Meat and Livestock Australia’s (MLA) controversial spring lamb ad which called on Australians to come together over lamb has won the People’s Choice award at the 2016 Multicultural Marketing Awards.
The ad, by The Monkeys, opened with the statement that too many “perky white males” were contributing to a lack of diversity on TV screens.
It went on to feature people from diverse backgrounds, including Indigenous Australians, Indians, Greeks and people from the LGBTQI communities.
The ad was the focus of a series of complaints by viewers, some of which claimed it was ‘racist against white people’. All complaints were subsequently dismissed.
MLA’s campaign also won the Communications award.
During the awards presentation, SBS presenter and Logie Award nominee, Lee Lin Chin, declared she was “Australia’s best Asian” in a tongue-in-cheek video promoting SBS’s new cultural training courses.
Other winners on the night included Telstra, Cricket Australia and Western Sydney University for its ‘Unlimited’ campaign.
NSW Minister for Multiculturalism, John Ajaka said the awards were a celebration of marketing that embraced all communities.
“The outstanding quality of this year’s winners is a testament to all the creativity and imagination of marketing and advertising professionals who are breaking barriers and promoting diversity on our screens and across society,” Ajaka said.
The full list of winners:
Communications – Meat & Livestock Australia, The Monkeys, UM, One Green Bean and Identity, ‘Bringing EVERYONE Together Over Lamb’
Public Sector – NSW Multicultural Health Communication Service and NSW Organ and Tissue Donation Service, ‘Life Giving Stories: ‘Storytellers on the Ultimate Gift of Life’ Multiplatform Strategy Organ Tissue Donation Multicultural Campaign
Big Business – Telstra, ‘A place to belong/Indigenous Recruitment Campaign’
Small Business – Why Documentaries, ‘From Foe to Friends’
Business Diversity – Access Community Services, ‘#OurStories Campaign’
Arts and Culture – Access Community Services for the Brisbane Multicultural Arts Centre
Sport – Cricket Australia, ‘A Sport for All – Cricket Campaigns’
Communities – SBS Radio, ‘SBS Arabic24’
Education – Western Sydney University, ‘Unlimited Campaign’
Youth – SBS Radio, ‘National Languages Competition’
Peoples’ Choice Award – Meat & Livestock Australia, The Monkeys, UM, One Green Bean and Identity, ‘Bringing Everyone Together Over Lamb’
IDENTITY is a specialist multicultural marketing agency that is part of IPG Mediabrands.
Over the years, so many “facts” have been casually dropped about Australia’s migrant population that are just wrong.
Here’s a quick guide that might come in handy at the water cooler or BBQ stopper (with the help of the Australian Bureau of Statistics Census).
All Arabic speakers come from the Middle East
Wrong. Two in five (41 per cent) of Arabic speakers were born in Australia, while the next largest countries of birth for Arabic speakers are Lebanon (23 per cent) followed by Iraq (9 per cent).
All Arabic speakers are Muslims
While 52 per cent of Arabic speakers in Australia nominated Islam as their religion in the last Census, 42 per cent practised Christianity. And I have it on good authority that all Muslims aren’t terrorists. If we’re talking about the proportion of communities who nominated their faith as Islam then some of the highest proportions are Urdu speakers (96 per cent) and Turkish (88 per cent).
Cantonese = Traditional Chinese, Mandarin = Simplified Chinese
It’s a rough rule of thumb, but it’s wrong. In the 1950s, China “simplified” the written characters by reducing the number of strokes used. Given Mandarin is the official language of China, many equate Mandarin with Simplified Chinese.
That would ignore people from Taiwan who speak Mandarin and still use Traditional Chinese characters and the Mandarin-speaking diaspora who still use traditional characters. In Australia, over 90 per cent of the print publications are in Traditional Chinese with Mandarin and Cantonese-speaking readership.
The misunderstanding arises because the majority of Cantonese speakers are assumed to come from Hong Kong and they use traditional Chinese characters. In fact, according to the Australian Census, a quarter of those born in China, speak Cantonese — that means they speak Cantonese and use simplified Chinese.
Fact: Cantonese and Mandarin are spoken forms of Chinese, traditional or simplified Chinese are written forms. There isn’t a one-to-one correlation between the written and spoken Chinese. And while I’m at it, Mandarin and Cantonese aren’t the only languages spoken by Chinese Australians; there are more than 51,000 people in Australia who speak other Chinese languages including Min Nan, Hakka and Wu.
All people from India speak Hindi
English is the most spoken language in the home for Indian-born Australians (28 per cent) closely followed by Hindi (26 per cent) and Punjabi (25 per cent) and Malayalam (9 per cent).
Italians live in Leichhardt
Wrong. Leichhardt’s postcode, 2040 ranks 8thfor Italian speakers in NSW. The top three postcodes are 2046 (Canada Bay), 2176 (Bossley Park, Edensor Park) and 2770 (Liverpool).
Twenty-five per cent of Australians were born overseas
Technically, it’s correct, but often used in the wrong context. According to the last Australian Census (2011), 5,284,502 Australians were born overseas, making up 25 per cent of the Australian population. But that includes Australians born in the UK, USA, Canada and NZ. Factually correct if that’s disclosed, but when used to support translating communications to migrants, it’s misleading (unless you have the urge to translate into Gaelic).
If we just looked at people who spoke a language other than English at home, the figure is 18 per cent. Not inflated but still respectable.
Forty-three per cent have one parent or both parents born overseas
Again, huge number but it’s misleading for the same reason.
There are so many rational reasons why marketers and governments should be communicating with Australia’s diverse population. But those reasons should be grounded in appropriate facts.
This article by Thang Ngo was first published on SBS World News.
Major Western companies – from the big banks and supermarket chains, to department stores and luxury cosmetic brands – are splashing out on Lunar New Year campaigns. And the budgets are only going to get bigger.
When Mark Zuckerberg, one of the world’s most powerful media owners, releases a Lunar New Year greeting video, you know this Asian cultural celebration is now a ‘mainstream’ event in the West.
“Last night at Facebook, we hosted our annual Lunar New Year celebrations…we have the honour of hosting famous chefs from China… for everyone at Facebook to experience,” announced a beaming Zuckerberg, together with wife and new baby daughter, via his Facebook page. They also took the opportunity to reveal their daughter’s Chinese name – Chen Mingyu.
Closer to home, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull used the occasion to link the New Lunar Year to his government’s key values of optimism, agility and innovation. In his Chinese New Year greeting message, the Australian PM said: “The Year of the Monkey highlights the value of agility, confidence, inventiveness and leadership”.
For nine years (1999-2008), I served as an elected local government councillor in Fairfield, one of the most diverse in the country – home to the largest Vietnamese community in Australia and also a large number of Chinese migrants. We tried with limited success to put Lunar New Year on the map. While the festival was celebrated with great colour and pride within the local community, it was largely ignored by the rest of Sydney.
Today, there are over 14 Lunar New Year festivals organised by councils and community groups all across Sydney, from Hurstville, Bankstown, and City of Sydney, to Chatswood and The Hills Shire.
What’s changed?
China has now cemented its place as a world economic superpower and consumer. It accounts for around 29 per cent of global sales for Volkswagen and General Motors and around one in five cars sold by Nissan and Hyundai. From a global production perspective, it also produces three in four mobile phones, 87 per cent of personal computers and 52 per cent of colour televisions.
Locally, Mandarin overtook Italian for the first time as the most spoken language (other than English) in Australia, according to the 2011 Australian Census. China already accounts for the highest number of international students studying in Australia with 170,015 enrolments year to date to November 2015.
Annual Chinese tourist numbers exceeded 1 million for the first time in November 2015, an increase of more than 21 per cent. Chinese tourists are the biggest spenders in Australia, dropping $7.7 billion in the 12 months to September 2015, up 43 per cent. Federal Tourism Minister, Richard Colbeck recently floated the idea of translating road signs into Chinese to encourage more tourists to take road trips.
Money Talks
The exponentially growing interest in Lunar New Year reflects the spending power of the Chinese population on all fronts – local migrants, international students and very lucrative tourists.
Both Coles and Woolworths are offering special Lunar New Year product lines. In Cabramatta, Woolworths cater for the local Vietnamese community with pallets of watermelon. A Vietnamese New Year tradition involves slicing a whole watermelon on the first day of the year. If the inside is deep red, it symbolises good luck.
This year, Kit Kat joined in the celebrations, releasing four special Chinese New Year flavours – taro black sesame, red bean toasted coconut, tangerine crème brulee and almond cookie.
David Jones and Lancome have partnered on a Chinese New Year campaign promoted with Chinese language billboards at Sydney’s Central train station.
The Sydney Morning Herald Lunar Markets by the Star is an attempt by these brands to cash in on the festivities. The markets will be serving up a range of Chinese, Filipino, Vietnamese, Thai, Korean and Japanese dishes and drinks to eager punters.
In addition to advertising special retail offers, most of the major banks sponsor Lunar New Year festivals, give out free branded red packets to account holders, and hold lavish banquets for their premium customers.
Both Qantas and Cathay Pacific run special Chinese New Year fare specials. While Westfield has a series of New Year entertainment across their shopping centres worldwide.
All this activity is a boon for the local Chinese media. The front pages of most newspapers have been bought out by advertisers. The home page of Australia’s most popular Chinese language website is plastered with Lunar New Year retail advertising by major brands – Commonwealth Bank, Vodafone, ANZ, Philips and Qantas.
Mainstream publishers are getting into the act, too. Bauer Media has launched Chinese language editions of Australian Gourmet Traveller and Harper’s Bazaar for 2016 Lunar New Year.
While efforts to promote Lunar New Year as a cultural celebration may have had limited success a decade ago, the commercial opportunities are proving devastatingly successful.
My prediction is that Lunar New Year advertising budget will double in 2017, the Year of the Roster. After all, money talks.
Thang Ngo is managing director of IDENTITY Communications, part of IPG Mediabrands. He served nine years (1999-2008) as a councillor in Fairfield, and publishes the food blog, noodlies.com.
