| Company type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Advertising agency |
| Founded | 1979; 46 years ago (1979) |
| Founders | Alan Morris Allan Johnston |
| Defunct | 2016 (2016) |
| Fate | Name discontinued |
| Parent | Publicis Groupe |
Mojo was an Australianadvertising agency formed in Sydney byAlan Morris ("Mo") andAllan Johnston ("Jo") in 1979. Its lineage can today be traced to the Australian offices of Publicis, an Australian subsidiary of theFrenchmultinationaladvertising and communications company holdingPublicis Groupe. Those offices traded as Publicis Mojo from the late 1990s until 2016.[1]
Johnston, initially fromAdelaide and Morris from Sydney teamed up in the mid 70s at Sydney agency Hertz Walpole. Johnston had been employed there since 1968 and Morris was freelancing. Johnston and Morris had immediate success together working on campaigns for Hertz Walpole clientsMeadow Lea margarine ("You oughta be congratulated") andTooheys beer ("How do you feel?") and they left the agency but continued to work on such clients as they grew their own consultancy which they named Mojo. In 1979 their creative consultancy became a full-service advertising agency and Meadow Lea and Tooheys amongst other clients, signed with the new shop.
During the 1980s, MoJo was the hottest creative agency in Sydney and Mo and Jo had success jointly authoringWorld Series Cricket's "C'mon Aussie C'mon" and later theAustralian Tourism Commission's spot withPaul Hogan's instruction to "put anothershrimp on the barbie".
The Mojo approach to TV advertisements used a colloquial and irreverent style, often with a catchy jingle to simple accompaniment and frequently sung in Jo's own "gravelly" voice. Contrasting against the clipped and British-imitating style of voice presenters on Australian TV up till that point, Mojo ads highlightedAustralian idiom and accent. Ads such as "I’m as Australian asAmpol", "Hit ‘em with the Old Pea Beu" (insecticide), "Everybody lovesSpeedo", "I Can Feel aFourex Coming on", "Every Amco tells a Story" (for Amco jeans) all came out of the Mojo agency in the 1980s.
The firm merged with publicly listed Melbourne agencyMonaghan Dayman Adams and becameMojoMDA.[2] The firm was named International Advertising Agency of the Year byAdvertising Age in 1988.[3]
In 1989 MojoMDA Ltd was Australia's largest ad agency with billings of $180 million and was acquired by the Los Angeles agencyChiat\Day. The merger was unsuccessful and in 1992 Chiat/Day sold off Mojo toFoote, Cone & Belding.[4] The Mojo name was carried on till 2016 in the Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne offices of Publicis Mojo, Australian subsidiaries of the Frenchmultinationaladvertising and communications company holdingPublicis Groupe.
| Title | Year | Peak chart positions |
|---|---|---|
| AUS [9] | ||
| "C'mon Aussie C'mon" | 1978 | 1 |
| "C'mon Aussie C'mon"(The New Era) | 1979 | 10 |