ANALYSIS: Advertising - Rural inspiration creates image divide down under. Carmakers' ad spots spark rural stereotypying fracas, reports Owen Hughes

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."

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