Sam Kekovich gets Lambnesia in this year’s MLA Australia Day campaign
Meat & Livestock Australia’s front man Sam Kekovich suffers a head injury which causes him to hallucinate about rugby players in tutus, getting his fingernails painted and dancing Gangnam Style in this year’s Australia Day campaign.
Kekovich tells viewers that he is suffering from “Lambnesia” which causes symptoms of unAustralianess.
The scene was set for the campaign with Ten uploading a video to its YouTube channel last week which appeared to show Kekovich being injured by a misdirected cricket ball during a live cross with weatherman Tim Bailey.
The reveal was due to take place on Seven’s Today Tonight yesterday evening, but the network extended its news bulletin to cover the bush fires emergency, with Kekovich appearing on Sunrise this morning.
The ad retains Kekovich’s signature rant to camera. The campaign, from creative agency BMF, aims to drive consumers to a website where they are invited to take part in the “National Lambnesia Test“.
View the ad:
Participants in the test are shown a series of images against the clock and challenged to identify whether they are Australian or UnAustralian.
Credits:
- Client: MLA
- Creative: BMF
- Media: UM
- PR: Hausmann
- Managing Partner Stephen McArdle
- Executive Creative Directors Carlos Alija & Laura Sampedro
- Creative Team Carlo Mazzarella & Jonty Bell
- Planning Christina Aventi
- Director Taika Waititi
- Production Company Curious Film
- Post Production Frame Set & Match – Ben Eagleton
- Agency Producer Sue Hind
- Editor Chris Leaver (Online) & Luke Haigh (Offline)
- Photographer Mat Baker
- Producer Matt Noonan & Peter Holani
- Print Producer Karen Liddle
- Art Buyer Basir Salleh
- Music & Sound Production Sonar Music – Mikey Lira
- Designers Matthew Hughes & Indah Shillingford
- Digital Creative Team Carlo Mazzarella & Jonty Bell
- Tim Smith & Simon Koay
- Interaction Lead Nev Fordyce
- Digital Project Manager Rachel OʼToole
- Technical Director Doug Rathbone
- DoP Daniel Ardilley
- Illustrator Mike Watt
- Client Director Bec Morton
- Account Director Kelly Howard
- Account Manager Samantha Heckendorf
- Account Executive Sarah Hood & Rose Flowers
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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Where dose he come up with it everytime.??
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This campaign is now looking so completely worn out that I doubt it even has the energy to jump a shark.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpraJYnbVtE
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Nobody who really loves sheep would treat them this badly.
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@Fonz The shark didn’t even bother to show up!
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How god dam embarrassing
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Wow, could this campaign get any worse? Let’s reference some pop culture and current events! The Voice! The Olympics! The Shire! How topical and fresh! Yawn…. All this ad seems to do is paint a very disturbing view on what some classify as Australian. Apparently sport is what makes this country great and anything cultural or to do with performing arts is seen as unAustralian. How sad. Perhaps we can stop pandering to the bogan demographic (a very common occurrence with Australian Ad Land at the moment) and start making ads for anyone who doesn’t drive a Holden or drink a VB from a stubby holder.
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I am with the Fonz on this one. It feels like Police Academy 9, or whatever number they got up to. Funny to start with, but so tired now.
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I’m not sure I agree. My first reaction was that it was a bit of a return to form. It also does well in taking it beyond the TV ad.
The game, while simple, is engaging. I suspect that it will prove to be an effective campaign.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
I like it, I also now can confidently say I like the cricket ball in the head, needed the whole campaign to really be able to judge it, well teased.
Not sure about Gangnam, I would have painted him up Goyte style but hey… I think the punters will love it.
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Is there a more irrelevant person in the Australian media landscape than Sam Kekovich
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I agree with Tim, last years Barbie Girl film clip was a bit much whereas this is Sam at his best. I think @Bem needs to get out if the city and see the real Australia, where sport IS what makes this country great and performing arts is what the kids do at daycare.
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Of course the industry luvvies will criticise it because
1) it’s not their campaign
2) it continues a long running formula of success and doesn’t reinvent the wheel
3) it’s talking to heartland Australia which most people in Adland would prefer to think don’t really exist
I suspect real people…out there…in the world…will love it!
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I find these ads to be quite authentic, a dangerously overweight, unhealthy grumpy old man being the champion for eating too much meat.
This Australia day, I’ll stay fit and healthy by eating a nice salad… but I guess, avoiding cancer… well that’s un-Australian!
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@ The Farmers Daughter
*damn*
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Ricki + 1 , again
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Head trauma and memory loss are serious medical conditions. Fail to see how ‘Lambnesia’ is at all funny or relevant. Even if it is riffing on mad cow disease.
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Does the game work? seems to be a technical issue
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Is something meant to happen at the end of the test?
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I suspect they won’t Ricki
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Worked for me this morning, reckon traffic might be pumping up now… FYI I’m 38.3% UnAustralian….
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The nanny state cohort is here in spades as usual. Must be quiet in Spring Street at the moment, or wherever the bureaucrats work in states other than Victoria.
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PS if my facebook timeline is anything to go by, it’s a hit. Links, Comments and Scores posted in past hour…
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It must be working or they wouldn’t wheel him out every year
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A Kiwi director for an Australia Day ad. That’s pretty un-Australian!
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15% un-Australian! Loved it. Funny stuff.
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Sam and his lame lambasting is not going to make middle australia fork out $15 a kilo for mutton chops. The Lamb marketing board will do themselves and us a favour by stopping mutton dressed up as lamb making it on to our shelves.
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What’s with lamb being pushed as an “Australian” thing? People have been eating sheep all around the world thousands of years before Australians…
If anything, I tend to associate eating lamb with Mediterranean and Central Asian cultures.
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@British Sheep Company, think it has something to do with our nation’s economy being based around the sheep for over 100 years of our existence. The sheep is in fact credited as one of the main reasons we have had one of the highest living standards in the world. Rode on the Sheep’s back as they say….
PS I am not associated with MLA or the Agency, I worked at Ten a while ago but no bias there I assure you. I am very partial to a good loin chop though!
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HERE ARE SOME THINGS FROM POPULAR CULTURE. OBSERVER THEM AND LAUGH, LIKE THE LAMBS YOU ARE. AH HA HA.
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@Encyclic! People do laugh at these things though. Just had mum on the phone telling me how great she thought it was. And guess who does the shopping?
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@Not But does she buy lamb because of the ad or does she already buy lamb anyway?
Has the ad made a difference to her buying habits?
Does it change the positioning of “lamb” as a product in her mind?
The Lamb v Pork war is flaring up this summer, and as always, to the victor, the spoils.
Also, can I throw a cricket ball at Sam Kekovich?
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Hard working and under paid lamb producers should be shouting at MLA for their levy monies back. Over used and old hat minor celebrity wheeled out every year to make a few producers in the inner circle get their jollies – oh look, there is our ad on TV. Lower prices mean there will be less producers in a years time and the whole joke that is generic meat promotion is way past its use by date. Producers should band together and create their own campaign and actually sell their product to consumers rather than give it to fat cats to waste on generic promotion.
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Works a treet every year.Lamb sales increace 34% this time of the year.
Oh I bet you shop at woolworths Sweeney.
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You’ll find a Weber is _American_.
Where the hell can you get chops for only $15 a kg ?
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Lighten up people. Its funny, its topical, clearly its SUCCESSFUL, and it reminds me every year that it’s nearly Hottest 100 time on Triple J. Although there’s probably heaps of you out there that are too cool for THAT as well.
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To those attempting to express their superior intellect and social conscience by deriding this ad and previous ad’s from this client, it is not about brown nosing some politically correct University/ Media / Arts teacher in exchange for a pass high enough to enable you to get a job at THEIR ABC , SBS, SMH .
It’s about relating to and communicating with REAL Australians, as opposed to stroking the ego’s of your ideological masters, so as to SELL PRODUCT.
You see AUSTRALIANS have a sense of humour unlike the “progressives” the left who are tasked with redefining Australia in their Politically Correct Authoritarian Teacher knows best image.
May I suggest that you concentrate on say ‘AIDS as a construct in Dance” or “The Vietnam War through the eyes of a Balmain Master Potter” or how about ” A Feminist perspective on the construct of the 2012 Rugby League Grand Final and the obvious lack of Females with disabilities playing in the front row of both teams”
CHILL OUT OR F**k OFF
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Why is Sam so lamb or I mean lame It use to give me a laugh.Maybe its up to Dick Smith these day
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