Gruen Planet

On Gruen Planet's final episode for 2013 we look at pro and anti-Same Sex Marriage ads from Australia, the United States, and the UK. We also head to Queensland to investigate the state government's crackdown on bikies. How much is it government image control? How do you fight back when you can't even meet to talk? How important is branding to the police? Oh, and there's a Pitch challenge to ban all advertising.

This week, the amber fluid, beer. Despite a decade of big budget, over the top ads, Australian beer consumption is at a 66 year low. What if all those commercials, regularly voted as among the world's best, actually failed? And what can the industry's marketers do to turn the situation around? Also, six months after the collapse of the Rana Plaza clothing factory in Bangladesh, we look at the ways brands respond to that kind of crisis. Is it better to go public or stay silent? Will the Australian consumer value low prices more than human life?

Gruen Planet runs the scanner across the biggest news stories of the week, at home and abroad, examining where the truth stops and the spin, branding and image control begin.