The lamb ad: Everything rides on a $3 million gamble
Watching the original Australian lamb ad from 2005 is to go back in time.
The 4:3 format, single shot rant from ex-footballer Sam Kekovich plays right on the edge. It’s self-consciously intolerant, lampooning and at the same time harnessing jingoistic patriotism.
It could easily have failed, and in some ways it did: less than a year later, race riots broke out around Sydney’s Cronulla Beach. The Australian flag that had been pinned up behind Kekovich, and his naked hostility, became a lot less funny.
