Sam Kekovich set to reveal ‘Lambnesia’ condition in annual Australia Day address via BMF
After launching his music career last year with 90’s pop sensation Barbie Girl, and eight years of battling all things unAustralian, Sam Kekovich is back, but this time he’s struggling to remember his crusade to unite the planet over a lamb barbecue due to ‘Lambnesia’.
The campaign began last week, with a tongue-in-cheek teaser video of the accident that triggered Kekovich’s ‘Lambnesia’ appearing online (receiving over 300k views in 3 days). This was followed by Kekovich posting a string of unAustralian messages on Facebook and Twitter. Kekovich’s accident and strange behaviour resulted in thousands of comments from fans.
On the evening of Thursday 10 January, Kekovich will deliver his annual ‘Address to the Nation’. But instead of naming unAustralian behaviour in the year that was, he will share a ‘personal tell all’ account of how he has recently engaged in a series of unAustralian acts due to his severe ‘Lambnesia’ condition. After his recent experience, Kekovich has created the national ‘Lambnesia’ test, an online quiz which lets individuals calculate just how unAustralian they are.
Kekovich believes he’s not the only one who could be suffering from ‘Lambnesia’. He claims he’s seen symptoms everywhere.
Says Kekovich: “No wonder our Olympians weren’t much chop in London… If they’d spent more time diving into plates of lamb instead of each other’s beds, we’d be swimming in medals.”
For fellow Australians at risk of contracting ‘Lambnesia,’ Kekovich will also announce that help is at hand. In his address Kekovich will encourage all Australians to take the test and ‘stamp out Lambnesia quicker than a season of The Shire.’
Kekovich and the Lambnesia Test have also been integrated into a 1 hour TV special, ‘The Australia Day Showdown – You Can Never Be Too Australian’, broadcasting on Ten at 8:30pm on Australia Day.
Says Andrew Cox, MLA’s group marketing manager – consumer programs: “Each year we strive to keep our Australia Day campaign fresh. This year, we’ve taken Sam out from behind his desk, with a fully integrated campaign including even greater media integration from our partners.”
Client: MLA
Creative: BMF
Media: UM
PR: Hausmann
Managing Partner – Stephen McArdle
Executive Creative Directors – Carlos Alija & Laura Sampedro
Creative Team – Carlo Mazzarella & Jonty Bell
Planning – Christina Aventi
Director – Taika Waititi
Production Company – Curious Film
Post Production – Frame Set & Match – Ben Eagleton
Agency Producer – Sue Hind
Editor – Chris Leaver (Online) & Luke Haigh (Offline)
Photographer – Mat Baker
Producers – Matt Noonan & Peter Holani
Print Producer – Karen Liddle
Art Buyer – Basir Salleh
Music & Sound Production – Sonar Music – Mikey Lira
Designers – Matthew Hughes & Indah Shillingford
Digital Creative Team – Carlo Mazzarella & Jonty Bell
Digital Creative Team – Tim Smith & Simon Koay
Interaction Lead – Nev Fordyce
Digital Project Manager – Rachel O’Toole
Technical Director – Doug Rathbone
DoP – Daniel Ardilley
Illustrator – Mike Watt
Client Director – Bec Morton
Account Director – Kelly Howard
Account Manager – Samantha Heckendorf
Account Executive – Sarah Hood & Rose Flowers
28 Comments
Now I understand what ‘mutton dressed up as lamb’ means.
http://awesomegifs.com/wp-content/uploads/dead-horse.gif
Gold.
Pretty good given how long the campaign’s been running. I reckon the punters will love it.
I LOVE Sam. I LOVE lamb!
animalsaustralia.org
This is getting a bit old now!
Forgettable.
Love it. Brilliant, well done guys.
It is old and tired for the pompous tools in the industry, whilst consumers will love it…again.
Nice one from the NZ and Spaniard team!
Quoting Andrew Cox MLA Marketing Manager: This year, we’ve taken Sam out from behind his desk, with a fully integrated campaign including even greater media integration from our partners.”
Isn’t that what they did last year? Let’s see if this year’s effort also makes it into the top 10 virals of the year.
The whole campaign has jumped the shark…
Nice slaughter = laughter
It’s unaustralian to tell me how unaustralian I am ya wanker.
lam-e
Sound mix is terrible, can’t hear him talk.
Missing the ball at the end is the whole spot. That’s it for me. Absolutely brilliant!!
all these campaigns have a use by date as brilliant as they are.to be fair the agency usually knows this but the client hangs on grimly fearing the new.in this case the axe should have fallen by now but the combination of a nervous new marketing person and a nervous ,currently struggling BMF was unlikely to let a very tired idea go.pity as the new creative folk just may have done something new and brilliant.
Please, somebody put a fork in this. It’s well over done.
Good insight and nice execution. Have all the dissenters seen all elements of the campaign? The digital is engaging and will keep people coming back for more. This will be effective (again).
If you think this year’s spot is a patch on the Barbie girl one – then you have Lambnesia.
It’s clever. Oh yeah…and more importantly is funny. The game is engaging and the illustrations hilarious (although I can’t get it to work on my iPad). Lambnesia helpline??
As far as I can remember, Barbie Girl was all about a music video and Youtube sponsorship. This seems to me like an integrated campaign: a fake accident that goes viral/ misleading FB postsl/ TVC/ online game that even gives you a prescription for the butcher. Well played, sir.
You’re spot on. This is definitely a more integrated campaign and much more engaging to Australians than getting a parody song to the top of a made up music chart. Well done bmf on this one… It’s a campaign Aussie creatives will bag out but would love to work on.
This campaign has more credits to it than the 3 sequels of Lord of the Rings.
Oh and it’s horrible, and I’m sure the Australian Olympic team would be really pleased….
I still miss his rants. They were great. He’s trying way too fucking hard for my liking the last few years, and it shows in the quality of the work.
Bring back the rant or move it on.
It’ll do the trick…maybe just one last time but agree with Rosie – could the credits get any longer.