As a young country Australia has plenty of insecurities and suffers from the tyranny of distance, being so isolated from the rest of the world.
It’s a problem that faces Australia in many areas of design and the arts. As well as our current advertising and sport malaise.
But it’s a problems that is deeper. We don’t have a culture steeped in hundreds of years of art and culture. It’s one that celebrates vagabonds, convicts, outcasts and the battler.
And now the problem is that Australia is a very comfortable country for most of us. We live in large houses, drive large cars, and, in what is relative to other major cities, don't live in particularly dense surroundings.
We aren’t really subject to the extremes of politics and our economy is robust. None of the factors that will induce anarchy or riot really exist here.
Australia doesn’t really have the prevailing conditions of any significant movement to emerge.
Sure, now we have the Internet to access the world but even in this space we aren’t at the cutting edge of the action, and are probably five years behind the US and the UK on the technological side.
It’s a problem that faces Australians across many, many fields, art being a good metaphor for advertising.
Only recently, art dealer and commentator Chris Moore took at sharp knife to Australia’s cultural conservatism in the Saatchi Art Gallery newsletter, describing the Archibald as a “symbol of all that is wrong in Australian art”, as something which represents how ossified, twee and irrelevant Australian artistic taste is. I wonder if the same can be applied to advertising?
As Moore says: “Scratch the surface of Sydney and you find more surface. Seeing itself as a land of martinis and bikinis, it feasts on its natural treasures while ignoring its Dorian Gray reflection. What a waste. For such an international, educated, well-travelled and ethnically diverse city, it could do so much better. The malaise applies to Australia generally, but it's most evident in our foremost urban ambassador. Sydney is the metropolis manqué, too distracted by shopping, sun and owning harbour views to try harder.”
To be frank, it can be a bit boring in Australia if you are looking for cultural edge. And this feeds into our advertising with often our brightest and best leaving to work abroad.
It’s the Cannes Advertising Festival. It’s the World Cup Soccer.
In both Australia is hoping to punch above its weight. And failing.
It’s something this huge country with a tiny population of some 20 million often faces. Why aren’t we better at what we do?
Where is the creativity?