Megna looks back fondly on the Wally Walpamur paint campaign from the 1980s, featuring chimpanzees in human clothes with badly dubbed Aussie voices.
“They were hilarious,” Megna says. “But apart from the fact they rightly wouldn’t get made today for animal safety reasons, the loose, Aussie, schlocky humour is something you don’t see anymore.”
He believes humour itself has been diluted.
“Humour now is often muted to the point where it doesn’t quite land. Brands don’t want to be seen as flippant, and while many aim to be fun for all, they’re not funny to anyone. It’s like humour got a reverse lobotomy, overthought to the point of not funny.”
On approval processes, Megna says change has been incremental rather than dramatic.
“The past 10 years? Not so much. Possibly more levels of approvals, but this varies per client. Ad Standards have been around a lot longer than that.”
However, brand safety has become a much larger consideration.
“More opinions matter. Used to be more common that if the CMO or MD believed in it enough, that was it. Brand safety is a much larger consideration now as well.”
Asked whether the industry is more cautious or more accountable, Megna says it is both.
“With the increase of risk aversion, there’s more thought placed on what might be wrong with the work than what might be right.”
He adds: “We’re in advertising, if it’s between fight or flight, most will flight.”
