MLA unites Australia after a divided year in new summer lamb campaign via The Monkeys
After a year that’s seen Aussies more physically divided than ever, the highly anticipated summer ad from Australian Lamb comes at the perfect time, uniting the country over some lamb, and laughs, this summer, developed by The Monkeys, part of Accenture Interactive.
Building on the ‘Share the Lamb’ brand platform, the integrated campaign for Meat & Livestock Australia, reflects upon 2020 as a pivotal time in our history where, for the first time, Australia was physically divided due to the pandemic.
The long form advert directed by Ariel Martin from AIRBAG, takes viewers to a not-so-distant future where division between states has escalated to new heights. In the year 2031, a once united nation is divided by a great wall, towering over every state border. It’s a tongue-in-cheek take on what could be if state borders are shut for good, but this un-Australian division can’t last forever.
In the film viewers see the great unification of Australia sparked by the scent of lamb through cracks in the wall. As the hero is overwhelmed by the irresistible aroma and begins smashing at the wall that separates himself from Queensland, a hand appears through the crack holding a perfectly cooked piece of lamb. This beacon of hope triggers Aussies around the country to tear down the Great State Walls and reunite over a delicious lamb BBQ.
Says Graeme Yardy, domestic market manager at MLA: “2020 has been a year that has really tested the Australian spirit. For the first time in our history having hard borders between states has challenged how to stay connected as individuals and as a country. As a brand that celebrates unity and the power of coming together, this year in the ad, we wanted to remind Australians that we are always stronger together. Our hope for 2021 will be that the virtual get togethers of the last 12 months, will be replaced with an Aussie lamb barbie, the most unifying, and delicious meal of all.”
Says Vince Lagana, executive creative director, The Monkeys: “In testing times, it’s easy to forget we still live in the greatest country in the world. Border closures have challenged our Aussie spirit with our nation feeling more separated than ever. Thankfully, nothing a little optimism, good natured fun and a unifying lamb cutlet can’t fix.”
The ad launched across free to air and subscription TV nationally last night and will be pushed out across digital, social and retail OOH channels by UM, with one green bean driving coverage for the campaign across earned media and owned social.
Says Scott Dettrick, creative director, The Monkeys: “The last year has been so surreal that as a country we have come to accept that anything is possible. The idea of virtual borders becoming real ones in the near future feels more real than it probably should. The start of 2021 is a great time for us to reflect and bring people back together over some lamb wherever possible.”
Client – Meat & Livestock Australia
General Manager – Marketing and Insights: Nathan Low
Domestic Market Manager: Graeme Yardy
Brand Manager: Anna Sharp
Assistant Brand Manager: Krystina Batt
Creative Agency – The Monkeys, part of Accenture Interactive
Group CEO and Co-Founder: Mark Green
Managing Director: Matt Michael
Group Chief Creative Officer and Co-Founder: Scott Nowell
Executive Creative Director: Vince Lagana
Creative Director: Scott Dettrick
Creative team: Harry Boothman & Joash Tham
Art Director OOH: Jonathan Rands
Business Strategy Director: Kit Lansdell
Group Content Director: Ciaran Miller-Stubbs
Content Director: Fizzy Keeble
Senior Content Manager: Ruth Peck
Senior Producers: Christina Wilmot & Penny Brown
Producer OOH: Will Haslingden
Design Lead: James Halliday
Senior Designer: Laura Ives
Production Company: Airbag
Director: Ariel Martin
Executive Producer: Alex Tizzard
Producer: Megan Ayers
Managing Partner: Adrian Bosich
DOP: Lachlan Milne
Edit House: ARC Edit
Editors: David Whittaker & Lucas Baynes
VFX: Airbag
Grade: Fergus Rotherham
Conform: White Chocolate
Music & Sound by Song Zu
Composer: Haydn Walker
Sound Designer: Simon Kane
Producer: Katrina Aquilia
Media agency – UM
Georgina Parchert – Connections Strategist
Jonny Day – Connections Design Director
Hayley Pyper – Client Director
Jenny Lam – Senior Partnerships Manager
Joshua Coles – Partnerships Executive
PR Agency – one green bean
83 Comments
Great script, so well executed. Congratulations Ariel, I am so happy to see this work from you. Love Anna x
Great stuff Monkeys. This is up to the standard of those great, humorous executions of a few years back.
LOL’d numerous times.
Bloody good work – plenty of folks will say ‘could have been better’, but it’ll hit the spot like some roast potatoes with rosemary, garlic in duck fat to go with that lamb cutlet.
Would love other clients to look at the bravery of MLA over the years and put their trust in creativity, and god forbid humour, a little more.
Congrats Monkeys, Airbag and MLA.
“United States of Australia” Ewww… on the nose.
Naff looking too and could have been funny.
Uh mate, that’s why the old bloke says “nah it’s just ‘Australia'”
Bloody good work Monkeys
Bloody love it. This is perfect. Looks great, gags land and Scomo!
So Timely.
Well done Monkeys!
Nice return to form, very Aussie humour, sticking it to authority. The punters will love it.
Up there with the best of them. Well done guys.
Lots of fun. Good timing with every state seemingly putting up boarders. Love the gag with the head through the wall.
Best lamb ad in years by a long way. Congrats Ariel, Airbag and Monkeys.
So good. Loved it. Thanks for the much-needed giggle.
Love this. Hats off to the team, had me laughing all the way through
Very funny and well done. Great start to 2021.
Good stuff Ariel and gang. Love it.
Enjoyed this, hats off to all involved. Ariel is one to watch.
Great stuff.
Glory holes are full of tasty surprises. love it!
Do your nation proud this Australia day, and poke your meat through your nearest glory hole.
Nice one, love this and great touch from Scomo.
Congrats Monkeys.
ewe.
As someone who just spent Xmas in lockdown…too soon.
This a great old fashioned big ad. Well done Vin and crew.
great work all involved.
music & sound is so impressive.
Spot on… Love this
The credit, as alwys, goes to The Monkeys. And rightly so.
But good to see MLA back … Reckon the old marketibng team would be chuffed.
Autralia Day is always a game of CYTP (Can You Top That)?
Great to kick off the new year with a laugh …
The big fella from Sleeping Duck is slowly becoming the most in demand ad actor there is. Which is great. He’s choice.
you just know this was sent around the agency with a mandate to leave a positive comment on CB by EOD
Well bloody done guys. I’m not Australian and maybe I missed a few Aussie jokes but DAMN this was a BLOODY good ad.
Great work all – will be a classic! After a decade of “how cheap can we make our ad on a 5D”, great to see a return to clever well made advertising over the past year.
Great stuff. Laughed. Nice work everyone involved.
Love this so much. This is good pop culture advertising.
Congratulations Ariel, Megs, Airbag, Monkeys and crew! Worth the wait!!
the music and sound design is impressive.
Good to see the actual budget go into the production. And what a brilliant script: ‘An old man’s lust for a lamb glory hole unites everyone in Australia except Scotty from marketing.’
Nice one Scotty D!!
Brilliant. Again.
Love this ad so much. ♥️
Nice to see a return to old school big budget, less so the return to old school blokey casting choices.
Am I the only one that doesn’t this ad is good? And the Sco Mo joke at the end. Not funny and old news.
ScoMo still PM in 2031? AAAAAAAAHHHHHH
Really fun to watch. And rewatch. Congrats to all involved.
Scomo is a vampire and never ages.
Throw in a touch of aus bloke jokes, a splash of tasty cheese, some epic wide shots, obligatory budgie smuggler joke, dangle a carrot in front of the latest promising young director with zero budget and the promise of glory… bingo the latest lamb ad!
Scotty from marketing ‘Make it the same as the others, only a little different’ equals the cream of the potato mash crop of australian advertising.
Not bad, not great either, but i will admit better than the last few years of forgettable stuff.
Oh come on fellas, give us a break would ya.
yummy lamb yummy in my tummy
A return to form for MLA!
Grouse work Monkeys
#1 trending video on YouTube Australia. ‘Nuff said.
I love the Australian punters opinion just like i love the 70 million ‘punters’ who voted for Trump in the US. I think we should stop using the punters excuse as a measure for whether any work is good or not.
I’m not talking about this work in particular, I’m only tired of hearing ‘the punters have spoken, nuff said’. Let’s try and educate and elevate the entertainment of the punters. They can still be entertained and buy the product without lowering to the punting level. Look at the great advertising we aspire to in Europe and the US… it’s entertaining, sophisticated, hilarious or dramatic but still doesn’t alienate the average punter.
What’s grouse mean? Same as gross? Is advertising here now on the same creative level as chopping wood in Jimbo’s backyard whilst dropping a few cans or for that matter on the same IQ level as the genius’s that stormed the US capitol building? Lol ‘grouse’!
Dear young person, learn how to use Google.
Hear hear.
PS: Love the ad.
It’s not 1985 making a few ads with some local cobbers inbetween surfing and the pub. The internet has happened, google happened… the world is international now, even in your little old boy circle jerk ad club. It sounds to me like you’re the one that should educate yourself on google, then possibly you would understand that you’re outdated uncreative ways and the use of 30 year old bloke slang is being poked fun of. Don’t pull that old person, young person crap.
Dear old person, this ad was directed and shot by young people.
I think you missed the whole point. Which is what you do these days I guess.
And do educate on said point?
Grouse is a small plump ground dwelling game bird with feathery legs. Good for eating. I don’t know if I’d eat this ad or an anonymous lamb chop stuck through a glory hole.
Lame!
Come on @meat eater
Laugh! The Scomo joke at the end is hilarious! It’s the garlic and herb seasoning that every lamb chop needs.
Congrats on a great job Monkeys and Airbag team.
I’m congratulating the monkeys on reinvigorating the annual lamb ad after a few years of mediocre lamb ads but also big ups to airbag for taking what we all know is always an epic script encumbered with a tiny budget and really bringing home the gravy. Good work Ariel and everyone at Airbag.
best lamb ad in years. well done to all concerned
STANDING
Aussie campaign of the year already set in January.
Thank you Monkeys for setting the bench mark for 2021.
Very funny and really well put together. Congrats to all involved.
Anyone can do a funny ad with a budget. Trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. Didn’t work last year either. Gimme a break. Do you not get bored of the same old shtick?
Oh, I’m sorry. Can anyone do a funny ad on a good budget? Really?
I’ve seen many comedies fail miserably on big Hollywood coin.
This is why you are where you are – using budgets an excuse for your lack of humour and writing negative bitter comments on blogs.
Well done MLA and Monkeys!
Interesting how when overseas directors, use to big budgets and actual good creative come here, their work here often sucks.
Disagree, everyone knows these lamb ads don’t have a budget big enough for the scripts. That’s the point. Production companies make them happen on the smell of an oily rag.
And agree, this is decent (for Australia), but it’s a very old formula with the same old jokes and cast.
To happen in 2021.
Congrats to everyone involved for raising the bar. This is as close as we get to a Superbowl moment.
And a nod to BMF – their original strategy continues to shine.
Lol, if this was a Hollywood comedy film or even a US comedy ad it would fail too! Now that’s funny!
A Ranga with a boyfriend?
… the best ad campaign this country has seen in a very long time.
Don’t think I’ve seen a reaction like this from an ‘ad’ before. It’s everywhere you look. You can’t escape it.
Love it or hate it – it has worked.
I like most Australians, love it.
Well done all involved.
Lol again.
Great to see lamb get its groove back. Last year was so disappointing. This is a ripper.
When I saw the lamb, I couldn’t help but think… Uber Eats.
C’mon guys.
@Again,
I ordered from UberEats too!
Got myself a yummy lamb curry.
Well done to all involved.
This has got people talking and me eating.
Well done to The Monkeys and Airbag. A brilliant campaign.
Well done team.
Even being a vego, this ad is still brilliant.
Looks like a bunch of dudes wrote some cliche characters and played dressups.
What I took away from watching it: Budgy smuggler joke #293, a year-old Scomo joke, horde of everyday Aussies demanding client product #2,893,221, a Tasmania joke last told in 1995.
This is brilliant. Love the little insider jokes spread throughout… well done to the team and client behind this. Great way to start the year.
Are you stamping your foot at the same time you are punching the keys?
Are you touching yourself whilst repeatedly watching this ad?
I know i am.