How Droga5 Used the Comments Section To Attract “Eyeballs and Mouthfuls” for MLA
Returning in 2025, Meat and Livestock Australian’s annual summer Lamb, created by Droga5 ANZ, spotlights real social media comments to poke fun at online division.
Directed by Max Barden, the ad portrays an Australia divided over trivial arguments, until a lamb BBQ unites everyone.
Comments about the campaign itself, both positive and negative, are being used in promotions to drive viewers online, and to remind Australians that real-life connections are more unifying than online discourse.
Droga5 and Accenture Song APAC CCO Tara Ford spoke to LBB’s Tom Loudon about the latest iteration of MLA’s summer lamb campaign, including how it leverages real online comments, lamb as a symbol of harmony, and the power of experiences in bridging cultural divides.
LBB> Why the focus on online division for this campaign?
Tara> Every year for Australian Lamb, we identify topics in the cultural zeitgeist that divide Australians, something that will resonate with people, and then we bridge that gap with a cutlet or two.
This year, we looked at several topics, but online division quickly rose to the top. Our online lives have become all-encompassing. It has become a place of argument on every issue for every demographic in some way. The ‘Comments Section’ has become the modern battleground.
Fuelled by forums that provide anonymity and reward the promotion of extreme points of view, the ‘perfect storm’ for division is created.
Additionally, the bizarre language, tone and characters on these forums allowed us to write a unique campaign that struck at the heart of the issue while still being entertaining.
And so, it’s the perfect place for Aussie Lamb to step in and remind everyone that real people are behind these posts. And ultimately, the things that unite us are much more powerful than those that divide us.
LBB> How did you select the real online comments featured in the ad?
Tara> First, we wrote a script with indicative comments, making it topical and diverse to have universal appeal.
We then partnered with Kinesso to use monitoring technology to search the internet for specific keywords, like ‘windfarm’, ‘AI’, or ‘flat earth’. Then we filtered the results using geolocation and sentiment to ensure we had Australian comments that were both positive and negative.
It was a lot of fun to use accurate comments from real people, with real emotion, typos and sometimes a bizarre point of view. They say truth is stranger than fiction. And it was.
We then trawled through thousands of related comments to find the right balance of positive and negative, weaving them together in a funny way that felt true to the online experience.
For OOH, we have then taken comments about the film and made them headlines to drive people to watch it.
LBB> What challenges did you face in reimagining these comments in a way that resonates with audiences?
Tara> We needed to take the fragments of copy from people’s online comments and curate them to have emotion and humour without losing the context of a broader story. It was a complicated jigsaw puzzle involving writing, casting, storytelling and production. We were still assembling these different pieces well into the edit.
LBB> Why do you think a lamb BBQ serves as a powerful metaphor for unity in Australian culture?
Tara> In 2015, when we first started working with MLA, we wanted to find out how Aussies felt about lamb so we went about doing an ethnographic study. It revealed that unlike chicken, beef and seafood, lamb was most often a shared experience that brought people together. Lamb also unites people across more religions and cultures than any other meat. These insights informed the brand’s essence of ‘unity’ and positioning as the meat that brings Aussies together like no other meal.
LBB> What role did Max Barden’s direction play in bringing this concept to life?
Tara> Max is a talented director who is innately hilarious, so much of his comedic skill went into the films. Beyond that, he brought a whole lot of energy and enthusiasm.
He made a super detailed storyboard animatic, voicing every character, which gave us both stitches and confidence that the final film would deliver.
And of course, a project like this is constantly evolving right through until dispatch. Everyone was super collaborative throughout the production process, ensuring our story delivered on message, comedy and, importantly, the mission to make Australian Lamb the unifying hero.
LBB> Why was it important to include both positive and negative real comments in the OOH campaign?
Tara> We never judge or take sides and this year was no different.
This also reflects real life, if you think about online comment sections. All sorts of views are shared, positive and negative, and everything in between, so it worked seamlessly for this idea. We needed to mirror that in our work both in the film and in OOH.
LBB> What metrics or feedback will you use to measure the success of this campaign?
Tara> We talk about ‘Eyeballs and Mouthfuls’ as key measures for lamb campaigns – the more people view the campaign, the more significant the exposure. The more people talk about the campaign, the more fame lamb gets. People buying more lamb over summer and new households buying lamb for the first time are the ultimate measures of campaign success.
LBB> What was the most surprising or memorable comment you encountered during the development of the campaign?
Tara> On the topic of how to make the perfect cup of tea, the comment: “Same as with Cereal. Milk First” made us all laugh. You end up getting caught up in the debate, too. (For the record, it’s a ‘no’ for me.)
LBB> How do you anticipate this campaign will spark conversations among Australians?
Tara> Like it or not, online comments are part of the modern human experience for most of us. Everyone has experience, probably on both sides of the fence, or at least experienced the effects of it.
The campaign has already got people talking about how we behave online and whether we’d be different if we were at a BBQ with a lamb cutlet. Lamb campaigns always aim to sell loads of Aussie Lamb and get people talking and discussing what brings us together.
