How Australia Got Its Mojo - one of our favourite marketing moments.
Recognise any of these phrases?
“C’mon Aussie C’mon”
“How do you feel?”
“You oughta be congratulated”
They were jingles all coined by the Australian ad agency, Mojo.
If you don’t know the Mojo agency, chances are you will know their campaigns. Especially if you lived in Australia any time between, say, 1970 and 1990.
The ABC’s recent documentary, How Australia Got Its Mojo, hosted by Gruen’s Russel Howcroft, tells the story of the agency, the two men behind it, Alan “Mo” Morris and Allan “Jo” Johnston, and marketing in Australia.
Here are some little known facts about the legendary ad agency:
They turned a cricket jingle into a #1 single
“C’mon Aussie C’mon” was originally created in 1978 as a jingle to promote World Series Cricket (started by Kerry Packer) on Channel Nine.
The first season of cricket had been a flop, and the brief to Morris and Johnston for season two was to help the players feel good about themselves.
Mo and Jo were the Lennon and McCartney of Australian advertising, so if anyone could do it, they could.
The jingle they came up with turned the players into characters:
“Marsh is takin’ wickets/Hooksie’s clearing pickets/And the Chappells’ eyes have got that killer gleam.”
The short song was so popular that they created a longer version, which was released as a single later that year, performed by the Mojo Singers (who were essentially just Mojo staff and the recording studio team!).
It went on to become a number one hit.
Johnston sang most of the jingles himself
For a long time, Mo and Jo were the most distinctive and influential voices in marketing in Australia.
Not only did they write the catchy tunes, but most of them were sung by Johnston in his distinctive ocker drawl.
The Meadow Lea jingle has been repurposed by COVID-19
Coming up with something to rhyme with polyunsaturated isn’t easy, but that was the task at hand when Mo and Jo were working on a jingle for Meadow Lea.
And that’s where they came up with the catchy line: “You oughta be congratulated”.
Since then, the jingle has been repurposed in more Australian marketing as a way to encourage vaccination against COVID-19: “You oughta be vaccinated”.
Very catchy.
Mojo’s ads made real money
Catchy jingles are great, but at the end of the day, advertising needs to make money.
That’s exactly what Mojo’s campaigns did.
The documentary reveals how Meadow Lea not only doubled its market share, but it doubled the size of the market for margarine.
Australia soared from number 70 on the list of countries Americans might want to visit to number seven off the back of the Australian Tourism campaign.
And World Series Cricket went from being a complete flop to stadiums being full and television audiences switching on.
As Howcroft told AdNews, “The commercial power of what they did is the big lesson. And hopefully there's a little reminder around the power of ideas to really move markets because we need a bit more of that.”
Mojo was named International Advertising Agency of the Year
By 1985, Mojo was the third largest Australian-owned advertising agency. Then, in 1986, it merged with another local agency, Monahan Dayman Adams (MDA).
Mojo/MDA spread their creative genius to offices in London, New York, San Francisco, Hong Kong, Singapore and beyond.
In 1988, it did what no other Australian agency had done before: it was named International Advertising Agency of the Year by Advertising Age in America.
So, how many Mojo ads can you name?
For a trip down memory lane, check out the MOJO Classics on YouTube (and get ready to sing along).