Return of the Greatest

Last weekend MLA launched a fresh round of beef marketing activities under its domestic beef marketing platform ‘Australian Beef. The Greatest’, promoting the ease and versatility of Australian beef to capture mid-week meals over summer. Here Prices & Markets gets an insight into the upcoming campaign with MLA's Domestic Senior Brand Manager, Sam Warfield Smith.

What does the latest ‘Australian Beef. The Greatest’ marketing campaign involve?

Utilising insights and data from our ‘Australian Beef. The Greatest’ winter marketing activities in July, we know there’s a need to combat consumer perceptions around Australian beef as an 'easy everyday' meal option. We know that people don’t consider beef as their staple mid-week meal, especially in our increasingly time-poor lifestyles. In our latest campaign, we’ll reinforce and demonstrate beef's versatility and ease through different cuts, positioning it as a solution for quick and easy meals.

We’ll be using our existing ‘Australian Beef. The Greatest’ TV commercial promoting versatility and combining this with new beef recipes to reflect the summer months and approaching Christmas and holiday period. At a time when the weather is changing to warmer and longer days, there’s an increase in outdoor activity, and people are more social. Our food preferences change. We tend to eat lighter meals and there is more outdoor cooking and entertaining. The latest recipes provide relevant inspiration over the summer period and an opportunity to reinforce beef's versatility message.

In addition to where we can strengthen our mix of promotional channels, cinema has been added as a means to reach our audience when most engaged. The ads will be played in between trailers across a range of strong movie releases over an eight-week period. It will be exciting to see how it performs on cinema screens, as it provides a great opportunity to increase reach and awareness at a time where we have an engaged and captive audience(i.e.they don't have to go and put the kettle on during an ad break).

The new domestic platform has been in-market approximately 18 months now, how is it performing?

Overall, the new brand platform has resonated really well with Australian consumers, positioning Aussie beef as the highest quality product and continued to build a strong brand equity in 'Australian Beef. The Greatest’.

We still have a job to do in continuing the quality message and demonstrate ‘easy everyday’.

This is an area we’re confident will be addressed in the campaign which launched on Sunday (14 October), as well as through the next campaign launching early 2019 – so watch this space.

We’ve shifted to more of a year-round approach to marketing Australian beef. Why is this important, especially at a time of high beef prices? 

We know retail prices for beef command a significant premium within the category, and consumers claim their most important purchase drivers are freshness, quality and Australian-raised. That’s why it’s vital we continue to establish everyday relevance with our consumers, demonstrating value over price.

Beef is a desired protein but the conversion at the point of purchase can be impacted, driven by lower prices of competitor proteins, and consumer concerns around beef as a quick and easy meal.  

To combat this, we're currently working on the next chapter in ‘Australian Beef. The Greatest’. We want to inspire consumers to feel pride in choosing not just beef, but the greatest meat on earth. Getting consumers to realise and appreciate the benefits of locally-produced Aussie beef increases the opportunity of main grocery buyers "willing to pay more" for our product.

More information:

australianbeef.com.au