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Australian TV Advertisements

More often than not I dislike TV advertisements but, every now and then, an ingenious piece of imagination surfaces that tickles my fancy or at least makes me sit up and take note. Here are some classics from Australia.

A multiple-choice quiz by pollucci19. Estimated time: 3 mins.
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Author
pollucci19
Time
3 mins
Type
Multiple Choice
Quiz #
414,436
Updated
Nov 11 23
# Qns
10
Difficulty
Average
Avg Score
7 / 10
Plays
97
Awards
Top 5% quiz!
Last 3 plays: jonathanw55 (10/10), Guest 203 (10/10), Guest 119 (10/10).
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Question 1 of 10
1. Gough Whitlam waved his hands as Alison McCallum belted out the message to Australians that "It's Time". What did this advertisement tell Australians that it was time for? Hint


Question 2 of 10
2. Which rock and roll diva was employed by the New South Wales Rugby League in 1989 to promote their brand, using the singer's hit song "What You Get is What You See"?


Question 3 of 10
3. The message in this Australian television advert was clear: "You gotta work hard to be a Solo man". Manufactured by Cadbury Schweppes (at the time), what exactly is Solo? Hint


Question 4 of 10
4. In the year 2000 "Not Happy Jan" was used as the slogan in an Australian advertisement advertising an advertising medium. Which of the following was it? Hint


Question 5 of 10
5. During the late 1990s the lyric "My dad picks the fruit that goes to Cottee's, to make the ___ ... that I like best" belted out on Australian television. What was Cottee's making with the fruit in this instance?


Question 6 of 10
6. Australian advertisers introduced us to Rhonda enjoying a Bali holiday and flirting with her waiter, thanks to the benefits of having a Safe Driver programme with which of the following companies? Hint


Question 7 of 10
7. For over forty years Carlton United, owners of a product known locally as VB, told us such wisdoms as "you can get it ridin', you can get it slidin'". What were they saying that you could get doing these things? Hint


Question 8 of 10
8. Holeproof Australia created an advert to promote their range of Antz Pantz, using a kangaroo, with the instruction to "sic 'em Rex".


Question 9 of 10
9. Which Australian singer created the 1980 song "I Still Call Australia Home" that was employed by Qantas to great effect in advertising their airline? Hint


Question 10 of 10
10. In 1989 Australia's TAC put across the blunt message that you were a "bloody idiot" if you did which of the following? Hint



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Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. Gough Whitlam waved his hands as Alison McCallum belted out the message to Australians that "It's Time". What did this advertisement tell Australians that it was time for?

Answer: A change in government

On the back of this 1972 campaign, Gough Whitlam and his Australian Labor Party (ALP) swept into power, with Whitlam becoming Australia's 21st Prime Minister. Beyond taking Gough to the Lodge, what made this campaign so spectacular was that, in Australian political circles, there had been nothing like it before. After this, the way political parties in this country would campaign changed forever.

Back to this advert, McCallum, who was riding the crest of a wave with the success of her debut solo single, "Superman" (1972), delivered the song with the passion of a true devotee. But she wasn't alone in the song, with its chorus enhanced by a large group of, what was at the time, Australian entertainment royalty. Amongst these were the likes of Jack Thompson, Jackie Weaver, Graham Kennedy and Bert Newton. To put this into context, "It's Time" would do for the ALP what "We Are the World" did to draw attention to the plight of starving Africans in 1985.
2. Which rock and roll diva was employed by the New South Wales Rugby League in 1989 to promote their brand, using the singer's hit song "What You Get is What You See"?

Answer: Tina Turner

During the 1980s, Rugby League in Australia had taken great strides to push its game into new frontiers. The States of Queensland and New South Wales were the heartland for the sport, and they were anxious to start pushing their concept into areas dominated by Australian Rules Football, such as Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia.

Their master stroke, to this end, was utilizing the talents and sex appeal of Tina Turner. It's a fair bet that Turner had no idea what Rugby League was or that it was even a code of football, but that didn't matter. Tina, at the time, was beloved and an absolute megastar... Australia would sit up and take notice.

The song, "What You Get is What You See" (1986), also had no connection to the game but, this too, didn't matter. It was a banger, and Australia would listen. As such, Tina Turner got to ride shotgun on the most ambitious sports campaign since Kerry Packer promoted his World Series Cricket concept with the iconic "C'mon Aussie, C'mon" (1976) crusade. In the 1990s Rugby League would continue to utilize Tina, but this time, with her hit "The Best" (1989), but, by then, the landscape had already been altered.
3. The message in this Australian television advert was clear: "You gotta work hard to be a Solo man". Manufactured by Cadbury Schweppes (at the time), what exactly is Solo?

Answer: Soft drink

Over the years there would be many different versions of the Solo man. We would witness him white water rafting, paddling a canoe over a waterfall, wrestling a crocodile... I think you get the picture, a manly man was doing manly things. The message, in the end, was pretty simple "REAL men drink lemon soft drink".

The clincher came in the closing shot as our (manly) man guzzled through a can of Solo (making sure that you could see the name) with trickles of the drink running down the sides of his chin, the voice over informing us "it's light on the fizz, so you can slam it down fast". Then the can would be crushed in the manly man's fist.
4. In the year 2000 "Not Happy Jan" was used as the slogan in an Australian advertisement advertising an advertising medium. Which of the following was it?

Answer: Yellow Pages

Sometimes products become so common that they become a part of the vernacular, for example, Bubble Wrap, Jacuzzi and Band Aids. There are pros and cons for this phenomenon, however, when that happens to an advertising slogan, like it did for "Not happy Jan", it becomes advertising gold. After the launch of this advertisement, that statement, in Australia, became fashionable and then it became a part of our vocabulary. It was even adopted into a political campaign for the 2004 elections, though the incumbent Prime Minister, John Howard, managed to survive the "Not happy John" crusade.

The two actresses involved in this iconic Australian advertisement were Rhonda Doyle, who played the hapless Jan, an employee who'd missed the cut-off to lodge her boss's ad in the esteemed telephone book, and Deborah Kennedy, who becomes the furious boss when she realizes that it will be another twelve months before she has the chance to remedy the problem. As Jan is trying to sneak out of the workplace and away from the wrath of her employer, her boss leans out of the office window and speaks that immortal line. Here's the remarkable bit... that line was not in the script, it was something that Kennedy ad-libbed on the day of the shoot. Both Yellow Pages and Australia were grateful.
5. During the late 1990s the lyric "My dad picks the fruit that goes to Cottee's, to make the ___ ... that I like best" belted out on Australian television. What was Cottee's making with the fruit in this instance?

Answer: Cordial (squash)

Cottee's is an Australian food and beverage company that is currently owned by the Kraft Heinz group. While they do make jams and marmalades, this particular advertisement was urging us to indulge in their cordial (known as squash in some places).

The jingle was created by Peter Martin and the advertisement first aired in December 1998. It became an earworm and a school playground anthem. It had kids begging parents to throw a couple of bottles into the shopping trolley every week. Cottee's, understandably, were over the moon with the success.

The first commercial showcased a group of children running out of school, streaming off a school bus and rushing en-masse to the same household for a glass of refreshing cordial. Another version a couple of years later showed a similar number (at least a dozen) marching through an orchard singing the song, collecting fruit and then rushing to the same house for more cordial. The weird thing, in my eyes, is that we only ever see one dad picking the fruit. Hmm, that deserves pondering.
6. Australian advertisers introduced us to Rhonda enjoying a Bali holiday and flirting with her waiter, thanks to the benefits of having a Safe Driver programme with which of the following companies?

Answer: AAMI Insurance

Help me Rhonda indeed.

The Australian insurance market is a mature one. That means that if you're looking to grow organically, you can't. The only way to do so would be to take over another insurer or steal their clients unless, you spot an opportunity that few others do and exploit it magnificently. Here's the gap that AAMI found... most people do not get anything from their insurers. Every twelve months they pay their premiums and hope to the heavens that they do not need to make a claim. AAMI decided to use this angle to get a jump on their competition and introduced a Safe Driver Rewards programme, that basically means what it's called, and they used Rhonda, an awkward but lovable character, to be the face of that incentive.

The slightly dorky Rhonda was first introduced in September 2011to great fanfare. She was toasted and celebrated on a grand scale for being such a safe driver. Six months later, March 2012, we get to see how Rhonda benefits from that - in Bali, flirting with Ketut, the waiter. The implication here was that you too could be this fortunate if you were with the right insurer... AAMI.

All well and good so far, then the incredible happened. Australia fell in love with Rhonda and Ketut and their affair soon became a soap opera with viewers wanting to know more about their intimate details. Social media was the first to explode. A FaceBook page called "The sexual tension between Rhonda and Ketut" arose and scored 100,000 likes in less than a week. Tee-shirts featuring the couple sold like hot cakes in the market stalls along Kuta Beach and phrases such as "You hot like sunrise" and "Kiss me Ketut" became a part of the vernacular. There were memes, there were political cartoons published and parodies created, heck there was even a racehorse that was named "Kiss me Ketut".

Other commercials were created that added further fuel to these fires but the remarkable outcome from all of this was that AAMI grew its market share by a staggering 20%.
7. For over forty years Carlton United, owners of a product known locally as VB, told us such wisdoms as "you can get it ridin', you can get it slidin'". What were they saying that you could get doing these things?

Answer: A hard earned thirst

Carlton & United Brewery is based in Melbourne, and they have run various versions of this advertisement over the decades. Each has the average man toiling away at a number of tasks...
"You can get bowlin'
You can get it rollin'"
All designed so that he could reward himself with an ice cold beer... and that beer needed to be Victoria Bitter (VB).

The campaign began as far back as 1965 but, in its initial days, it wasn't set up to promote VB. Rather, it was to push their brand Bulimba Gold Top within a Brisbane market that was being dominated by XXXX. It worked so well that they were outselling their main competitor within weeks. Seeing the success in Brisbane they turned their attention to the Melbourne market where, while they sold reasonably well their product wasn't well positioned and they saw this commercial as a means to address that...
"You can get it jumpin'
You can get it pumpin'"
After all, even Victorians needed to be rewarded with an ice cold beer.

The campaign to add value to the VB brand in 1967 was then hastened with the imminent introduction into their marketplace of UK based brewer Courage. Their research team discovered that the market for VB - blue collar, honest toil and reward for a hard day's work - was exactly the same as the one for Bulimba. The decision was then easy, use the same commercial, simply change the name. They employed Australian actor John Meillon, best known as Walter Reilly in the film "Crocodile Dundee" (1986), to be the voice and a legend was born.
"You can get it workin' a plough
As a mater of fact, think I've got it now."
8. Holeproof Australia created an advert to promote their range of Antz Pantz, using a kangaroo, with the instruction to "sic 'em Rex".

Answer: False

Picture this scene in your head if you will. An extremely attractive young female backpacker is sweltering in a dimly lit room in the outback. In an endeavour to beat the heat she strips down to her underwear, her Antz Pantz undies, and lays down on the bed. But wait, she is not alone. An army of ants has made their way onto the bed and they are slowly marching up her leg. You watch in suspense as the ants make their way onto her, let's be delicate, Holeproof region, wondering what sort of mischief these formidicae are about to get up to. Alas, for the ants, they do not realize that the woman has a secret weapon... her pet echidna who is simply champing at the bit to feast on these little soldiers. "Sic 'em Rex" she says and the spiny anteater launches himself at them. We do not get to see the echidna feasting but we do hear noises and see the (somewhat) suggestive reactions of the young woman.

Holeproof's target market for this line were young girls between the ages of 16 to 20 and they succeeded. However, the commercial came with its fair share of controversy. Virtually all of Australia had an opinion about the advert, including the government. Some were clutching their pearls and expressing their outrage, while others called for the smelling salts. Others cried that they were "disturbed, but also aroused. Through all this, Holeproof remained silent and counted the dollars coming in.
9. Which Australian singer created the 1980 song "I Still Call Australia Home" that was employed by Qantas to great effect in advertising their airline?

Answer: Peter Allen

The cynical part in me would say that Qantas has always emphasised that it is "THE Australian airline" and by using this song's highly emotional and patriotic sentiment, it could get away with the attitude that "we don't have to compete on pricing, service or efficiency because if you decide to fly with another airline, you are un-Australian".

Shoulder my cynicism aside and I will admit that this is an ingenious piece of advertising. Qantas grabbed a song that evokes a sense of longing and belonging while all the time telling us it is your right to travel to places that are not Australia. It became such a powerful message and motivator that the airline ended up adopting the number as its signature song.

First released in 1987, using singers from the stable of the Mojo advertising agency, the commercials showed you places like the Acropolis and Disneyland, where Qantas could take you and bring you back from, safely. In 1994 they re-imaged this using notable Australian celebrities in various locations. However, the killer came in 1997... in employing members of the National Boys Choir and the Australian Girls Choir, dressing them up in pristine white uniforms and providing, as a group, wholesome renditions of the song while standing on the Brooklyn Bridge, the Great Wall of China and a host of other exotic locations, they created pure patriotic dynamite.
10. In 1989 Australia's TAC put across the blunt message that you were a "bloody idiot" if you did which of the following?

Answer: Drink and drive

For obvious reasons, only the acronym TAC was used for the Transport Accident Commission in the question. The TAC were fed up with the number of road fatalities that came about as a result of drink driving, which stood in excess of 1,000 lives each year. They commissioned Greg Harper to create a series of advertisements that were stark, to the point and, most of all, confronting to their target audience. They no longer cared about being gentle about it, they wanted to use a big stick.

Harper and the TAC would produce a series of commercials over the years but their first one still stands the test of time. Labelled "Girlfriend" the ad was filmed at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, during an active medical emergency, using real medical staff. It depicted a young woman who had been critically injured in a car crash that had been caused by her drunken boyfriend. The entire scene was "in your face" and the deliverance of the slogan "If you drink, then drive, you're a bloody idiot" served as a massive slap to that face.

The blunt instrument did its job and the number of road deaths caused by drink driving fell by 37% in the next twelve months.
Source: Author pollucci19

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