Retro ads: three campaigns that shaped the future
- Luke Telford
- 23 December 2009
Photo credit: pablopi, sxc.hu
Quite apart from the novelty of revisiting the 90s via warped VHS rips on Youtube, it's interesting to follow the ideas that worked and how they've survived through to the present day. It's also illuminating to find how little some of them have changed.
Take this Fosters ad
. It shows us Paul
Hogan in a pub with a frosty schooner in his hand, espousing the virtues of its contents. We're told that he's prevented from drinking on screen due to advertising legislation regarding alcohol consumption; after an uncomfortable couple of seconds
he asks the commercial to fade to black so that he might quench his thirst legally.
An archetypal ad for a good reason. Why? It transcended the tendency for beer ads to be patronising, and assumed more than an iota of intelligence in the viewer. It at once appealed to the blokeyness inherent in (some would say essential to) beer advertising, whilst appealing to more than just the lowest common denominator.
Twenty years on, the same agency (George Patterson) are still running with the ‘less-patronising' theme to sell beer. With the centrepiece for Carlton's ‘Made from beer' campaign, the agency takes it to its logical conclusion: completely over the top.
'The Big Ad' depicts
two armies of men in maroon and yellow robes storming towards eachother across a field, while singing ‘It's a big ad / Very big ad... It better sell some beer' to the melody of O Fortuna by Carl Orff.
Once again, it appeals to the relative intelligence of the modern beer drinker, but this time manages to give new life to the self-reflexive joke, even if only by increasing the budget to a silly degree.
The approach of personifying the undesirable is not a new trick in advertising. One of the most successful examples is Mortein's Louie the fly.
First introduced to the public in 1957, this 1962 ad is typical of the campaign. It depicts Louie as an undesirable household presence, coming ‘straight from rubbish tip to you', and ‘spreading disease with the greatest of ease.' The
ad sets him up as a disconcertingly personable character before providing the viewer with a way to enable themselves against his kind: by using the product.
The narrative in the Louie the fly ads is logical and compelling, which is probably why it hasn't changed much in fifty years, having become a tried and tested advertising trope.
The tactic of personifying the undesirable is simple enough to have weathered several successful reinventions, though. The 2002 Nike ad ‘The Angry Chicken' is a fine example. Parkour co-creator Sebastien Foucan is fleeing the wrath of a pursuant chicken. Despite his athleticism, he is only enabled to escape with the
help of his Nike shoes.
Unlike with Mortein, and much like the Carlton ad, there is no logical progression in this one. The hook is instead placed upon the absurdity of the dynamic Foucan and the chicken, as well as the way the film is styled as an arty French short. Why is the chicken chasing Foucan? Who cares?! It's too entertaining to nitpick over motivations.
Australian tourism advertisements have used some surprising tactics over the years. One theme that was established very early on was to frame Australia as a desirably exotic holiday location, while subtly playing up caricatures and stereotypes.
This 1984 ad is a good example. Once again
featuring Paul Hogan, the ad prefaces the relaxed exoticism of the destination by attempting to dispel the image of a primitive place lacking in European comforts like culture, wine and chinese food.
While the 1984 ad is almost apologetic about the country, leaning heavily on Hogan's Aussieness, it is still effective, primarily for the disarming use of star power and the comparatively subtle depiction of Australia as 'exotic'.
In 2008, the same two factors are at play in antipodean tourism advertising. The star power in this
example is lent by Baz Luhrmann, and inevitably, it intentionally draws parallels to his film Australia. As the country is now well established as a tourism
destination, the emphasis this time is placed squarely upon the exoticism, as represented (quite contentiously) by an Aboriginal child.
The integrity of the ad is open to speculation, but it's allure is undeniable (it won a Clio award after all). Like ‘The Big Ad', though, it feels like the logical conclusion to a theme. Which begs the question: which are the prophetic ads of 2009, that will spell out the trends of the next few decades? It's difficult to say for sure, but endlessly entertaining and rewarding to speculate over.
