Neal Travis, “How to revel in hard times, by John Singleton,”
The Bulletin, September 4, 1990, pp. 126-27.

While many in the advertising industry are trying to hang on to their jobs and their BMWs, its most distinctive voice, John Singleton, tells NEAL TRAVIS that he relishes the prospect of hard times and stiff competition.

He looks and sounds like an Australian airline pilot (well, a pre-dispute pilot). At 49, tall and a few kilos overweight, John Singleton in his laconic drawl could be announcing that we’re in a holding pattern over Sydney Airport rather than commenting on the “archaic Pommie smart-arses” who, he says, infest the local advertising industry.

The pilot image in appropriate. John Singleton Advertising has just scored the Ansett Airlines account and he will be in the cockpit for the dogfight the deregulation of Australia’s skies will bring.

The Ansett account is worth about $7 million but, come deregulation in November, “we’ll spend whatever it takes to come out on top”. Singleton, a sports nut, says the airline scene is now “boots and all — there’s no referee on the paddock so there are no rules any more”.

Singleton, naturally, is all for deregulation. “The more airlines the better. A country this size has to have efficient airline systems and the only way to get them is through competition.” Yes, but the object of the exercise is to ensure that Ansett is the big winner from deregulation. “Sure, I’ve been meeting with Sir Peter (Abeles) every Saturday, informally, on strategy. Look, after deregulation we’ll be able to discount rates without seeking anyone’s approval. We’ll be able to move instantly and independently to satisfy customers.”

Singleton thinks one campaign theme will be to portray Ansett as the free enterprise airline and Australian as the one run by the bureaucracy. But when Australian is privatised? “I’ve got a beaut idea for then. They’ll be owned by Singapore Airlines or someone like that. We’ll start calling them UnAustralian Airlines.”

It gets a bit confusing. Here is Singleton, friend of Bob Hawke and holder of the federal ALP account, slagging the Government airline and planning to do it as much financial harm as possible. But advertising people are adept at wearing more than one hat. “Just because I’ve done the past two ALP campaigns doesn’t mean I have to support the idea of a government airline. I’ve always been a private enterprise person. But, yes, working for a political party has a few pitfalls. Some of the older Establishment businesses won’t come near you if you work for Labor.”

Singleton says a political campaign is the most intellectually stimulating work an advertising person can do. “You’ve got 35 days to produce 70 commercials, plus print material, how-to-vote cards, the works. I think of an election as a Massive One-Day Sale!” Expensive, too. The ALP spent about $9 million on this year’s campaign and Singleton would have grossed about 20% of that figure. That’s the equivalent of two major clients’ spending in a year.

He doesn’t know what Hawke’s plans are but he is confident Hawke would win another term. “Australia is divided into people who love Bob Hawke and people who wish they did.” Paul Keating? “If he was running for Prime Minister I’d tell him to just be himself. No need to try for an image change.” The Leader of the Opposition, John Hewson? “Hewson’s doing well. He seems to know when to shut up, which is important in politics.”

The notorious advertisement depicting an octopus with then Opposition leader Nick Greiner’s head “was a mistake,” Singleton admits. “Mind you, it tested well.” Another mistake to which he admits is a “mate’s deal” that cost him a fortune.

“Fifteen years ago I got the idea for this record of Peter and the Wolf translated into Australian and narrated by Paul Hogan. Even then, pre Crocodile Dundee, it sold 100,000 copies. So, after the film, I decided to re-release it. It would have sold a million in the US. But Hoges and John Cornell were in here having a few VBs and they reckoned it wasn’t the right thing to do. I had the legal rights to it and everything but they asked me not to.

“They said what they’d do was give me the soundtrack rights to Crocodile Dundee in return for not re-releasing Peter and the Wolf. Well, the soundtrack didn’t contain the Midnight Oil tracks: just a lot of didgeridoo music. It sold three copies.”

The idea of Hoges and Singo sharing a few tinnies and arguing about money is very ocker. “I have to live with the ocker image.” Singleton shrugs. “It’s years since I did those ocker commercials but I’m still tagged with them. I don’t care. The people who use ocker as a term of denigration are the people who hate being Australians.”

Singleton reckons agencies such as his come into their own when the economy is down, with lean, no-frills advertising that sells a product rather than winning the agency an award. “Awards are a wank: just expensive job applications. Your clients don’t want awards — they want money. If you keep your eye on the ball everyone can do OK in hard times.”

The state of the economy, he believes, will result in a shakeout of the advertising industry. “There has to be a massive rationalisation. Like in the Saatchi group, J. Walter Thompson and Ogilvy and Mather — there are too many bosses, too much duplication. And too many agencies aren’t owned by ad people but by paper shufflers.”

A long-time admirer of the other ocker agency, MOJO, Singleton is sad about the changes that have taken place since it went through a series of mergers. “And now they’ve sacked all the wrong people. When the ship sinks, it’s the captain you should sack.” He is also scathing about the state of business morality in Australia. “I’ve been in the US twice this year and I tell you this, they don’t love us any more. They think we’re a nation of scoundrels.”

So how would he repair Australia’s image abroad? “It’s not a matter of advertising, of image. It’s gone too far for that. The only thing that will repair the damage is a new set of rules that ensure some of these bloody cowboys are punished. Until you do that, Australia will go on looking a bit suspect to the rest of the world.”

For all his connections, Singleton hasn’t had any joy in getting government advertising placed in the hands of Australian-owned agencies. “It’s all with international agencies, which seems pretty stupid.”

John Singleton Advertising hasn’t needed to tighten the ship for the rough times ahead. “We have fun here in Hunter’s Hill but we’re not doing it for fun. Every Monday morning at 8:30 we have general assembly, so everyone (37 staff) knows what is happening. We don’t take lunch hours and we don’t drink during the day. But there’s free grog at 5.30pm and every Friday night is party night.”

Singleton likes to party, although he says he has slowed down a bit since the legendary days of his SPASM agency. He sold that and walked away from advertising at the age of 35. “I felt I’d done it all then. I wanted to try new things.” He did. In the ensuing years he owned a circus, was de facto owner of a rugby league club, promoted rodeo, ran his own television and radio shows and wrote newspaper columns.

In the end, he says, it was all just training for his return to advertising, to the agency he and stockbroker Rennie Rivkin each half own.

Singleton has always said he would get out of advertising after five years at JSA and on turning 50 — two events that will occur in the next five months. Now, perhaps because of the Ansett account, he has changed his tune. “Look, I reckon (managing director) Bill Currie and I in 10 years will still be saying we’re about to retire.” It keeps the staff jockeying for position.”

But Singleton has stuck to other credos. Recently he lectured the Sydney Ad Club about the rules of running a successful agency. One rule was not to open branch offices. “No office in Melbourne or Brisbane or anywhere else. A second office in a tiny market like Australia only doubles your management costs and halves your new business opportunities in each office.”

Then, prophetically: “If you do get a significant piece of business which happens to be in, say, Melbourne, buy a fax and an aeroplane ticket.”

Singleton already has the fax and now has that significant piece of business in Melbourne. He also has all the aeroplane tickets he’ll ever need.