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 made us.
Sam Somers – General Manager, SKMG
Carlton Mid – “Stay A Little Bit Longer” Shed Commercial
“I’ve always been a sucker for a beer ad. For years it felt like Aussie beer ads were top of their game in terms of humour, hijinks and, well, being unconventionally apt for life.
“Carlton Draught’s Shed TVC first aired in 2002 and despite the fact that I was only 10 years old, despite being far too young to drink beer, and despite not growing up in Australian suburbia with a backyard like anything featured in the ad, it’s one I’ve never forgotten.
“It features a number of husbands whose sheds are all secretly connected via some nifty bogan engineering, allowing them to “work” (see: drink beer) in there together. The thing is, the piece promoted a sense of ingenuity and engineering that has always spoken to me, from bench grinder pulley systems to pool balls in blower vacs. It’s organised fun, innocent, and it’s a secret joke that we, as the audience, were all in on.”
Tiannen Dedman – Sales Coordinator, ARN
My Mum makes me Milo to go & go & go
“As a child, I have vivid memories of my mum singing this song, and it always came to mind whenever I skipped rope during my primary school days.”
Lucia Elliott – Senior Marketing Consultant, Creighton Ward
Holeproof Antz Pantz – ‘Sic ‘em Rex’
“34 years on this ad still packs a punch. A young woman lying on a bed clad in underwear watches ants march up her leg onto her knickers, at which point she commands her pet echidna, Rex, to attack while she lies back giggling in delight. Audacious stuff best summed up by whoever said, ‘I’m aroused but I’m also disturbed’. They weren’t alone. The whole country weighed in on the controversy, including the Government, with many inevitably clutching their pearls and reaching for the smelling salts via the Advertising Standards Bureau.
“For me, it was a ringing endorsement of the power of creativity and the fame effect, and the campaign turbocharged my desire to work in advertising. That I ended up at the Palace some years later was the icing on the cake.”
See Also: The Ads That Made Us: Connections, Quitting, and Carlton Draught
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Top Image: Sam Somers, Tiannen Dedman, Lucia Elliott