classic ads

The basic strategy for Hard Yakka ran for around 35 years and involved celebrating the hard working aussie working class.  The jingle, which if I recall correctly was written by Mike Brady, was mixed and remixed for a good 10+ years. From 1989 From 1995 Early 2000’s No longer using the original jingle And from […]

The Holeproof series was another long-lived campaign concept built around a simple idea – “one day you’re gonna get caught with your pants down” – a slightly more contemporary version of what every mother tells their child (though normally accompanied by suggestions of being hit by a bus not what happens in these ads). The […]

Take me away please P&O was created by John Bevins but in the 80’s the account was handled by O&M. I remember another classic media planning gaff with P&O where a spot was placed in the Sunday Movie “Voyage of the Damned” – good placement though, everyone was in the boat, starving, looking up toward […]

This campaign was fraught with so much controversy. In the early 80’s everyone wanted to ditch it and create a new ad – after all it had been running for close to 10 years by then.  The agency thought it was tired, the client thought it was tired – problem was the consumers didn’t.  The […]

Before “I still call Australia Home” and the Australian Children’s Choir commercials Qantas were “the spirit of Australia, the flying kangaroo”. This commercial is from 1983.

A beautiful campaign from the 90’s which was just haunting in its music. The audio is of a classic Maori love song called “Pokarekare Ana” sung by New Zealand’s very own Dame Kiri Te Kanawa in her absolutely unique voice Another version sung by a little girl instead of Dame Kiri – also with amazingly […]

Many people think of the “Australian Made” campaign as being something relatively new. In fact its not and goes back to the very early 80’s and the height of the community service advertising boom (mostly brought about because TV stations had a manditory amount of CS ads they had to run). This campaign is from […]

In the mid 80’s the commercials got a lot more adventurous and few more so than Decore particularly as it was a family product. This one has to rate as one of the best remakes of a song into a jingle – in my opinion anyway.  And check out about 4 seconds into the clip […]

Another one out of Perth and from the era of Mojo. Red Rooster was original created by the Kailis family in 1972. A few years later Frank & Joe Romano founded Chicken Treat in Perth and Nick & Phil Iana founded Big Rooster in Queensland.  Red Rooster was sold to Myer in 1981. Chicken Treat […]

British Caledonian Airlines were around in the 70’s & 80’s. Originally the Scottish charter airline Caledonian airlines, at the time Britain’s second largest, wholly privately owned airline, took over British United Airways, at the time the largest independent British airline.  The takeover enabled Caledonian to become a scheduled airline and with time the merged entity […]

A community service campaign out of Perth which ended up going national – actually I believe all these campaigns went national. And another one for “Dirt” And of course the memorable “Mum knows” Then there was “Dingalings”

This campaign from 2004 created a bit of a fuss, particularly the canoe ad.  The Advertising Standards Bureau issued a complaint based on ” “Because it is a bit ‘dangerous’.” “Some crazy person would get out there and do it just like that.”.  The agency basically responded with a polite and politically correct version of […]

The original Antz Pantz campaign was created by Mara Marich & Sarah Barclay from The Campaign Palace. Iain Mackenzie was the director. In 2003 the campaign was essentially remade or updated by Whybin TBWA and again directed by Ian McKenzie.  Rather than real live ants, this version featured a combination of live action & 3D […]

The Feminine Hygiene product category was probably one of the hardest to work on in the 80’s particularly as most of the product managers were men.  Having to sit through a bloke describing the benefits of a “silky smooth cover” was little short of hysterical – let alone the product benefit explanations of widthways vs […]

This was another campaign & jingle in the 80’s which just got into your head and wouldn’t leave. The campaign itself went on for around a decade.  From very vague memory (hey it was a long time ago!) this campaign was created when the Citizens Military Force changed its name to the Australian Army Reserve […]

Another classic from the early 80’s, though the campaign itself started in the late 70’s written (if I recall correctly) by Peter Carey. I remember scheduling this in a Sunday night movie without first checking what the movie was – turned out to be “Alice – Portrait of a teenage alcohol”. The ad ran straight […]

On Youtube this is listed as 1988 but it was actually 1983/4 and I don’t think it ran till 1988 because the jingle made a lot of people a tad uncomfortable – you have to remember the times. Just after this campaign, Streets started to create the “ripple” range with Boysenberry etc. The somewhat erotic […]

I remember this ad originally failing at ad testing but everyone believed in it so much it went ahead.  So many great campaigns nearly died before they hit the screens – probably still do. This one came out just before the Cottee’s 007 1/2 campaign which was designed for the kids cordial range.  I’ve never […]

Another of the classic community service campaigns from the early 80’s. An anti-litter movement began in 1969 in Victoria with the formation of “Keep Australia Beautiful”. Its major anti-littering campaigns “Do the right thing” and “Tidy Towns” became well known nationally.  “Do the Right Thing” not only ran as community service announcements but McDonalds also […]

The 2007 incarnation of Tourism New Zealand’s marketing Firstly the launch video Then the commercial shown in Australia

The Yellow Pages advertising from the early 80’s would have to rate as strategically some of the best – not to mention memorable & enjoyable. The Gogomobile commercial The Fly Songs of Love And one of my favourites – Roboto The “Not Happy Jan” commercial was targeted at advertisers in the Yellow Pages – to […]

Whilst Qantas now is considered the business airline, it really wasn’t always that way in Australia.  Ansett was more orientated toward the business market, perhaps because it was one territory they could get inroads into against the national carrier. In the 90s they launched a series of intiatives aimed at increasing their share of this […]

Hans Poulsen originally created the jingle and the account was handled by O&M Sydney. A later version from 1981 And a later one listed as 1985 but from memory it was actually created in 1984

The Tourism Victoria jigsaw campaign “you’ll love every part of Victoria” really became the tourism campaign against which most tourism bodies in Australia measured themselves.  It was an amazingly subtle and beautifully crafted strategy and ad campaign which still continues conceptually today.  The campaign itself started in 1993 and the adverts & logo were created […]

The “Soldier on” campaign for Codral Cold tablets is listed on YouTube as being 1989 and it was probably still running then, but it was actually created in 1983/4 by Ogilvy & Mather Sydney.

Margarine was still relatively new in the 70’s & early 80s and most of the ads focussed on its health benefits. The category was generally seen as negatively motivated with people buying margarine to avoid the perceived health risks of butter. So much of the advertising was plain annoying (eg Ripper Rita).  Mojo took a […]

The now famous “this goes with that, at Sussan” campaign first started in 1979 and continued for probably 20 years as their slogan.

The C’mon Aussie C’mon campaign dates back to 1978 and was written by Mojo for the Channel 9 network. This particular version is from the 80s when they introduced the Supertests. This one comes from around 1980’s for the West Indies tour.

Its interesting to see this old campaign raised in the parliamentary reports looking at ways of funding the proposed NBN. This campaign dates back to the early 80’s and was successful due to a combination of a very simple message, a catchy jingle and tapping into Australia’s nationalistic pride at the time.

The whole “jiggler” idea actually started back in the late 70’s with this ad. But it wasn’t until the early 80’s that we got the internally memorable “everybody’s jiggling” campaign which went on for over a decade in different forms.