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General Motors Holden – The Time is Now (1966)

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'The time is now and the car is Holden' education content clip 1

This clip chosen to be G

Clip description

A woman lies on a beach, dreamily relaxing under her hat. A Holden HR sedan is parked on the sand nearby. The woman runs to the car, which is filmed from different angles to show off its new exterior and interior design. A male voice-over announces that 'the time is now and the car is Holden’. The woman drives the car along the beach, stopping to pick up a man at a bus stop on the sand. 'Turbo-smooth Holden’ appears on screen after the narrator concludes that 'you only have to drive it once to discover nothing else will do’. Wistful music accompanies the advertisement.

Curator’s notes

by Poppy De Souza

In this clip, the Holden HR features in the private world of the woman’s imagination. From the point at which the car appears on the shores of a deserted beach, the audience enters a dream sequence. As the narration says, your world 'changes around you when you discover new Holden’. The whimsical melody on the soundtrack contributes to the ad’s fun, adventurous, contemporary appeal. While the new Holden benefited from a more powerful engine, this ad – focused on a female audience – instead emphasises the HR’s 'turbo-smooth’ handling, style and comfort.

Teacher’s notes

provided by The Le@rning FederationEducation Services Australia

This clip shows a black-and-white television advertisement for the General Motors-Holden’s 1966 HR sedan. An aerial shot closes in on a bikini-clad young woman on a beach. In a dream-like scenario she sits up to see a Holden car on the shore. She runs to it, and as she gets closer the car is shown from various angles. Inside, it has an ‘OPEN FOR FUN’ sign. The woman drives along the shoreline and picks up a man waiting at a bus stop on the sand. The clip has a male voice-over, music, a female chorus and concludes with the caption ‘Turbo-smooth HOLDEN’.

Educational value points

  • The advertisement targets a female audience by associating the General Motors-Holden’s HR sedan with youthfulness, fun, desire and comfort – qualities seen as appealing to women. The advertisers have attempted to position the car as an object of female desire by placing a young attractive woman in the driver’s seat and by emphasising the car’s design features rather than its engineering superiority.
  • The advertisement places the HR sedan at a beach, a location associated in the Australian imagination with freedom and space. During the 1960s film locations for Holden advertisements increasingly moved from suburbia to the coastline, establishing Holden’s ongoing association with beach culture. Holden’s advertisements tapped into, as well as suggested, the appeal to Australians of sun, sand, surf and bikinis.
  • The surreal visual element in this advertisement – a man in a suit standing at a bus stop on the beach – signals a shift in Holden’s marketing to embrace the second generation of Holden owners, young 1960s consumers. In the 1960s Holden increasingly directed its advertisements to a more youthful urban demographic, placing less emphasis on its original loyal customer base, the 1950s suburban nuclear family.
  • This clip promotes the cosmetic improvements made to the HR in 1966. The facelift on the less popular 1965 HD model included a reworked roofline, new-look tail-lights and a new grille that reflected the HR’s longer, sleeker appearance. The HR’s signature ‘turbo-smooth’ feel, presented at the end of the clip, emphasises ease of handling and comfort, features seen as desirable to female drivers.
  • By the 1960s Holden was claiming to be Australia’s most popular car maker, a position built on its local manufacture, suitability to Australian conditions, post-Second World War developments in transportation and the rapid growth of suburbia. A loyal customer base in the 1950s and a new generation of consumers in the 1960s ensured Holden’s grip on the market remained strong until the mid-1970s, when it faced increased international competition and rising production costs.
  • The film techniques used in the advertisement are intended to create a youthful playful ambience attractive to a young contemporary audience. The aerial shot of a woman lying alone on a vast beach with evocative music, the cross-dissolve to the mirage-like scene of a car, the woman’s jaunty run over the sand, the quirky bus-stop scenario and the shots of the car in motion accompanied by an upbeat soundtrack are designed to reflect the modernity of the car.