Results and Effectiveness

Putting lamb on the fashion agenda made it the dish everyone was talking about that season. Just $1.2 million of media spend generated $4.8 million of additional PR value. As for sales, they couldn’t keep lamb on the rack. Australia’s largest retailer sold 280,000 legs of lamb in the first week of the campaign - its best week of lamb sales ever. Despite the price of lamb increasing by 5%, average weekly lamb sales grew by 9% over spring. And Australia had its newest and most unusual fashion collection.

Creative Execution

Our collection of lamb recipes was tailor-made by Australia’s fashionable food personality Lyndey Milan. The perfectly named ‘Milan Spring Collection’ demanded attention. So like any true fashion label we showcased the collection whenever possible. Instead of getting lost in the high-fashion pages of the glossies we launched our own magazine Chop ‘Til You Drop – a cheeky alternative to the leading fashion magazine Shop ‘Til You Drop. Over 100,000 copies were distributed around the country. We created a special fashion show live on Channel Nine for the ‘Milan Spring Collection’ of lamb dishes and their perfect accessories. We also held a fabulous launch event for the collection to provide content for celebrity magazines loved by mums. On top of all that we even had a one hour programme created to air in prime-time television, and entirely dedicated to fashion and spring lamb. Not something you see every day.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Lamb stock is at its peak in spring; lamb sales are not. We set out to create seasonal demand and increase sales of a meat that is more expensive by the kilo than lobster. But no-one particularly cared about lamb during spring. For Australians spring was all about the annual horse-racing carnival. Not the horses so much but the dresses, the hats and the shoes. It was undeniable. In spring the only thing in fashion was fashion. So we set out to transform lamb into spring’s best dressed meat. But as mums often felt excluded from the fashion industry (too glossy, too thin and too expensive) we couldn’t be too serious. Instead we gave fashionistas a reality check. We parodied the behaviour of a fashion label and broke the traditional rules of engagement. A bespoke ‘fashion’ collection of spring’s hottest lamb dishes was born.