The beef sector is often envious of the marketing creativity and flair shown by its smaller and less well-resourced sheepmeat cousin, and this year’s Australian Day lamb campaign looks like being no exception.
Sam Kekovich returns for the ninth consecutive year to encourage Australians to counter ‘Lambnesia’ and eat more lamb in the 2013 marketing campaign.
A new tongue-in-cheek television commercial starting today, shows Sam Kekovich suffering from the condition after a ‘knock to the head.’
The rumour of his injury was started via this Youtube video upload, which has so far received more than 300,000 hits.
According to Sam, lambnesia "makes you forget what makes this country great and fills your head with a load of unAustralian bulldust."
"Wake up Australia. Let’s not go off our chops, let’s keep them where they belong – on our barbies and in our hands on Australia Day!" he proclaims.
Meat and Livestock Australia’s global marketing general manager, Michael Edmonds, said the latest Australia Day initiative followed a successful 2012 campaign which contributed to lamb sales, in value terms, increasing by 32 percent for the week leading up to and including Australia Day and a record month for January.
"The campaign aims to keep lamb front-of-mind throughout January/early February, which has become one of the key consumption periods for lamb in Australia,” Mr Edmonds said.
“During the 2012 campaign period, January lamb sales value was the highest for the 12 months preceding, averaging $15.9 million in sales per week," Mr Edmonds said.
"Consistent Australia Day lamb campaigns have helped develop a strong association between lamb, Sam Kekovich and the Australia Day period, which is now well-recognised by consumers. Continuing to promote lamb and leverage this association helps maintain and grow demand for lamb."
The campaign features a new interactive digital element, with a national online game called the lambnesia test (click here to view). The test allows people to measure their level of unAustralianism with the results helping to highlight the different levels of unAustralianism across the states.
Posters and other marketing support material have been distributed to retailers to further support the campaign at the point of sale.
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