can watch episodes here for the next four weeks. Along with the dissection of ads by the creative directors of some of Australia's top firms, there's a good deal of insight into the Australian election -- which some Stateside politicos are saying might be a foreshadowing of our own in 2012.

I made an effort to save off season two, which was on iTunes, but lost large chunks of season one. It is available for sale on DVD from ABC, but you can also find a lot of it on YouTube. The host is Wil Anderson, a stand-up comedian by trade prior to Gruen (think younger but as hip Dennis Miller).

Before you think oh, well it's Australia -- Todd Sampson is one of the ad man regulars, as in creator of Earth Hour, winner of Titanium at Cannes for that and a Yahoo Chair. The discussion is frankly world class, and anyone with any shred of interest in advertising, branding and messaging should be viewing/downloading/harvesting these shows.