Australian
Screen

Clip description

This television advertisement highlights General Motors Holden’s research and training programs, apprenticeships, cadetships and scholarships, and the contribution they make to help Australia 'meet the challenge of the times’. Explanatory voice-over narration accompanies footage of workers and researchers in factories, laboratories and a range of academic institutions. The General Motors Institute in the US offers advanced training to employees from GMH plants worldwide. The GMH Postgraduate Research Fellowship Plan aims to increase skills and research at Australian universities. One such recipient of the fellowship, Mr Bruce Macauley Thomas, works to improve electronic communication.

Curator’s notes

This advertisement presents General Motors Holden as a company at the forefront of research and development in Australia. A broad range of academic and technical activities are featured to persuade audiences that GMH is heavily invested in the development of the country. Through activity such as this, the company boosts its public relations profile. The narrator’s tone is earnest and carries a sense of urgency to impress upon the audience the importance of what he is saying and its relevance to the nation.

This ad also demonstrates how crucial scientific and technological research is to large multinational companies like GMH. Increasing the skills of the workforce leads to improved research output and encourages further innovation and technological developments which, in turn, result in better quality products. While this ad shows audiences that GMH does more than produce cars, it also reassures them that their Holdens benefit from the latest engineering and design technology.