ASB pulls photo in ad after using same image Govt used in 2019 Budget

ASB used the 2019 Budget family... which had famously fled to Australia for a better life in an ad campaign. Photos / Supplied and file

ASB is replacing a photo in an advertisement campaign famously used on the cover of the 2019 Wellbeing Budget, despite the model and her daughter having moved to Australia for a better life.

Finance Minister Grant Robertson and the Government were left red-faced after selecting the image of a woman and her daughter, who had given up on their native land for ‘The Lucky Country’ because it was too expensive to live in Auckland.

ASB used a photo from the same shoot of model Vicky Freeman and her daughter Ruby in a current advertising campaign.

ASB used the Budget 2019 family (that had infamously fled to Aus for a better life) in its new ad campaign,

When Freeman saw the Herald’s incoming phone call from New Zealand, she said she suspected it was about the photo.

“It’s pretty cool that I keep getting used, to be honest, and my child’s grown up now, they’re now 13,” Freeman said, her daughter Ruby was 9 when the photo was taken.

“Looking back at the photos, they were just a little girl but it keeps popping up all the time, it’s kind of cool because it always happens around my birthday.

“It’s almost like a reminder that, hey, don’t forget you did this.”

When talking about her new life in Australia, Freeman said it has become “another hard place to live” but not unlike the rest of the world at the moment.

“There’s a lot of people struggling to get rentals and I’ve been one of those people and it’s not, it’s not nice,” Freeman said.

She said a friend had joked she should apply for a loan with ASB, a bank she had never used, to buy a home because she was the new face of the bank.

In a statement, a spokesperson from ASB said the photo is “one of a few stock images we paid for the rights to use.”

“Now that we are aware of the issues raised by the model in this photo in relation to another campaign, we are taking steps to replace the photo as a courtesy to her,” the spokesperson said.

“We have also raised this with our advertising agency which will flag with the image library.”

Rachel Maher is an Auckland-based reporter who covers breaking news. She has worked for the Herald since 2022.