Opinion: AdNews 2016
Advertising people of Australia, we need to talk. David Ogilvy once said, “The consumer is not a moron, she is your wife”. How right you were Mr Ogilvy, but let me evolve this a fraction. The consumer still isn’t a moron, but her surname could be Nguyen. And she might actually want a wife of her own.
We’re stuck in a vicious cycle where white, middleclass, heterosexual, private school educated agency people populate their ads with white, middle-class nuclear families. A new generation of white, middleclass, heterosexual and private school educated people see those ads and we offer them a job in advertising. And, honestly, repeating the same thing over and over again is boring.
Diversity in advertising shouldn’t just be a matter of satisfying demographics. It should be a creative necessity. Imagine the art world without Jean-Michel Basquiat or the literary world without Maya Angelou. Instead of hiring a younger/older/smarter version of yourself, how about hiring someone completely different? Someone who might not have won that Cannes Lion (yet), but might actually invent a whole new category?
You just hired a female creative team? Go you! But don’t just give them the tampon brief. Give them the truck brief and the beer brief. And how about representing the ‘real’ Australia in our ads. The one where more than a quarter of our population was born overseas. You might inspire someone completely different to give advertising a go and change its face forever. Be the change you want to see, Australian advertising. I know you have it in you.