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Earlier this week I was following the latest trend and picking up some meat at the butcher.
As I bought my mince and a fairly reasonably-priced steak, considering the price of cattle at saleyards, I suddenly had a thought.
After all, it was Australia Day this week, and we all know Australia Day is all about lamb.
Which just goes to show how effective that marketing campaign, dreamed up by the team at Meat & Livestock Australia, has been.
Starting in 2005, starring a footballer who was really only known to a few states, it has become firmly entrenched in our national identity.
It has reached the point where MLA doesn't even talk about the Australia Day lamb ad anymore, it's just the "summer lamb" campaign, in the same way they have winter and spring campaigns.
But for the rest of us, it's still the Australia Day lamb ad. Even though last year, it was released on January 27, in deference to the fact that there were widespread fires.
In terms of lasting marketing campaigns, a few good ones spring to mind.
I would put this one up there with the DeBeers marketing campaign that meant only a diamond was a proper show of love for an engagement ring.
I'm also very bemused by the way that Angus beef has attained a certain cachet, so that it is seen as somehow more desirable.
I do wonder how much of that had to do - somewhat ironically - with a McDonalds partnership.
And we have all rolled our eyes and tried to explain to our American friends that we actually eat prawns, not shrimp, and they're not so much something we throw on the barbecue, but rather something we eat cold with our hands.
Sometimes there seems to be a view point that "creative" jobs, such as marketing, do not have the "importance" of traditional roles like engineers or doctors.
But a good marketing person can change the world.
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