Meat and Livestock Australia has launched its latest beef marketing campaign to get barbecues firing and tongs turning right through the summer season.

The latest campaign aims to drive consumer demand for beef through television, print and digital mediums and will include several marketing firsts, including the use of ‘aroma therapy’ to attract customers and the development of an iPhone ‘app’ to help consumers cook the perfect steak (see separate story).

The campaign features the ‘Nothing beats beef’ television commercial from the 2010 summer beef campaign, as well as an increased outdoor presence. Key capital city sites will promote the message ‘Nothing beats beef,’ including 33 major billboards and 500 bus stops.

To further grab the attention of drivers or passers-by there will be a smoking beef BBQ billboard and bus stops that send out the irresistible scent of a barbecue.

“We want beef to be synonymous with summer and really own the season,” MLA’s general manager for domestic marketing, Glen Feist, said.

“This year, we’re running the campaign over six months to keep the buzz around beef running for longer and to sustain demand for beef throughout summer,” he said.

“Consumers are out and about over summer, so, together with retailers, we’re hoping to reach a wider audience by using a greater variety of media outlets, especially outdoors.”

The summer campaign follows a successful winter beef promotion that MLA says was well-received by consumers and retailers. Retailers gave the campaign’s marketing material the highest rating of any previous MLA promotion.

“This year’s winter beef campaign, which ran from June to August, helped to increase beef’s share of the retail fresh meat category to 37.9 percent from 37.1pc in winter 2010. Volumes of winter meal beef cuts (diced and roast) also increased by more than 500,000 serves to reach 9.5 million serves per week during the campaign period,” Mr Feist said.

The summer beef campaign will also feature new point-of-sale marketing material, and more than 2.5 million copies of a new Entice recipe and tips magazine will be distributed through retailers.

There will also be ‘pub media,’ in 500 hotels including coasters branded with the ‘Nothing beats beef’ message, a ‘beef on the BBQ’ competition right across Australia to find Australia’s ‘tong-master’ and other PR activities.

Meanwhile, indepedent retail butchers engaged with the Meat Standards Australia program have recently started receiving the revised MSA promotional material, discussed earlier on Beef Central ("Consumers to get re-acquainted with MSA") , designed to re-engage consumer awareness with the national tenderness guarantee scheme.

To view the Summer commercial or for more on the summer beef campaign click here