https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8kuoFGgj8s
By SAT News Desk
Melbourne, 6 September: A video campaign available on the social media and the You Tube by the Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) with the headline ‘You Never Lamb Alone” has boomeranged on it after there were complaints to the Advertising Standards Bureau against it that it offended the Australian Hindu community.
The video ad also available on MLA’s website (www.mla.com.au) along with text says, “The new integrated campaign continues with the theme that Lamb is the dish that brings everyone together, with the creative content for online, social and TV showing the Gods, Goddesses, and Prophets of different faiths and beliefs coming together over Lamb at a modern day spring barbecue.”
SBS Punjabi says: “Among those complaining against the ad is Shadow Minister for Communications NSW, Michelle Rowland who says the campaign is particularly distasteful due to the approaching Diwali- the biggest festival of the Hindu community.
By depicting Ganesha as consuming lamb, the advertisement may give unfair or less favorable treatment to Hindu Australians, by suggesting that Ganesha and/or Hindu Australians eat meat and do not take religious observances seriously,” Ms. Rowland said in a statement.”
Victorian Multicultural Minister, Robin Scott has in a Facebook post said, “I will be writing to Meat and Livestock Australia on behalf of Victoria’s Hindu community in support of their views.”
Along with his post the Minister Robin Scott has uploaded an article (We really need to address the ‘elephant in the room’: MLA’s lamb ad goes too far) by Shiva Kumar, LinkedIn’s Australia and New Zealand head of brand and communications in which he says, “MLA’s latest lamb ad suggests lamb is ‘the meat we can all eat’, while ignoring the fact that Hindu deity Ganesha, one of the ad’s stars, is vegetarian.”
“MLA has a long history of stirring controversy with its marketing campaigns, including upsetting the Indigenous community with it’s 2017 Australia Day promotion and attracting complaints about depicting violence towards a vegan in a 2016 ad, says the Sydney Morning Herald.
