Each year, MLA’s summer ‘Lamb ad’ has become something of a cultural phenomenon in Australia, our version of a ‘superbowl’ moment.

MLA, (Meat and Livestock Australia) are an industry body representing Australian farmers. With a limited budget for advertising and media, a newsworthy ad for Lamb is key to the reach and impact they need. The ‘The Generation Gap’ 3 minute film was a playful look at the generational divisions in Australia, it’s humorous message amplified in PR to generate 875 articles including Fast Company and The New York Times - as well as driving lamb sales up by 19%.

Lamb’s brand essence is unity. As a meat that is often chosen for shared meals, like barbeques or banquets across many cultures and communities, our campaign is based on the idea that lamb brings Australians together. So each year, in an almost ‘State of the Nation’ style of commentary, we playfully examine what cultural, political or social tensions are keeping us apart.

While the Generation Gap is a global phenomenon, there are local nuances that are pertinent for Australian audiences:

For example, Australia’s property market is distorted, and buying their first home is an impossible dream for many young people without the help from “The Bank of Mum and Dad.” Investors, predominantly older, are given tax incentives and discounts while younger Aussies live for years at home in the hope of saving a deposit.

Despite this injustice, there is also a perception of older Australians (boomers) of Gen Z and Y youth as being coddled and entitled, with a ‘what’s in it for me’ mindset.

The older man at the end of the film is Sam Kekovich, he has been our ‘Lambassador’ since 2005. He’s well-known to Aussies over-40, but not to under-40s. We made light of this fact with the joke at the end where someone mistakes him for another older, white male – John Howard, who happens to be our nation’s longest-serving Prime Minister which many young people will not remember.

For many shoppers, lamb is an infrequent purchase. Our biggest challenge is ingrained shopping behaviours: Australians eat just 7kgs of lamb annually, compared to 50kgs of chicken.

By the end of 2023, Lamb sales had become dangerously reliant on older Australians who grew up with the tradition of a family ‘lamb roast’ dinner. Over-60’s accounted for a third of sales yet are just 23% of the population. While under-35’s accounted for just 16% of sales yet are 44% of Australia’s population.

We needed this generation’s support. Compounding the challenge, under 35’s have decreased spending power, at a time when Aussies were already battling inflation and interest rate hikes. Budgets were under intense scrutiny, with premium food purchases the first to go.

Our brief: Win back all Aussies’ hearts and minds, to drive record sales uplifts over summer. With three objectives:

Make Lamb famous,

Make Lamb more desirable,

Drive volume sales.

The 'Generation Gap’ was dividing our entire nation. As the news becomes more fraught, we were focusing on our differences. So, it was up to Australia’s favourite annual lamb ad to unite the nation – because nothing brings us together like lamb.

We poked fun at every generation, ensuring that while we reached our target millennials, we captured everyone’s attention.

We built a literal gap to divide the generations, having it widen as we focused on our differences. Then came the fragrant waft of a lamb BBQ. Suddenly, the generations began to confess their similarities and the gap closed, and Australia was once again united over lamb.

Film was the most powerful medium for big, bold entertainment to spark an immediate, emotive, and cultural reaction and to drive younger audiences to the idea.

For the past decade Lamb’s brand strategy has been ‘unity’, With the key message that ‘nothing brings Australians closer together than sharing Lamb’. Australian Lamb needing to appeal to all Aussies, young and old, male and female.

Each year, the brand shines a light on a cultural division, placing Lamb at the centre to unite all Australians. No cultural division was more prevalent, or of more relevance to Australians of all generations, than the media-exaggerated stereotypes of generational angst. Exaggerated to such an extent the generations appeared intractably divided. Our insight was ‘it’s not age that divides us, it’s attitudes’.

‘The Generation Gap’ centred on a hero long-form film plus bespoke social edits for maximum engagement, shareability and talkability. Seeded on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube to reach younger generations. Supported with interviews on radio and TV channels with ‘Lambassador’ Sam Kekovich to connect with older Australian generations.

From experience we knew ‘the more eyeballs on the campaign, the more sales.’ With just a six-week campaign there was no time for a slow build-up. The approach to PR implementation was to ‘fire a rocket’, maximising views from the very first day and sparking and sustaining cultural conversation.

Day one the 3-minute hero film launched simultaneously on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok. Embargoed media pre-pitching sparked nationwide coverage, the film aired in full on the biggest nightly national news bulletin. Live interviews with Lambassador Sam Kekovich supporting the launch across mainstream TV and radio media.

Two weeks after the launch, native content extended the cultural conversation spanning the hugely popular satirical platform The Betoota Advocate to the more high-brow Guardian.

While influencer content pitted two generations from famous families against each other to further extend the conversation around lamb four week into the campaign.

Even amongst the lauded Australian Lamb campaigns, ‘The Generation Gap’ smashed its objectives and set new records for MLA.

In just 6 weeks, it was viewed 25,184,426 times and talked about in 875 articles from The Australian to The New York Post, Fast Company to Contagious, Pedestrian to The UK’s Independent. Organically shared on X by influencers as diverse as McDonalds US Marketing Director Guillaume Huin to comedian Ilayda Arden and Change.Org Executive Director Sally Rugg. In all earning an OTS of 282,300,000 with a 93% positive sentiment.

Brand tracking found Spontaneous Brand Awareness spiked 7%, Total Brand Communication Awareness rose an even greater +10% and consideration increased +1%, despite cost-of-living pressures.

It reinforced Lamb’s premium perceptions, making Lamb more desirable. The key ‘worth paying more for’ metric increased +3% to its highest level in over in a decade. ‘Brand Affinity’ also rose +3% to the highest it had been since 2015. While a national YouGov survey found 38% of Millennials stated they were more likely to purchase Lamb after seeing the ad, 36% of Gen X, and almost 1 in 3 Gen Z and Baby Boomers.

MLA is responsible for demand creation and returns to farmers, not retail sales, or revenue. The campaign drove record volume sales. To be precise 1,417,694 kgs more lamb sold, a staggering 19% volume uplift vs prior year, reaching Lamb’s highest ever volume share of 9.9%, gaining +0.8% share of entire category. Equating to a return on farmers’ levies of $3.84 for every $1.