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General Motors Holden: Make it Yours
Title:
General Motors Holden: Make it Yours
NFSA ID
264098
Year
1968
Courtesy
General Motors Holden
This advertisement for the 1968 Holden HK Premier, narrated in voice-over by John Laws, features young people and city life over the course of a day and evening. Beginning with shots of city buildings and streets, it concludes with scenes of glamorous nightlife. Over the final shot of the Holden Premier parked outside a restaurant, the voice-over urges 'the new generation Holden – make it yours’.
This evocative ad harnesses the seductive and sophisticated mood of urban living, placing the HK Holden Premier at the centre of 1960s city life. The opening montage shows the Holden in a metropolis of spiralling concrete buildings, interwoven roadways and abstract shapes. The deep, smooth voice of John Laws washes over the soundtrack and seduces the viewer into desiring to be part of the world in front of them. As the scenes in the ad shift from day to night, the Premier easily adjusts to each changing context, going from exciting, youthful and swinging to 'switched on’, stylish and 'smooth as silk’.
The narration, atmospheric music and iconic images of Sydney build an underlying tone of refinement and class, emphasised by the stylish couple arriving at a night-time event at the end. Aligning Holden with a certain lifestyle began in 1960s advertisements. Other ads from this time similarly position their products as items of desire (see the Cadbury Roses ad 'For All the Different Women You Are’, c1970, also narrated by John Laws).
The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia acknowledges Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we work and live and gives respect to their Elders both past and present.