Ad campaign shows how to work together

Voice architect Megan Davis pointed to the effectiveness of an advertising campaign for The Uluru Dialogue, following a speech at an advertising industry conference last week.

Professor Megan Davis gave an opening address at Advertising Council Australia's Festival of Creativity, This Way Up last week. Picture: Quilman Cruz.

Voice architect Megan Davis has pointed to the effectiveness of a recent advertising campaign as an example of how creative firms can work with Indigenous communities to create change as the referendum approaches.

The campaign came from The Monkeys, Part of Accenture Song, an advertising agency engaged by Professor Davis to develop the content for The Uluru Dialogue, an Aboriginal-led yes campaign, of which she is a co-chair. It launched in September 2022 with a TV advertisement titled History is Calling.

It was created to drive support for the forthcoming referendum on the voice to parliament, which if passed, will enable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to give advice to government on policies and laws that affect their lives.

“I think that (the campaign) is an interesting lesson in how the creative industry can work with mob; that it doesn’t just involve only mob businesses,” Professor Davis told The Australian last week in Sydney, where she opened the advertising conference This Way Up: Australia’s Advertising Festival of Creativity.

She said the creative advertising industry could “work in this space, but it involves developing authentic and genuine and deep relationships” with Aboriginal clients and communities.

“Because that’s what race relations are,” she said. “We like our relationship with (The Monkeys), because they’re a very kind of multicultural firm. But also, that’s what it’s like to coexist in this country together.

“It is about non-Indigenous and Indigenous, or white and black, working together. And it’s not perfect. It’s messy. But some genius (and) real creative can come from that kind of relationship.”

“I think after this, they’re a very good study in how to do this work in a respectful way,” Professor Davis said.

In a previous interview, when the advertising campaign first launched, Professor Davis commended the effort of The Monkeys’ team to research and understand her work and Aboriginal rights and culture.

She said last week that the creative advertising industry more broadly could play a role in generating discussion ahead of the referendum.

“You’ve got two campaigns doing the work of mob talking to Australians,” she added.

“You’ve got Uluru dialogue. You’ve got Yes23. But we need Australians talking to Australians. That’s what we need,” she said.