Abstract:

"In Papua New Guinea, where over three quarters of the population cannot be reached by the regular advertising mediums of television, radio or print, 'the market' must be developed by other means. Small theater groups travel the remote highlands performing soap operas devised around advertising messages for a variety of products. ADVERTISING MISSIONARIES follows the rollicking mission of one theater company to bring the consumer revolution to the people of the highlands. In bigger and more modern towns, the company plugs the qualities of farming products or car parts. In the more remote villages, a set is unfolded on the back of a flat-bed truck, portraying a modern Western living-room where the advantages of Coca-Cola, Colgate, clothing, canned food, and washing powder are touted. The film observes the impact of the advertising theater on a previously 'untouched' village in the remote valley of Yaluba, where it enters the lives of Aluago, Tintiba and their two children. We see the village before, during and after first contact by the new missionaries--and what happens as a result of their visit. The actors are not without ambivalence about their task, as tensions sometimes erupt. Usually convinced that they are bringing progress to their fellow countrymen they are also conscious of some of the side effects that the consumer revolution they are leading may bring. But, in an echo of the former cargo cults, the advertising agency boss who employs them drops in periodically by plane to keep them from straying the fold and gives them pep talks about the new products and the worthiness of their mission."