Meat and Livestock Australia Use Controversy to Spark Earned Media

Meat and Livestock Australia Use Controversy to Spark Earned Media

By: Morgan Rezac

Meat and Livestock Australia produced controversial videos making fun of vegans to gain attention on social media platforms to encourage people to buy lamb for Australia Day.

The brand is trying to reach Australians, specifically those people who are working abroad and thinking about coming home for the holiday.

Lamb is typically known as a food that people eat in groups. Because 5% of Aussies live abroad, the brand wanted to bring in the “fear of missing out” feeling to make citizens want to join in and eat lamb with their families and friends.

The brand gathered attention by making jokes about vegans, which brought a lot of attention to the videos released and sparked social spider webbing as people expressed their opinions on social media. This ridicule of vegans excited social media so much that lamb sales increased by 37% for Australia Day.

This campaign is a successful example of earned media. Meat and Livestock Australia knew that its video would be controversial and used that element to harness more earned media attention.

Tags: Earned Media, Livestock, Lamb, Agriculture, Australia, Vegan