Aussies Use Multiple Methods
To Increase Lamb Consumption

HOUSTON — When the U.S. imposed tariffs on Australian lamb a couple of years ago, the Aussies reacted with an advertising campaign at home to move more product domestically.

"America has put tariffs on our lamb," their campaign said. "We suggest rosemary and garlic."

"We decided to use this in a light-hearted way," says David Thompson, general manager for marketing for Meat and Livestock Australia, "to try and build consumption within Australia to pick up the volume that was going to be released from the U.S. market."

The irreverent approach seemed to work. In fact, their tariff campaign worked so well, Thompson says, they decided to see who else they could upset.

For Australian Day, the country's equivalent to the Fourth of July, they aired a two-week promotion for which they set a jingle to the tune of Australia's national anthem extolling the virtues of lamb.

"As you can imagine," Thompson says, "there was an absolute uproar."

Talk-back radio stations talked about how disgusting it was. Veterans’ groups came out publicly to say the advertisements were denigrating the flag.

"All marvelous stuff," Thompson says. "We achieved more exposure for lamb in this two week period through the major national television news broadcasts and major national current events shows."

Thompson figures the exposure on the news shows doubled what they did with the paid media time.

In fact, they were thinking of stopping it and saving their money after the first three days, Thompson says.

"The key point was that we really wanted Australians to recognize the importance of the lamb industry," Thompson says.

Rather than getting into a debate over whether or not they should have used the national anthem, Thompson said they used the opportunity to tell their fellow countrymen about their industry and product. The Meat and Livestock Australia message was that when Australians were preparing their barbecues for Australian Day, they needed to remember lamb.

"The major supermarkets reported back to us," Thompson says, "that they had sold out of lamb. They had unprecedented sales."

Thompson says they received a number of negative phone calls concerning the ad, but their research indicated that most people found the ads amusing. Still, a significant number of people were offended by them.

They modified the commercial for the second week to reflect the debate that had been generated.

"We concluded with the line that no matter how much we Aussies like to argue about everything, there is one thing that we all do agree on, and that's there is nothing like lamb on Australia Day," Thompson says.

He says this wasn't just a promotional stunt, but rather part of a campaign they've been running for three years.

"When you go back and look at lamb demand in Australia," Thompson says, "lamb has been virtually falling off the map."

Demand for lamb dropped by 50 percent between 1980 and 1995.

"Lamb was all but disappearing off the meal agenda for Australians," Thompson continues.

The problem, Thompson says, was that the heaviest users of lamb were older people whose children had left home.

"If your heavy users are in that group, where's the future?" Thompson asks. "It doesn't look too bright."

Research indicates that chicken had its strongest consumption among young households. Beef was broadly spread across all age groups. Pork consumption tended to be among middle-aged families that were heading into the older group.

"The traditional campaigns that we'd been running had been trying to pick up those younger people, to try and build a new bridge," Thompson says. "The problem was that it wasn't working. We were getting gains amongst those young people, but they weren't delivering the volumes we were losing out the older end."

So they changed their strategy. They decided that the people who were most predisposed to lamb, if they weren't already consuming lamb, were in the mid-life to all the family groups.

"That was where we started to target," Thompson says.

The new campaign says lamb is not just a specialty meat. Lamb is a meat that brings a family together.

"If mother's cooking a lamb roast on a Sunday, then all of the family turns up," Thompson says. "It's that kind of emotional bonding."

They also advertise that lamb is the national meat.

"Australians eat more lamb than any other nation in the world, after New Zealand," Thompson says. "It's an important part of our history."

The ads they used showed an older man and a younger man arguing over how to carve a lamb roast and a family gathering in which a boy had brought his girlfriend to dinner. She looks at the lamb on her plate and announces she's a vegetarian. The boyfriend grabs her plate, and with a smile on his face, puts her lamb chops on his plate.

"We could continue running those ads and it would work like a traditional marketing activity where we see a gradual improvement in attitudes, gradually improving market share," Thompson says, "but we really had a major issue, which was access to the U.S. market being heavily constrained. We really needed to get out there and become the significant quality supplier in our domestic market."

The approach they took was to build in tactical events during the year.

"The first of these was football finals, a time when Australians generally get together with their mates around the barbecue," Thompson says.

Again, they turned to humor. With the ads they offer "footy" tips, such as "Remove mouth guard before eating barbecue lamb."

Meat and Livestock Australia works closely with the major supermarket butchers, who are participating in the marketing campaign.

"We also use these opportunities to drive publicity," Thompson says. "We have lamb barbecues at the training camps of the teams. We have barbecues in the car parks around the football grounds."

He says they use whatever ways they can to get the press to write about lamb barbecues and the television stations to pick up stories.

Another opportunity is Mother's Day.

Among the ads they ran was one that says, "Cook your Mum a lamb roast on Mother's Day — how many times do you have to be told?"

Roast lamb is a traditional Mother's Day meal.

"We're also on the lookout for whenever there's an opportunity to talk about lamb," Thompson says.

When Nicole Kidman, an Australian actress, broke up with American actor Tom Cruise, she left the U.S. and headed back down under.

"There was an old lamb ad where a girl won a dinner with Tom Cruise on a radio show, but she had to turn it down because she was going home for a lamb roast with Mum," Thompson says.

Thompson took a tabloid headline that says, "Nicole Heads Home," and incorporated it into an ad that added "Maybe Mum's doing a lamb roast."

"There's nothing as much a bother in marketing than when you see something and you've got to respond to it in 24 hours," Thompson says. "But we turned that around in 24 hours and turned it from a story about Nicole to maybe Mum's doing a lamb roast."

Apparently, the campaign is working.

Thompson says lamb consumption has increased.

"The lamb index has jumped by 10 points over that three-year period," he says.

Lamb consumption had been declining for about 30 years.

"For the last three years," Thompson says, "we can show real growth in consumption."

Retail prices this year are up 30 percent from a year ago, and Thompson expects to see further increases.

The growth has occurred in the middle family segment, the audience Thompson targeted.

"We're now at a stage where we're expanding our target," Thompson says, "to young parents."

Thompson says the three major rules of any advertising campaign are impact, impact and impact.

"Although we do have a relatively limited budget, impact is king," Thompson says. "That means you have to take some risks."