Leaning on a lamp post in Canberra

Gawen Rudder, principal of  The Knowledge Consultancy, believes the Australian government gets the advertising it deserves

We get the government we deserve. Or so they say. Likewise, the government gets the advertising it deserves.

In the FY2016 the Australian Government spent a near-record $175 million on advertising campaigns, led by the Federal Election, Defence Force recruitment and the so-called government innovation and science drive. The standout agency beneficiaries being BMF, Havas, TBWA, the TV networks, Dentsu and – we must mention – the research companies which have become part and parcel of the diminishing standard of federal government advertising in recent years.

Timid bureaucrats cling to Ogilvy’s lamp post* and in some cases, commit up to 30 percent of the media spend on research. Don’t blame the agencies, most are hog-tied by the risk aversion and political correctness that infect Canberra.

Take a moment to read a small portion of the ever-so-helpful government guidance. Sample: ‘For the purposes of these Guidelines, an advertising campaign involves paid media placement and is designed to inform, educate, motivate or change behaviour. Agencies should seek advice if they are unsure whether an activity is an advertising campaign.’ Huh? Or get this schoolroom explanation of the difference between ‘must’, ‘must not’ and ‘should’: ‘Within the Guidelines, where the word ‘must’ is used, it signals that there is a mandatory requirement. Where the phrase ‘must not’ is used, it signals that certain actions or practices are not to be undertaken by entities or officials. Actions or practices that relate to the sound administration of campaigns in order to demonstrate compliance with the Guidelines are denoted by the word ‘should.”

For the record, the highest adspend is said to be a whopping $185m in 2000, the year of the Syd-er-ny Olympics. A tidy amount also went down the drain in the Bicentennial year by the newly-minted Mojo/MDA pre-merger partnership on the over indulgent and over the top ‘Celebration of a Nation’ campaign. Looking back, perhaps these two events were the turning point, the watershed which informed the politicians and their minders that advertising could be used as a form of self-congratulation.

I was lucky enough to work at MDA Melbourne in the seventies and for my sins, worked on a number of government campaigns for the Feds. Some successful and memorable, like ‘Slip.Slop.Slap.’ and ‘Life.Be in it.’, both of which launched as statewide campaigns and went national as their popularity spread. In those days the Australian Government Advertising Service (AGAS) relied more on common sense than the crutch of consumer research.

Today the Communications Advice Branch is located within the Department of Finance, which reminds us that the bean counters run the show. As the Guidelines explain: ‘Finance plays an important role in assisting government across a wide range of policy areas to ensure its outcomes are met.’

So … back in the seventies – when the Ministers responsible made themselves available to agencies, when Finance wasn’t in the driver’s seat and research and pre-testing didn’t bog down the creative process – did we get the advertising we deserved?

Yes and no. Phillip Adams was quick to get the ear of Labor PMs Whitlam and later Hawke, but also found support for film and television with John Gorton, even the humourless Fraser became an ardent fan of Norm and ‘Life. Be in it.’ Later with Scott Whybin and other agency chiefs like him, Adams saw to it that his agency benefited from these connections. Such was the trust he enjoyed from Hawke, that within days of his election, MDA were invited to The Lodge to set up a campaign for his much-vaunted National Economic Summit. Nothing, except multiple charged-out hours, came of it. The UN-declared International Year of the Child (a ‘Care for Kids’ jingle) and Year of Peace (‘One Step Forward and Two Steps Back’) are both best forgotten. The only break-through creative was for ‘Break Down the Barriers,’ the International Year of the Disabled.

What the agency proposed was a campaign featuring disabled people who had made a mark on history by apparently overcoming their disability… think Franklin D. Roosevelt, Monet, Degas, Beethoven, Stevie Wonder, et al. We did an internal show-and-tell, as did the client, and everyone loved it. About to go into pre-production when a group of disabled people heard about it, “Hey, hang about, we’re the ‘product’ being advertised, maybe we should see what the agency has come up with.” Given 578 St Kilda Road had no disability facilities, access was difficult, but their reaction was worse. They hated the campaign. They branded the proposed talent as ‘super crips’ and persuaded the agency to do one-on-one filmed interviews with the likes of an attractive lady who explained how she should wear a plaster cast to parties to attract those who thought she might have had a ski accident rather than stricken with polio; a blind person who found people paid more attention to his seeing-eye dog; and a woman who had a ‘triple disability’ – she was crippled, an aboriginal and a woman. The 60 and 90 sec TVCs were like mini-documentaries and won a Gold Lion at Cannes in 1982.

Post Script: Perhaps a few words on electoral advertising should events conspire to go to the polls in the near future: Australian Electoral Commission legislation covers the big issues of concern with political advertising. The Advertising Standards Board are not involved, but ethics, the ACCC and the law come into play. This includes truth in advertising, misleading and deceptive conduct, and defamation of other people. Truth in advertising can be legislated for, but is incredibly problematic to enforce and prosecute. Misleading and deceptive conduct in ads is enforced only when it concerns promoting informal or incorrect voting. Defamation is left up to common law, it is rarely actioned however, due to the length of proceedings. Unsurprisingly, there is bi-partisan support for an invitation to play loose with the truth.

*”Research is like a lamp post. If you’re drunk it’s just something to lean on. Or you can use it as a source of illumination.”

Gawen Rudder [right] is principal of The Knowledge Consultancy, Sydney. This article first appeared in the November issue of Campaign Brief magazine.

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