Would the MOJO television ads work in modern Australia?
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In August 2019, I saw a documentary (https://iview.abc.net.au/show/how-australia-got-its-mojo) about the MOJO advertising agency. MOJO was responsible for many iconic media advertisements back in the 1970s and 1980s that are so famous they became part of the vernacular.
The ads they reflect an Australia that is radically different from the current one. For example, according to the introduction page of this report (https://research.acer.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1065&context=lsay_research), the percentage of commencing secondary students remaining to the final year of schooling rose from 35 percent in 1980 to 77 percent in 1993. More broadly, the economy gradually started its shift away from manufacturing towards services. And social change was occurring too.
In many respects, the society MOJO reflected back to its audience in its ads was parochial, patriotic, and working-class. In the MOJO era, media was top-down, mass-market and centralised, as part of a much more protectionist economy. The culture was driven by gatekeepers; usually white, middle-aged men. If you were gay, non-Anglo-Celtic, Indigenous or in any way “alternative”, you didn’t have much of a voice back then…and life was often not as rosy as the ads made it out to be. Yet there was enough common ground across class and geography that the MOJO ads appealed across the board.
However, if (like many Australians) I had grown up overseas, then these ads (and the brands) would perhaps mean nothing at all to me. I might hear about them or discover I liked them, but it would be more or less a suck-it-and-see approach. I cannot see anything like the “I feel like a Toohey’s” or “C’mon Aussie C’mon” ads working as broadly today. Interestingly, the AMCO ads (AMCO being a jeans and clothing brand) could work, particularly with all of the travel pictures – but I don’t think they’d work for AMCO itself.
So what still exists for advertisers to appeal to everyone with? I don’t think sporting teams necessarily do it anymore – or at least, not to the extent they once did. Many of us are cranky at government and politics, so straight patriotism is on the nose too. Ironically, one thing that does appeal is love for family, especially mothers. I wonder if it could be possible for Meadow Lea margarine to try running the same jingle (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoRW6Y4D-Ko), but showing a much more diverse range of people using it together, across a much broader range of foods. Would it work?
I’d be fascinated to see what a bunch of University marketing students in 2019 thought about these ads. Many of the ads are somewhat sexist, very conservative, and any ethnic diversity showing up seems almost accidental, if not deliberately missing. It would also be a really powerful exercise to get such a group of students to create ads for such a culture – without having seen these MOJO ads first. How would they cope with aiming at a conservative, suburban and less sophisticated audience?
It seems very difficult to write ads these days that resonate (and penetrate) culturally to the same extent. For a start, there are now far more media choices, so even the funniest or most compelling ad won’t matter if people don’t watch the media channels it plays upon. And with so much content, having people retain it is that much harder. Likewise, many minority groups have taken to digital technologies as a way of having a voice, and to feel part of a broader community. They can bypass the gatekeepers, and talk about what matters to them. In doing so, though, the ability to have a national conversation becomes a lot harder.
Around the 13 minute mark, social historian Hugh Mackay mentions that advertising is a couple of steps behind social change, and that makes sense in product adoption terms. Early adopters might introduce new ideas, but they are not the majority of the population, and as such, many firms looking to maximise their sales will aim to advertise to the middle of the population distribution.
However, what happens if there is no broad middle market (or even a social “middle”) anymore? While people may be of “average” education and income levels now, I’m not sure that’s sufficient to effectively drive sales the way it used to be. What is now considered average is much higher than it was a generation earlier, and the lifestyle choices it allows are infinitely broader than they were in the MOJO era. Also, the digital era emphasises individuality and personal choice, so I don’t think many people now perceive themselves as “average”.
Media monitoring firms in the digital era assist advertisers to work out which content resonates (or not) with audiences. It occurs to me, though, that if looked at on a larger scale, it may be possible to track social change. Such technology might also be able to show the point in time particular people gain or lose "mainstream" influence...
On a personal level, I’m old enough that I know virtually every ad shown in the documentary. However, when I look at the documentary itself – not even its subject matter – it actually reflects just how backward-looking and nostalgic part of Australia is at present. The cast put together by Russel Howcroft is virtually all Anglo-Saxon Baby Boomers, the sole exception being his advertising and Gruen Transfer TV show colleague Christina Aventi, who is of Gen X vintage. Now I can understand that to a point; after all, these people were either part of the scene back then or were its target audience. Indeed, I’d also argue that this is the exact audience such a nostalgic documentary is aimed at. But there’s no attempt at all to speak to the younger, far more diverse generations. As such, the MOJO documentary feels like it marks the end of an era
What do you think?
