Every year, Australia’s peak meat lobby group spends up big to promote the consumption of lamb with a full-length commercial, which gets funnier and more abstract every year.

In a good way, of course, as the messaging is all about eating our most patriotic cuisine of lamb over summer before Australia Day.

This year’s advertisement by Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) pokes fun at the generational divide.

Aptly titled ‘The Generation Gap’, the three-minute commercial has brought joy to millions, and even had Chicago-based McDonald’s head of social media drooling, reposting the commercial that has gone viral with more than five million views.

“I’ve seen crazy ads in my life but NOTHING compares to this,” he wrote.

One follower replied: “The US has Super Bowl ads, the UK has Christmas ads and Australia … they have meat ads”.

We do.

But although the 2024 campaign has been overwhelmingly labelled “brilliant”, “clever” and “smashing it out of the park”, there’s some who were quick to kill the fun and remind us of our domestic cost-of-living crisis.

“Who can even afford to buy lamb?” asked one commenter on X – formerly known as Twitter.

Another took issue with the absence of any reference to Australia Day, which had been the target when the ads started in the early 2000s.

“All lamb ads in the past have been based around Australia Day,” the user wrote.

“The woke police have got to [Lambassador] Sam Kekovich.”

Aussie actor the first to spruik lamb

When Naomi Watts became the first to share the importance of a lamb roast after turning down a date with Tom Cruise in the 1989 ad, it triggered an idea for the MLA, which eventually led to its first campaign in 2005.

Spearheaded by former AFL player Sam Kekovich, every year we got a spray about the past year’s big events and scandals – not to mention vegans – and how everything could be resolved with a lamb chop.

“It’s tradition. Don’t be un-Australian. Serve lamb on Australia Day. You know it makes sense,” were his words of wisdom.

The earlier ads featured Kekovich addressing the nation to eat more lamb on Australia Day and by 2010 and 2011, Kekovich was taking on Europe and the UN.

Then there was Lambnesia in 2013 (reminding the Aussie Olympic team in London they would have won more medals if they ate lamb).

The 2015 campaign saw Richie Benaud at the barbie, while in 2017 the MLS split from Australia Day in favour of a celebration of modern multiculturalism and a play on Invasion Day.

In recent years the campaigns have had such titles as “Make Lamb, Not Walls” and “Lambalytica” [about people spending too much time on their phones].

“Over the last 17 years, we’ve delivered campaigns that celebrate coming together in a variety of ways and know that many Australians enjoy and anticipate our ads at this time of the year,” MLA’s domestic market manager Graeme Yardy tells industry publication AdNews.

“As far as we’re concerned, that’s a message that transcends more than just one day in the year.”

Last year, the summer campaign was set in an alternative reality where people are called out for being “un-Australian” before being banished to “Un-Australia” – a pretend cultural exile.

This time AdNews says the commercial, co-directed by Millennial Aimée-Lee Xu Hsien and Gen X-er Trent O’Donnell via The Monkeys (part of Accenture Song) imagines a world in which the generations have been separated by The Generation Gap, “an impassable chasm that keeps each age group away from the others”.

“Stereotypes would have us believe that the generations are practically different species,” Yardy tells Beef Central. 

“Apparently, Boomers are unable to master the basics of technology while Gen Zs spend every waking moment making TikTok dances and Millennials spend too much on avocado toast and craft beer.

“However, there is much more that unites than separates us, and that’s what this year’s summer lamb campaign is all about.

“Whether it’s a love of our sporting heroes or our beautiful landscapes, the best of Australia always brings us together, and what better way to break down the generational divide than over some Australian lamb, the ultimate unifier.”

In the MLA’s State of the Industry Report 2023, Australia’s per capita lamb consumption in 2022 was 6.8 kilograms with the volume of lamb purchased at the shops up 14.8 per cent and retail prices dropping by 9.5 per cent.

The MLA says data from NielsenIQ Homescan to December 3, 2023, shows a 17.5 per cent reduction in the price consumers are paying for lamb compared to a year ago, which is supporting a 22.9 per cent increase in volume of lamb purchased at the cash register.

The Boomers are the ones still cooking, though! Photo: Twitter/MLA

Meanwhile, Scott Dettrick, creative director at The Monkeys, tells AdNews the generation gap in Australia has never been wider with growing differences in wealth, opinions, and ways of communication.

“The various frustrations this year have each generation throwing tropes around, looking for someone to blame. When you scratch beneath the surface though, it’s attitudes, not age, that divide us,” Dettrick said.

“Maybe if we just got around a lamb barbecue and had a chat, we might find out that grandad is actually pretty cool, or all that stuff Millennials know can be really useful.”

Melbourne-based creative ad agency, Red Handed, says the commercials are “but a genius campaign by the MLA to boost lamb sales annually”.

“Historical precedent or not, eating lamb on Australia Day is the birth-child of great advertising,” it said.