Whether it’s a childhood jingle that you can still sing word for word, or a campaign that influences the way you work today, everyone has an ad that has really stuck with them.
Mediaweek has been asking the industry to take a trip down memory lane to find out all about the ads that have stuck with them.
Andrew Knowles, Partner, SKMG
RTA – Pinky
Sure, a heap of ads have introduced phrases that define what it means to have grown up DownUnder: “how many do you do?”, “not happy Jan”, “you wouldn’t steal a handbag”.
But only one ad has introduced a simple, silent gesture so powerful and deeply coded that it can still set off a bunch of P-platers – mainlining Mother and tailgating you at 30km over the speed limit – even if none of them were born when it aired.
In 2007, the RTA delivered a piece of diamond-crusted cultural contagion when they transformed a raised pinkie from tea-party-faux-pas to genuine prophylactic for testosterone-fuelled shenanigans behind the wheel.
It was direct, targeted and a perfect example of why comedy is the sharpest knife we have in the drawer. Comedy happens fast. It relies on communicating context and information – often lots of it – in a way that it so to the point that audiences can understand in a heartbeat. It relies on assumed knowledge and activation of common memories, before rapidly subverting them in a way that surprises and delights. That’s precisely what makes it such a powerful tool in behaviour change if you can get it right: it’s the quickest way to a core memory and gives you a dopamine kick when you repeat it. But equally well, if you don’t know how to handle a sharp knife, well, you get the analogy.
The ramifications of speeding are by no means hilarious, but the behaviour that drives speeding was fair game. For an otherwise very serious advertiser, this was a leap of faith that stuck the landing and changed Australian hand gestures for the foreseeable future. To communicate all that without uttering a word is just magnificent. It’s also the only example in Australian advertising history to advocate for bullying being ok.
Plus, there was this (highest form of flattery and all) – Top Gear Australia Magazine
Julie Wright, Managing Director, Third Avenue Consulting
Pears 2 in 1 shampoo
It was impossible to get through a school excursion bus trip in the early ’90s without this jingle being belted out at screech-level volume by me and my friends. Whether we were on our way to school camp or Thursday afternoon sport, it became the unofficial soundtrack to every bus ride.
And the jingle clearly worked. I have vivid memories of that shampoo bottle living in our bathroom through every rebrand, reformulation and packaging update for the better part of a decade, until a hairdresser in my late teens gently suggested I start using something more suited to my hair.
I often walk into my kitchen and forget why I went in there, but I still remember every single word of that jingle to this day.
Tommy Glover, Head of SEO, Magic
Budweiser – “Wassup?”
The Budweiser “Wassup?” ad premiered in 1999, and I was only 10 years old when I first saw it – not exactly the target demographic but I always found it to be a really funny advert. So much so that I recall buying a Budweiser interchangeable phone case for my Nokia 3310 – which was my first mobile phone – with “Wassup?” printed on the back. Total nostalgia!
Top image: Andrew Knowles, Julie Wright, Tommy Glover
–
To take part in future editions of The Ads That Made Us, please email: [email protected]
Past editions of The Ads That Made Us.
–