Brief Explanation

Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) promotes a profitable and sustainable red meat and livestock industry. They wanted to help consumers, especially the younger, tech savvy generation learn more about beef and cook it better, every time. We developed an easy to use iPhone app for cooking beef, a shopping and kitchen companion at our audience’s (greasy) fingertips. Australia has one of the highest penetration of smartphone (and in particular iPhone) users in the world. So our solution was the Beef Essentials iPhone app, a guide with well tested information for proven beef cooking expertise. It was imperative that the imagery and style reached the highest quality. Nothing kills an appetite faster than bad-looking images of food. We focused on large, finely crafted visuals and minimised copy wherever possible. The app features step-by-step processes, delicious meal suggestions and a simple, tactile and icon-driven user interface. It guides users through cooking methods for any one of 70 possible cuts, whether it be BBQ, pan fry (gas and electric), grill, slow-cook, roast or stir-fry. Tell it how thick your cut is and it will instruct you when to rest and turn the beef. Save your favourite beef choices, set a precise cooking timer and use the queue system for cooking several cuts of meat at the same time. A simple information architecture, smart user flows and extensive testing with stakeholders, staff and users ensured that a wide range of consumers (not just the young ones) were able to use the app effectively. Features in magazines, high user ratings and thousands of downloads over the summer BBQ period (with no media spend) demonstrated that Australians liked to dig into the Beef Essentials. Now you can tell your mates to sit tight when it’s time to approach the grill.