Meat and Livestock Australia has launched its 2024 summer campaign, again tapping a dystopian future with a distinct generation gap, via The Monkeys, part of Accenture Song.
The full-length ad premiered on Seven and Nine news programs on Sunday, January 7, followed by a rollout across free-to-air and subscription TV nationally, via media agency UM.
The annual summer campaign last year imagined an alternative reality where people are called out for being “un-Australian” before being banished to “Un-Australia” – an infinite cultural exile.
This time the commercial, co-directed by Millennial Aimée-Lee Xu Hsien and Gen X-erTrent O’Donnell, imagines a world in which the generations have been separated by The Generation Gap, an impassable chasm that keeps each age group away from the others.
Each generation, left to their own devices, has become the worst version of themselves, until a lamb BBQ appears to remind Australians of all ages that we have more in common than divides us.
Graeme Yardy, domestic market manager at Meat and Livestock Australia, says the commercial taps into a cultural, light-hearted topic designed to get everyone talking.
View the clip HERE
"The Summer Lamb TVC this year satirises 'The Generation Gap,' a concept we believe unfairly stereotypes generations and causes unnecessary division, to remind Aussies that we all have far more in common than divides us," he told AdNews.
"Ultimately, our lamb campaigns are about unity and celebrating what it means to be Australian. No matter who you are, we believe that there’s no better way to come together than over a good lamb BBQ.
"Lamb is synonymous with summer BBQs and meals where family and friends are coming together. Three-quarters of households in Australia already choose and eat lamb for that reason, which means there’s still a quarter who are yet to. So, we’re keen for the Summer Lamb and other seasonal campaigns we run during the year to connect with consumers, and give them a reason to enjoy lamb more often.
"This year, as with last few years, we are taking a more seasonal approach to our promotion of lamb, by encouraging Australians to enjoy it throughout the whole summer.
"Over the last seventeen years, we’ve delivered campaigns that celebrate coming together in a variety of ways and know that many Australians enjoy and anticipate our ads at this time of the year. As far as we’re concerned, that’s a message that transcends more than just one day in the year."
Scott Dettrick, creative director at The Monkeys, says the generation gap in Australia has never been wider with growing differences in wealth, opinions, and ways of communication
"The various frustrations this year have each generation throwing tropes around, looking for someone to blame. When you scratch beneath the surface though, it's attitudes, not age, that divide us," says Dettrick.
"Maybe if we just got around a lamb BBQ and had a chat, we might find out that grandad is actually pretty cool, or all that stuff millennials know can be really useful.
"Our entire creative process this year was a fun generational debate, and with multi-generational directors and editors on the films, it was all very method."
The campaign will be pushed out across TV, online video, catch up TV, paid social and retail OOH channels by UM, with One Green Bean driving reach for the campaign across earned media and owned social.
One Green Bean will for the first time amplify the campaign via a social-first content piece launching across owned and influencer marketing channels from January 15.
The campaign will also be supported through key retail and butcher channel activation and integration.
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