When Nissan rolled out its Turbo Patrol campaign in Australia, the
last thing it expected to do was to spark a heated debate over the use
of demeaning rural stereotypes.
But its portrayal of country folks - in the wake of successful campaigns
produced in the same vein by Toyota and other brands - has prompted a
scathing attack by an Australian regional agency boss, and attracted the
attention of a Member of Parliament.
Set in a country town, Nissan's TV spot shows a man exchanging greetings
with locals, each with the same contorted facial expression. The
normal-looking man steps into his Turbo Patrol to drive to his farm.
When he arrives at the farm, he too has the same expression as his
neighbours because of the supposed G-force effect created by the
powerful vehicle.
In Toyota's "Bugger" effort, characters on a farm utter the word each
time they perform tasks that end in disaster.
The Australian bush - the vast hinterland that lies beyond the seaboard
and which has played an integral role in shaping the character and
legends of the nation - clearly inspires agencies and movie makers in
creating memorable celluloid characters, including Crocodile Dundee. Yet
the most striking thing to emerge about the bush in the 21st century is
that few Australians actually know much about it. The trend towards
bush-inspired advertising is actually happening in the wake of
increasing rural depopulation - 85 per cent of Australians now live in
urban and suburban areas.
So do bush-inspired campaigns connect with the urban masses? "The
stereotype of the country bumpkin shows a complete ignorance of the
demographics of the country," says Australian MP Peter Andren, who
represents Calare in rural New South Wales. Rural dwellers living in
country towns may have jobs related to agriculture, but they are no
different to the average Australian in their aspirations and habits, he
says.
The agency boss who sparked the debate, Jack Moore, managing director of
Cook, Green and Moore in Victoria's country town of Bendigo, says the
Nissan campaign only reinforced demeaning images of the bush. Moore
believes that the complexities of life in rural areas have been obscured
by popular images of country people in Australian advertising. If the
same sort of caricatures were used to depict women and ethnic groups,
Moore believes there would be howls of protest from Australia's
cities.
"There is a view that the way to capture the hearts and minds of country
people is to whack someone in a silly hat and a checked shirt," he
says.
Predictably, Moore's views have found little support in the big cities,
where industry players have hailed the Nissan spot as one of
television's advertising highlights of the year, not only for the visual
images, but also for the way it strengthened the brand. Melbourne-based
Whybin TBWA & Partners, which created the Nissan spot, dismisses the
charge of rural stereotyping. Whybin director Roger O'Donnell comments:
"Nissan would not run an ad that denigrates its customers. The ad is
humorous; it is telling viewers that the Patrol delivers the power
proposition."
David Ansell, chief executive of Saatchi & Saatchi, the agency behind
Toyota's "Bugger", adds: "I don't think we should be creating a divide
where one does not exist. In broad terms, no one wants to alienate
country Australians. It is too significant a market. The aim of
advertising is to connect with people, whether they live in the city or
the bush."
Leo Burnett Melbourne executive creative director Shapoor Batliwalla
suggested that bush-inspired advertising needed to be seen in the
context of the industry's output as a whole. He questioned if the genre
was any more or less offensive than the bulk of TV advertising currently
is. "Is it any more stereotypical than urban youths with spiked hair and
safety pins in their noses, or dumb boys sitting in front of the TV in
the suburbs? It is an aspect of advertising that takes something and
exaggerates that aspect of the character."
