Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

provided by

This clip shows a television advertisement for Australia Post filmed in the streets of Sydney from the point of view of the driver of a motorcycle travelling at high speed. The soundtrack contains only the sound of the bike and the advertisement’s message, in white subtitles tells viewers not to drive dangerously, as communications can be delivered to ‘virtually anywhere in Australia’ within 2 hours by Australia Post’s Lettergram and FaxPost services.

Educational value points

• This television commercial ‘drives its advertising message home’, using experiential and entertaining methods. The viewer is placed in the driver’s seat and this viewpoint and the unrelenting sound of the motor hold the viewer’s attention while the message appears silently in white subtitles. The message is conveyed cleverly, as the film enacts the kind of activity that the advertiser discourages in the subtitles.

• The advertisement uses humour to ‘sell’ the FaxPost and Lettergram services. This is apparent in the ironic punchline, ‘Maybe you should walk there’, which is shown towards the end, after the entire commercial has focused on a vehicle travelling at high speed.

• A ‘fast-motion’ technique was used for this advertisement. It involved running the camera at a slow speed when filming – for example, at 12 frames per second (fps) instead of 25 fps – and then playing the film back at normal speed. 'Fast motion’ is an old method of producing a special effect; originally, special effects had to be created during filming, in the camera, or optically printed in a laboratory. Today, virtually all special effects are computer generated.

• This television commercial, devised by Clemengers Melbourne, is a response to the challenge of advertising a service rather than a product. The qualities of a service such as Lettergram or FaxPost are not as easily appreciated or conveyed as the qualities of a tangible product. The commercial illustrates the benefits of Australia Post services in an inventive way by taking viewers on a filmic journey.

• This Australia Post advertisement uses subtitles to acknowledge the ‘unsafe’ driving practice shown and incorporates it as an entertaining element. Like all public media in Australia, television networks are bound by censorship regulations and industry codes of practice that prohibit or deter the representation of inappropriate behaviour.

• Australia Post offers electronic services such as FaxPost, which is useful for business although not as widely used since the advent of more advanced electronic services. FaxPost conveys documents delivered to Australia Post to a recipient’s machine or in print form via a local Australia Post facsimile service. FaxPost messages can be delivered nationally and internationally.

• This advertisement shows two of the numerous services provided in the late 1980s by Australia Post, one of Australia’s largest government organisations. From the first tiny, one-person post office in Sydney in 1809, the organisation grew and adapted to changes in communications technology until by 2000 it had achieved an annual profit of $402 million before tax. By 1989 Australia Post had become a Government Business Enterprise, trading as a corporation and with a board of directors accountable to the Australian Government.