Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows how Western or global products are advertised in remote regions of Papua New Guinea (PNG). Marketing executive Andrew Rose describes how PNG is providing multinational companies with more markets and potential consumers. Rose writes scripts for Wokabout Marketing, a theatre troupe that advertises global products in remote areas of PNG through performance. The clip includes a skit in which the troupe promotes the benefits of Omo washing powder to a receptive audience.

Educational value points

• Wokabout Marketing is a theatre troupe that travels to remote areas of Papua New Guinea (PNG) to promote global consumer goods. About three-quarters of the population cannot be reached through regular advertising channels such as television, radio or print media. Wokabout Marketing, devised as an alternative, performs soap operas that centre on a comedic dysfunctional family and are designed to introduce and demonstrate the use of products such as Blue Omo soap powder, Colgate toothpaste, Mortein insecticide spray and Coca-Cola.

• Multinational companies, most of which have headquarters in North America, Europe and Japan, continually seek new world markets to maximise profits for their shareholders, and are expanding their reach to remote regions. The isolated PNG highlanders targeted by Wokabout Marketing represent a largely untapped market of potential consumers.

• People in the remote highlands of PNG have practised subsistence agriculture for thousands of years, but the introduction of global products has seen a cash economy replace the barter system. Elijah Bennett from Wokabout Marketing describes the troupe as 'missionaries of lifestyle’, however, globalisation has been criticised for spreading a materialistic culture that equates consumption with an improved standard of living, even when there is not necessary a correlation.

• The introduction of Western consumer goods to remote regions may pose a threat to cultural diversity. As multinationals increasingly view the world as a single marketplace, global products are rapidly replacing locally produced goods. Advertising, increased interaction through television, the internet and travel have tended to reduce the preference for local goods. Supporters of globalisation argue that this market expansion offers consumers greater choice, but critics say that products are increasingly uniform.

• The skit performed by the Wokabout Marketing troupe illustrates the way in which advertising works to create a desire or perceived need for a product. Like other forms of advertising, the skit engages its audience and conveys its message using an entertaining vignette that demonstrates the product’s use.

This clip starts approximately 8 minutes into the documentary.

Cityscape of Port Moresby.
Voiceover Here in Port Moresby, the capital and only major city in the country,

Inside a busy office.
Voiceover at the HRD Advertising Agency, Andrew Rose turns the briefs of his clients into scripts for Elijah’s troupe, which they call ‘wokabout marketing’.
Andrew Rose There are more and more commercial opportunities in PNG. We want to follow, uh, development. We want to be at the leading edge of it, um, and be a first contact for people with Western commercial goods, if you like. So wherever the road goes, we try and go with it.

Overlay of actors advertising Omo.
Man We call him blue Omo! Blue Omo!

Andrew Rose I think the fact that Wokabout is still in existence after all this time speaks volumes. These major multinationals, they don’t just give their money away. The fact that they continue to use us after 10 years means that it’s working, it’s getting the message across.

The rest of the Omo vignette is played out. The vignette is a demonstration of the product on stage to a live audience in a village region. The stage depicts a family living room. The subtitles in English read:
Woman Is that it?
Man That’s it. It’s so easy. Take your smelly shirt… Soak it… Take it out, put it on the line. In-law, you smell it. How does it smell?
In-law It smells a bit like lemon.
Man That’s correct. All this stuff works well in cold water.
In-law and Man Blue Omo!
In-law You want to go first?
Man All right, let me go first.
In-law Remember Blue Omo, works well in cold water.