OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Collectors Corner Collectables VICTA – Promotional Recording – Songs For ‘73

Hello ODK history lovers
If someone asked me what was the most memorable Victa
advertising campaign, I would have no hesitation in saying the
1973 season.

Everyone from my generation knows the “Zip on the Doodah” jingle.
Victa must have paid Walt Disney a catcher load of cash for that ditty.

Why the hoopla?
Well, Victa had now sold 2 million mowers, and the big event was
the advent of their decompressor two-strokes for the 1973 season.

Merv Richardson had always wanted an Australian designed and
built motor for his mowers, and he achieved that with his Model 1
for the 1956 season.

It must have irked Victa that the 4-stroke dominated the 1960s,
and their two-strokes had to succumb to an imported starter design.

Victa did two serendipitous things for the next decade. It combined
its new high-arch VCs with their new decompressor engines for the
1973 season. The Victa engine was, once again, a totally Australian
design. That needed celebrating and Victa did not hold back, employing
a prominent advertising agency to deliver the goods. They delivered!

This is the story of a ‘recard’, a cardboard record Victa issued to
promote the 1973 season.

I had been looking for one for years, and I was lucky enough to acquire
a mint copy in 2020. I would like to share it here ...



This is a single-size 33rpm recard with two tunes and four songs
of about one minute each. They are: -

“Hey It’s Victa Time”
“Zip on the Doodah”
“Hey It’s Mowing Time”
“Zip on the Doodah-Chorus”

How many of these do you remember?

TO BE CONTINUED …

PART TWO - The Recordings
This recording has been digitally remastered to remove
most defects in the recording media.



Click on the audio file and select your favourite media player.
Enjoy!

The 1973 Victa Range Booklet can be found here: -
https://www.outdoorking-forum.com.au/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/62024/catalogue-victa-1973-range.html

----------------------------
Jack

Hello Jack,
Just looking on youtube.......
from 74
speedy

Hi Speedy,
Many thanks. Yes, a lot of those Victa clips out there.
They're great!

My topic was about remembering the 'recard' itself.
I also wanted to bring to life 'reasonable quality' recordings.

Member Paul C has a great video on one too: -


Cheers
----------------------
Jack

Hi Jack and Speedy

It's interesting that Victa just rehashed an old song for Zip On The Doo Dah.





Cheers
Max

G'day Jack

The Victa record was a great find.

I thought the history of the Zip On The Doo Dah song interesting ,Victa copied Zip a Dee Doo Dah
and the Zip a Dee Doo Dah song is likely influenced by the chorus of the pre-Civil War folk song
"Zip Coon", a "Turkey in the Straw" variation: "





https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah

Cheers
Max.

Hi Max
This is a great slant to the original story and this brings you
close to being a music historian. Brilliant!

It is thought provoking and these are my thoughts ...
[apologies for length].

I said in my intro to the Victa 73 recording that Victa must have payed a
lot of money to Disney for that ditty.

What you have shown us is that there was a clear link between the Song of
the South animated movie and its Victa jingle, and its genesis in earlier
North American music.

There are two points I would like to make:
The first is about Australian Popular Culture. in the 1970s, we took our interests
in much popular culture from North America: Food, music, fashion, music ...
[Think of the Logies ... the main guest had to be a Yank].

The second is about marketing...
Victa employed the very best AUS advertising agencies.
They all contributed to putting a unique Aussie identity to 1970s
advertising. But ... they were heavily influenced by our adoption
of North American popular culture.

It was an old advertising trick - grab a popular jingle in the Aussie
psyche and manipulate it for strategic purposes.

It was a brilliant selection for the '73 campaign.

A final thought: -
The 1973 Victas feature complex technical changes - a decompressor
and a new recoil starter. How do you sell ancillaries to a non-
technical public?

Why, cater to the lowest level of intelligence. All Barbie and
Ken had to do was zip on their Dooodahs.

Selling technology to the hoi-polloi is all about lifestyle.

Max, the most thought provoking thing for me from your research here
is about how Victa changed tact from its 1960s approach.

I have written about - with each new decade - Victa took a
different approach in mower design and its accompanying advertising.

Remember the American Jazz jingle for the 1960 Sheerline?
In the 1970s, it appears that Victa mellowed to the musical
and the beautiful blues.

https://www.outdoorking-forum.com.au/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/90887/re-model-sheerline-c1960-61.html

It was a more ... relaxing ... laid-back ... style that suited our
Aussie lifestyle and identity.

Yes, the spectacle of the musical zip on the doodah thing,
but what was all this for ...

Why, a celebration of our claimed laid-back Aussie lifestyle.

Hey it's Victa Time - best time of the year
The grass is greener and the livin' easy
and the mowin' is fun to do.

-----------------------------
Jack

G'day Jack,

Thanks Jack ,I've read a lot of your explanations on Mower Marketing Strategies ,always interesting
to see how marketing companies are brainwashing people.



Cheers
Max.

Hi CyberJack, speedy and Midwestern,
what a character that Noel guy was! They don't make them that way anymore, much like the mowers!
What a unique window of time that was. Those mowers remain desirable to this day.

I noticed what looks to be an AEC truck blasting the water at him on the nature strip. That period was probably when the last trucks from that make were being used commercially. That shot showing 1973 suburbia is beautiful! Look at the standard of upkeep in the gardens then! Something that has all but disappeared.

G'day Mowerfreak, Max and Speedy,

MF, yes, Noel was a great larger-than-life actor.
We just can't get that sort of quality wood anymore. Alas ...

I loved your observation of the truck ... a true heavy vehicle spotter.
I guess it had a water-proof hubometer ... ?

Max, I taught advertising at a senior level.
I knew the tricks and had a pretty good model for students to follow.

But, nothing I taught really understood the modern, sinister trend of
the 'influencer'.

Much advertising has now been removed from advertising companies,
that followed the honest but manipulative rules.

The underbelly of advertising now lies with influencers that present as
you-or-me, but are paid by companies, using dark money, to spruik
a particular view about an issue, or a product.

------------------------------
Jack

Ha Cyberjack,
don't worry, water can't get in them! I left one in the silty bottom of a fish pond years ago with no ill effects.

Look at Noel Brophy's get up behind the VC. I doubt people dressed smart casual to do their lawns even then! That's advertising for you.