QANTAS - I Still Call Australia Home (feat. Wolf Kahler)

Classic Ads From Simpler Times

In this week’s drama-filled episode Tones let’s his guard down and reveals that he’s still not recovered from the shock of finding out that Tommy Cooper didn’t do the voiceover for the Lego Kipper ad.

He snaps out of it just in time to seize the opportunity to go full-Bill Clinton during the intro then indulges himself with some vintage Jimmy Saville / Operation Yewtree references before insulting the entire population of Ireland.

Perhaps more importantly we’re treated to some phone-in action when the one and only Wolf Kahler calls up to personally thank us for reviving his career after the positive review of his performance in the 1993 Ferrero Rocher advert.

This week we're taking a look behind the cat litter box of history and rewinding to 1993 with an advert that set a new record for lack of casting diversity whilst managing to bin more cash in production than had ever been spent before in the making of an Australian telly ad.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Geoff Dixon from QANTAS and John Singleton from Singleton Ogilvy & Mather had a love child and it wasn’t rock and roll, it was an advert that became an icon of Australian advertising, central to the building of a global brand. And it all came about because the Chairman of QANTAS has no mates and had nowhere to go on New Year’s Eve in 1997.

So two big egos and a shedload of cash. Global locations. Busloads of cute children. Boab trees. The outback. Random blokes on horses. Footy. Don Bradman. Sam Kekovitch. Lamingtons. Drop bears. Mullets. V8 utes. The Sydney Harbour Bridge. Mrs Mangle. The Wiggles. I still call Australia home. All the ingredients are there…

But after Singo had edited out all the ugly kids did the end product have the consistency of a week-old QANTAS bread roll or was it as light and fluffy as Geoff Dixon’s Filofax?

Check out the ad on our YouTube channel at https://youtu.be/zr0qV1r0aUM.

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