Minerals Council campaign also targets people with pro-nuclear Facebook ads that reference Fortnite and Ikea wardrobes
Australia’s peak mining lobby group is promoting nuclear energy to young women with a social media campaign generating millions of views on TikTok through memes about Wicked, The Grinch, and seasoning steak with sawdust.
The Minerals Council of Australia campaign, which appears linked with digital communications group Topham Guerin, has also been targeting young people with pro-nuclear Facebook ads related to video game Fortnite and a series of memes mentioning Ikea wardrobes.
“Get Clear on Nuclear”, which launched in August 2024, has mostly shared conventional content in support of nuclear to a relatively small audience, with social media graphics and videos praising the technology as safe, clean and efficient.
Its Facebook page and website, which carry authorisations from the Minerals Council, spruik nuclear as a “reliable and affordable energy source”.
The Minerals Council – whose members include BHP, Glencore, Bravus, Rio Tinto and Roy Hill – endorsed the Coalition’s nuclear plan in June as “a crucial pathway for Australia’s industries to reduce emissions cost-effectively while maintaining access to reliable baseload power”.
But in late 2024 the campaign shifted to publishing videos in the style of popular viral clips on TikTok, using online memes and a far more casual approach aimed at appealing to younger people.
“When you turn on the Christmas lights and your dad goes on a rant about how he wishes they were powered by a clean and reliable nuclear energy,” reads text superimposed on video of the Wicked movie actors Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande.
“If you are making a steak you should not season it with a light sprinkle of grated 160cm Ikea wardrobe as this will make the steak taste of wardrobe. Instead you should use salt. Equally if you are trying to power a country with clean energy you should not be scared of nuclear power and instead use it to reach zero targets,” reads another video.
That clip has more than 2.3m views on TikTok. The campaign’s next most watched video has about 124,000 views, while the other 30 videos on TikTok have only a few hundred or thousand.
Another video referencing Fortnite claims Australia has a “nerfed” energy system without the “final tier” of nuclear power; another with a clip of the 2018 animated film The Grinch praises nuclear as “safe and clean”.
As Crikey first reported last year, Get Clear on Nuclear’s campaign website is registered to an Andrew Mcfarlane of Topham Guerin Pty Ltd. A person of that name is listed as the company’s global tech director.
Topham Guerin has reportedly been tapped to help steer Coalition digital marketing efforts through the upcoming election campaign, after working for the Liberals in other federal elections. The nuclear power policy is a key plank of the opposition leader Peter Dutton’s election pitch.
Energy experts have noted the Coalition’s modelling forecasts much lower consumption of energy in Australia than Labor’s renewables-focused energy policy, which the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, claimed would see a $4tn hit to Australia’s economy. The CSIRO has warned building nuclear power stations would cost more than the Coalition claims; the Coalition modelling does not forecast a reduction in power bills; and the Coalition senator Matt Canavan admitted the plan was “unachievable”.
Many of the unconventional posts existed solely on TikTok, but the Get Clear on Nuclear page on Facebook has recently started promoting some to fans on that platform. The steak and Ikea wardrobe video has been boosted with less than $100 in advertising, but has been targeted almost exclusively to women between 25 and 54; the Fortnite video has been boosted to the same demographics, as has a separate video also referencing Ikea wardrobes.
The Minerals Council and Topham Guerin were contacted for comment.
Dr Andrew Hughes, a marketing lecturer at the Australian National University, said such campaigns showed new and unusual efforts to get the attention of young voters online.
“TikTok is a completely different platform to get your attention. It’s so dynamic, you need to be so out there, pushing the envelope more and more to get to young people who’ve switched off,” he told Guardian Australia.
“I call it the ‘dead cat theory’. You’re driving, you see roadkill up ahead, you don’t want to look at it but you always do. It’s a distraction from your normal feed; it’s all the same content, but then suddenly something pops up that isn’t meant to be there and you pay attention.”
Topham Guerin – which also ran digital communications for conservatives in New Zealand and British elections – came to local prominence after working for the Coalition during the 2019 election, helping Scott Morrison win the online campaign battle with intentionally basic yet viral social media content which one of its directors described as “boomer memes” with a strategy likened to “water dripping on a stone”.
Late in 2024, Topham Guerin posted on LinkedIn about its work in having “led the digital advertising efforts during the LNP’s recent victory in Queensland”, including “video dominance in political advertising” and “embracing AI technology”.
The group claimed its AI team created 744 unique creative assets, including 465 video ads, in the Queensland election alone.
“That’s significantly greater volume than Labor and enabled more bespoke, targeted creative for the audiences. AI tools enabled the LNP to produce over half of these videos rapidly, allowing the LNP to easily speak to local issues in many marginal seats.
“Video content often results in better message retention which is why this tactic was critical.”
