An Australia Day campaign has gone viral for all the wrong reasons, and it’s dividing the nation along the carnivorous line.
The Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) TVC, which has received nearly 443,500 views in three days has received dozens of complaints for bullying vegans.
The commercial features a scene in which a group of special agents torch an Australian’s apartment after he admitted to be a vegan.
Andrew Howie from Meat and Livestock Australia told ABC the scene was intended to be fun.
“The torching is metaphorical towards the kale in the bowl (on the table).
“It’s in no way intended to be abusive or violent … what we are trying to do is increase lamb sales over the period.”
This TVC is the lastest from MLA which supposedly “bully” vegans and vegetarians in an effort to sell lamb to Australian’s for their national day.
Sam Kekovich, the campaign’s “lambasador”, has nicknames for vegan and vegetarians including “un-Australian”, “long-haired dole bludgers” and “soap avoiding hippies”. Tofu has also been referred to as the “greatest disaster to befall the [Australian] nation”.
But it’s not just MLA who poke fun at non-meateaters in its campaigns.
Arby’s in America offered vegetarians a help line while trying to tempt them with bacon.
Red Robin Restaurant called vegetarianism a “phase”.
Pak ‘n Save tricked vegetarians into saying a sausage was a carrot.
