MLA’s banned religious lamb ad is ‘a great example of creating unity’, says agency boss
Meat and Livestock Australia’s ad featuring a meat-eating Lord Ganesha was a “great example of creating unity” despite its controversy, One Green Bean CEO Carl Ratcliff told an audience at Mumbrella’s CommsCon.
Despite the ad causing uproar across various religious communities, and ultimately being banned after an independent review, Ratcliff said the campaign “brought people together” and encouraged religions to discuss their differences.
It was a great session. Well done Carl and Mark for breaking down what collaboration really is and the hard work and professionalism that needs to go into making it work.
I wasn’t at a the session – was there any discussion about the mix of minds that came up with the campaign idea? I feel like the big lesson that is being missed here is about diversity within agencies. It’s easy to miss the potential for offence if you only discuss your ideas with people who are just like you.
A bit of a shame to see the whole thing spun as a success for MLA, too. They sold a bit of lamb, but at what cost to their reputation?
Good point red.
It also made me wonder how many stories of Hindus and Buddhists coming together to discuss their religious differences Ratcliff has heard.
Ignorance is bliss, in this case…
At what cost to their reputation? Zero. The ad was a huge success. Ordinary Australians of any background don’t get easily offended by good natured humour and can see through the ‘controversy’.
Agreed.
Some people take their religion seriously. Others take their lamb seriously…
It is interesting that the ad was banned after it had been viewed 11 million times. What’s the point? Placate a few (well maybe a billion?) people that could have been offended?
They could always, you know, not watch it?
I’m pretty offended by religion in general, you know what I do? I avoid going in to churches, etc.
Even when they coming knocking on my door trying to talk to me about imaginary beings I am still polite, I haven’t tried to get them banned. I’m sure if started a campaign to have them banned though there would be good support. I just have better things to do with my time.
If a ‘great idea’ means stereotyping and infantalising people’s religious beliefs, justifying this by pretending it will create a dialogue between different faiths and then confusing outrage with amplification, then this was great creative.
The ad failed at being brave, clever, funny or creative as it (sensibly) didn’t depict mohammed who ‘couldn’t make it’, which showed it’s creators respected one religion’s central figure – even if this respect was likely based on self-preservation. A similar concept would have worked had it shown different Australian ethnicities uniting over lamb. Plenty of room for clever copy – and an opportunity to genuinely create something that stimulates dialogue. But I guess the agency needed to be provocative and poke the easy targets.
Seriously, how does condensing one religion and cultural tradition down into the one peice of iconography we all know about it, and further stereotyping it as a fat man in an elephant costume stimulate interfaith dialogue? This ad and its subsequent justifications, was a prime example of the advertising industry being blind-drunk on its own bloated flatulent sense of self-importance and sense of smug superiority.
@Great Ad ‘good natured humour’. That’s debatable. Let’s stereotype something you value and see whether you offerup the other cheek. Nothing clever or funny about this ad. Old fashioned pick on an easy target advertising and generate controversy – after-all any publicity is good publicity and all that matters are eyeballs.
As for the ad being a great conversation starter building bridges between religious believers…what a load of mutton dressed up as a plan.
If they were sensitive enough to not show Mohammed, they should have realized Ganesha was a vegetarian. He should own up that this was an oversight.