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SCOTT OXFORD 02.114 [music] G'day, I'm Scott Oxford and welcome to Brand Jam, the podcast where we jam about brands because brand is our jam. [music] And today, we'd call it onion jam or even chutney maybe because we're talking red meat. So there's possibly even a case for brand sauce. Mint sauce or Worcestershire sauce depending on whether you're eating lamb or beef. And as usual, the dad jokes have worn themselves out already. Let's go to my guest. Today, I'm jamming with Graeme Yardy who is the domestic market manager for Meat & Livestock Australia. He's responsible for the sales and marketing efforts for 11 billion dollars worth of Australian beef and lamb in Australia alone. His budget's funded by levies from the 80,000 hard-working beef and lamb producers. So it's no surprise he feels a great sense of responsibility to make every single one of their dollars count. And the top reason I reached out to him is because he's been at the helm for the last three summer lamb Australia Day campaigns. Graeme comes from a classic FMCG background, holding sales and marketing roles at Mars and Wrigley and Johnson & Johnson, both locally and in North America. He's passionate about not just consumer insights but human insights and ensuring brands do more than just sell products, that they make people's lives better and more enriched in some way. His career's taken many twists and turns, chasing experiences rather than titles, and he's spent time as a landscaper, worked in surf shops, and sold beer. How hard can that be, hey? I'm keen to suck all the marrow out of this meaty conversation but it won't be all savoury chat as there are some sweet brand treats to sample from Graeme's days in confectionery. And it's probably time I stopped making the jokes he's heard a thousand times, and welcome you, Graeme. Thank you for jamming brand with me today.

GRAEME YARDY 01:55.586 Thanks, Scott. Thanks for having me on. Looking forward to it.

SCOTT OXFORD 01:58.826 Well, let's start with lamb. It's pretty topical right now. We've just seen your amazing ad and, I don't know, possibly, the biggest impact of all the long history of lamb ads ever. Lamb's arguably one of the most iconic Australian brands. And I kind of see that your ads' taken over from the old big beer ads that we used to know and love. So how did lamb get so big? How did it find this top spot?

GRAEME YARDY 02:28.693 Yeah. I mean, great question, Scott. I mean, I think we've done some really interesting work about the role lamb has played sort of culturally in Australia. And it goes way back to the early white settlers and obviously, I guess, the colonial times of looking for pasture to feed the colony. And it was just such great grazing land here and so both beef and lamb were really quintessentially Australian crops and helped people sort of settle the land here. And so it was such a sort of a sustainable food source for so long. And for that reason, you have sayings like, "The country that grew up on the sheep's back." And it's only really been in the last 20 years where we've seen sort of lamb, I guess, come out from being sort of a staple that people had in their sort of meat-and-three-veg each week, to something where chefs have celebrated it and it's started to really, I guess, be known on the world stage as a fantastic, high-quality, flavoursome meat. So I think it's really amazing when you see the hard work that goes into producing this amazing product that is actually celebrated around the world in some of the finest restaurants. And farming, in a lot of ways, is is such a tough lifestyle and it's something that's handed down through generations, and that we talk about the caring craft that goes into it's passed down. And it's being married now with amazing science that gets these great outcomes and this amazing product quality. And so I feel really blessed to sort of work with such an iconic product that Australians hold really dear to their heart, but is also created with such passion and enjoyed around the world. So, yeah, it's a real privilege.

SCOTT OXFORD 04:31.349 Yeah. Well, I personally am a big lover of lamb and my Instagram feed is regularly peppered with shots of it being flame-grilled on my barbeque. So I'm definitely a convert. But what, I guess, probably most Australians don't quite realise is that it's not necessarily a global product. Americans don't eat lamb, for example, do they?

GRAEME YARDY 04:58.187 No. It's a very-- I think it's, definitely, single figure sort of household penetration in the US and traditionally much more a beef and pork market in the US. But we're finding that the growth of grass-fed Australian lamb over there just phenomenal. So it's really being valued for its flavoursome flavour and we're seeing it definitely growing through food service. So a lot of great restaurants are really seeking that clean and green, very safe product that we produce here in Australia. They have a very small domestic industry so most Americans have not grown up eating lamb and so it's something we feel like [we're exported?] the world and at MLA we have a fantastic team over in the US that are working with the industry to really get a foothold over there, and there's some great work. I mean, it's places like Mexico and right through Canada, and it's especially strong down in the south of the US where they're using a lot of sort of Mexican food and tacos-- but Peruvian food and those sort of things. It really goes super well with some of those more stronger flavours, so.

SCOTT OXFORD 06:12.027 So how is it that lamb managed to sort of capture this iconic kind of ad space? I remember that one that mimicked [L'amb?] which mimicked the French perfume and the fantastic ones from a couple of years ago where we saw sort of everyone coming together, sort of. It almost took a-- it crossed political lines. It crossed racial lines and it became a brand that brings people together-- anyone who lives in this country, together. How did lamb find its way to being such a powerful advertising icon?

GRAEME YARDY 06:52.116 Yeah. Look, I think one of the things about lamb is very early on, well before my time, there was some really great work that really got to the heart of what lamb is so great about. And that's about sharing. It's a [great big?] meal to share but we also know that the importance of sharing a meal, generally, is such a powerful emotional area. A lot of food marketing goes into that space, but, unfortunately, stops short and [tends?] to give you the beautiful tender moments, family togetherness, and, unfortunately, it can feel quite bland. And I think one thing that lamb has done really well, and this was really brought from that closeness to Australian culture, from very early on, the people that worked on this brand knew that lamb brings people together, but it brings it together in a uniquely Australian way that is not always [wholesome?] in the sort of sense of the word. But it's always tongue-in-cheek. And it's so close to what is such an important sort of cultural value of Australia is that we don't take ourselves too seriously. And that's not always easy for other sort of [inaudible] [FMCG-type?] brands that are often a little bit scared to go into that space. And that doesn't mean that you-- we've dabbled with controversy over the times and been provocative. And that's a little bit a part of it as well. But when we come back to this part of being tongue-in-cheek and pushing the boundaries and sometimes being a little bit risqué. But I go back to some of the early work, which was one of our most iconic ads, which was essentially in the late '80s, which was around-- the girl in the ad wins a date with Tom Cruise at the heigh of his stardom, and she declines because mum's cooking a lamb roast. So the idea that nothing brings you closer together than lamb has been true all the way through. As we sort of started to own this sort of summer occasion and things around Australia Day, it was this opportunity to sort of take it out of the dining room, if you like, and have this much bigger narrative about how can we bring Australia together. And where this sort of [Summerland?] [inaudible] really came from a place in-- whether it was being 2006 to 2010 where there was a lot of division when we had people like Pauline Hanson that were setting out to divide the country and not focus on the things that make us great. And the things that make us great are actually that we are this fantastic country at the bottom of the Earth that punches above its weight. And actually, when we all pitch in and we look for ways to come together, we're actually a fantastic, strong country. And so that narrative is just [weaved?] right through, and its become a very standard brief, if you like, and it works. It gives you an amazing sense of pride. But it also helps to anchor lamb to the cultural values of the country. And so when you think of lamb, you think about what makes this country great. And that's been really-- that's the job. And that doesn't go away overnight. It's been magic to, I guess, be the beneficiary of some of that work.

SCOTT OXFORD 10:48.127 Yeah. You took a torch a few years ago and you've run with it.

GRAEME YARDY 10:53.012 Yeah. Absolutely.

SCOTT OXFORD 10:54.045 Yeah. And yeah, look, there have been some really classic moments. I read that your original brief sort of 20 years ago, whenever it was, was to position lamb as the national meat, which is exactly what you've said. And I kind of love too, even at a time this year last year when Australia Day itself has some controversy around it, your ad seemed to step above Australia Day. And it got back to the heart of which is let's celebrate what makes us all-- what unites us and what brings us all together and sort of it's pretty amazing. And it poke a bit of lovely fun at each state. So yeah, that idea of we can not only poke fun at ourselves as Australians, but we can actually get a little bit parochial and get a bit state based as well. And so yeah, so a beautiful ad this year. Interestingly enough, I was just talking to someone about the fact that it used to be that you saw these ads on TV. That was where it all was. And in this changing media landscape now, I imagine that that particular ad-- I mean, I know as soon as I saw it, I shared it across a few platforms. So I shared it on LinkedIn to my colleagues, from a professional perspective, to kind of say, "This is how it's done. Wish I'd done it." But I also shared it on Facebook as well, just because it was just-- it's rare in our industry that we see a piece of advertising that is filmic and beautiful and invested, and I would imagine that you have such support from those members who represent the lamb side of MLA, of your membership, who just, every year kind of go, "Yeah, that's us." Because, yeah, it's pretty cool stuff.

GRAEME YARDY 12:41.020 Yeah. Look, the producers are immensely proud of it. I think we're immensely proud of it. It's rare that you get to work on something that I think is so heavily anticipated, and you do feel the pressure. So [crosstalk].

SCOTT OXFORD 13:01.608 Well I was going to say, "Stressful."

GRAEME YARDY 13:05.084 Yeah, and it's funny. You can take-- when you have sort of such a standing brief, you have to find ways to, I guess, inject new ways to bring the creativity and give the agency and the writers, the art directors, the license to bring new things to it every year. And we've always said that we're going to-- we've got to be topical every year. We've got to be-- we've got to be taking on the main issue that is on-- that is going to be discussed around a barbecue in summer. That's how we keep relevant, that's how we keep topical and that's how we make it the broad appeal. If we go for a niche idea that might actually be provocative, but if people do not see it as relevant to themselves, they're not going to share it. They're not going to watch the whole thing and that's the challenge. We want people not just to skip through. Well we want engagement, we are trying to find those keys to some of that virality without using funny cats and celebrity memes, if you like.

SCOTT OXFORD 14:25.816 Yeah. Well, I know for me, I enjoyed every single moment every time I watched it, and I always think the big question we ask all the time on this podcast, "How do brands build connection?" And I think you guys have this beautiful balance between humour and heart and I think that's obviously part of that brief, whereas just being funny and irreverent in itself is not enough, but that pack the punch, whether it be everybody meeting on the beach for that barbecue and finding sort of common ground from a whole range of multi-cultural backgrounds, especially our regional Torres Strait Islander Australians. And from that through to this one as well, where there's just that bringing down of the walls. There's that moment where you get little tingles up your spine and I think that that's sort of the dream. Any of the other brands that you look in, FMCG in Australia who are achieving that, they're certainly getting one or the other, and sometimes both, but it is magic, and I think if we look back at those big beer ads, it was beer strives to do the same thing, when it gets it right it certainly makes you feel something while it makes you laugh.

GRAEME YARDY 15:39.820 Yeah. I agree, and I mean, I think we-- I think it's easy to forget sometimes as marketers with commercial objectives, we sometimes think we need to always be about the features and benefits, and we all operate on limited spend. We've all got to do the jobs that we've got to do, and but I think sometimes we forget that actually entertaining people is so critical because people want to be entertained. We all live in a busy world, and we're all bombarded with messages, and everyone's selling something to you pretty much 24/7 these days. I mean, we're overrun with ads, and there's so many new things out there that are really trying to get established in the market, and it's never been easier to get your message in front of someone for the first time. The challenge is how do you continue that when people know what you're about? Once you got that foothold, how do you keep people coming back? And being entertaining is a sure-fire. It's a universal truth that we all want to take time out, we all want to laugh, we all want to feel good. And yeah, so I think that ability to emotionally connect and yeah, help people feel something, it will never go out of style or effectiveness I think.

SCOTT OXFORD 17:15.602 Yeah, I agree. And from an agency perspective, I know that we love a brief where someone enables us to still be commercially creative but dial-up, I guess, the art. And by the art, I mean that ability to help somebody feel something and to be moved emotionally and to enjoy themselves at the same time. So you've done that beautifully with lamb. Where's the big beef ad?

GRAEME YARDY 17:46.381 You're sounding like one of my producers. [laughter] [inaudible].

SCOTT OXFORD 17:50.319 Or does beef sell itself? I certainly know it's pretty easy to buy a nice piece of beef, and there's a lot of range from your wagyus and your kind of high-ends beef down to the good old stock standard you grab every day from the supermarket. But yeah, so the beef brand obviously has a different sensibility.

GRAEME YARDY 18:14.604 Yeah, in a sense. Beef is a much bigger brand, and much bigger business, and is far more sort of omnipresent if you like in people's repertoire. So I think one of the luxuries we have is the amazing quality of beef that we have in this country. I mean, we are really spoiled for choice that you can actually walk into any supermarket or butcher in this country and have some of the finest beef produced in the world no matter what breed it is. So we're incredibly fortunate and I think we take it for granted a little bit, and it's not until we get a bad experience whether it be something that we've chosen the wrong cut because there is a lot of cuts. Can be really confusing. So we're got a job of education. But we've also got to educate the people that are preparing it as well. So everyone's had a steak that's overcooked whether it be at home, as a guest, or in an outlet. So we've got a big job to do in a sort of practical sense to make sure that the product, as it's produced, which is with all the love and the care that it is is actually taken right through to that point of consumption because the feedback loop is very close.

GRAEME YARDY 19:45.661 But when it comes to the brand, yeah, look, and because of its omnipresent, right, all the sort of the category-- all the category needs are present in it as well. It needs to be easy. It needs to be tasty, it needs to be versatile, it needs to make lots of meals. And it needs to be good value. In the last 20 years, you've seen the price of red meat go up considerably year on year whereas you've seen some other proteins, just something like chicken pretty much be stable. So we've had to find lots of ways to ensure that people make sure that that quality is worth paying for. So when it comes to how to communicate that. We've definitely done a lot of work about communicating eating quality, about communicating its provenance. So the quality of where this is produced and how it's reduced is worth paying more for. But we've also been trying to really work on-- it's not so hard to sell these amazing beautiful steaks, but we've got a whole lot of other range of cuts that make fantastic value meals that cooked right are absolutely the most delicious cuts you can have. So things like hanger steaks or beef shin or cheeks and those sort of things make fantastic meals and actually very cost-effective meals and can compete with some of the more affordable [proteins?]. So there's a lot of jobs to be done. I think [crosstalk]--

SCOTT OXFORD 21:22.550 It sounds like a really complex one too. It sounds--

GRAEME YARDY 21:25.716 It is.

SCOTT OXFORD 21:25.854 --like a far more complex product than lamb in terms of grass-fed and grain-fed and the different cuts and more cuts. It does sound like it segments much more complexly. Is that right?

GRAEME YARDY 21:41.413 Yeah. It is. Yeah. It is. And one of the things we know is that even when people get to the supermarket shelf, let's say, there's still people that get there and are confused by all the parts and often buy the wrong one. And now, that's going to affect your cooking and eating experience if you buy some-- if you buy product that is better for slow cooking and that will bring out all the flavours and really deliver a fantastic meal. If you bought that cut and then you grilled it like you would a beautiful piece of sirloin or ribeye, you're not going to get the experience that you want. And you're probably going to go, "Wow. That was tough and that was a tough bit of meat." And you know what? Next time, I'm going, "You know what? I don't think it's worth paying for." So a lot of the behind-the-scenes work is a lot to do with research and development but also consumer education around [cuts?] as well. And so yeah, it's a very complex challenge. But it's super interesting too, and it's super powerful to be a part of because-- and this was always been the attraction for me around food marketing is food is something we all engage with everyday, unless we're fasting for a couple of days. I can't imagine doing that. But so making sure that we're giving people really great information, but really great choice about what they're consuming. That actually betters their lives because we have so much choices and not all of it is good for you and not all of it good for your soul as well. So I get really excited about being a part of helping people make those decisions in a really important way. We all have budgets, and we all have things we're trying to do in our lives, and we're all busy. So things like convenience and health and nutrition and value all are decisions that we make in a microsecond each day. And so my job is to help my producers-- I'm the tip of the spear. If you're trying to help people make those decision better so that they are making great decisions and choosing beef or lamb a couple of times a week. That's what we really want.

SCOTT OXFORD 24:02.056 Well, it occurs to me that back when butchers was where you got your meat, you get your advice there. They were basically the [holders?] of your brand. Do you know if brand is the conversation, then they're the ones who are having those. And I know whenever I pick up a brisket or something that I'm going to put in my smoker, we have a big conversation. And so I'm buying that from a butcher. When you're buying from supermarket, whole different thing. There's no one to talk to. There's no one to advise you. It's basically just a big array of meat. And so that has got to be probably one of the biggest changes for you guys in terms of managing those brands and particularly that challenge of it isn't it, is you don't control how it's sold.

GRAEME YARDY 24:42.175 Yeah. No, we don't. At MLA, we don't own any product, so we are really representing the industry and using our influence and obviously, the levy dollars to promote. And butchers are interesting. They are so tied to our industry. Many of them are producers themselves. But interestingly enough, when you do want that special cut, when you do want-- especially when you're entertaining, a lot of the times you will go to a butcher because you almost want someone to-- you want a face to say this is the cut for you, this is the one that's going to deliver. That's the trust. And butchers are incredibly trusted hearts of the community, so we've got a lot of great research that says they're highly trusted. And yeah, our job is to really harness that from an advocacy point of view, from an information point of view and make sure that they have the best tools possible to help them with people that have questions about cuts, about how it's raised, about its nutritional properties or about anything to do with the industry because they are fantastic advocates for it and it's a fantastic channel, and I put in the-- it's a channel that it has been very difficult for them with the rise of big shopping centres and big supermarket chains. They've been under a lot of pressure but there's been some fantastic stories of you seeing how some of the butchers are pivoted and they've thought about what they arrange, what type of advice they're going to give, and how they're going to promote and sell their product. And so there's some fantastic success stories there. And I liken it to over the last 10 years, you've seen a lot of craft really come back into a lot of industries whether it be barbering. And I did work as a landscaper for a little while and they used to do some stonework, and I remember one job which was actually very specific, some work that required and we could not find a stonemason that worked anymore in the space. And just the idea that some trades and some skills are sort of becoming extinct because we haven't valued that care and craft and we haven't particularly paid enough for that service.

SCOTT OXFORD 27:22.608 To keep it around, keep people doing it to make it attractive and to keep it alive.

GRAEME YARDY 27:25.942 That's right. Yeah. Yeah, so though I'm really passionate about making sure that these sort of incredible skills and knowledge is not lost, and I think one of the aha moments for me soon after starting with MLA was we were watching a full carcass breakdown of a lamb, and some people might find that gory, but the knife work of this butcher was remarkable. The knife was not as big as I thought it would be and it was like watching someone play a musical instrument. There was not a stroke out of place. It was fantastic. And they are true craftsmen and craftswomen. There's lots of fantastic females butchers now that we also saw that, so.

SCOTT OXFORD 28:21.857 I know, I know. Yeah, I worked with a beef client for a while and yeah, I know that women make great butchers. And it's really growing in terms of appeal.

GRAEME YARDY 28:29.982 Yep, absolutely. And yeah, and it's something that we-- we're sort of really helping some of the industry associations to really push their career as well because there's some fantastic opportunities around the world. I know that there's some amazing artisan, sort of butcher shops opening in places like Singapore [inaudible] they are really paying quite a lot of money, I think, to get great butchers on [staff?]. So it's back to a place where it actually can be another fantastic career for someone.

SCOTT OXFORD 29:02.581 Yeah. And look, that's what I'm certainly seeing across the board in terms of-- particularly for beef, is the opportunity to treat it, I guess, a bit like wine and fine wine in terms of-- the Providence, like you mentioned before. It's building a brand and building a strong story that people can connect with, that draws back to the land back to the people who made it, and right through that whole process, and through to that incredibly beautifully cut piece that lands on your plate and-- yeah.

SCOTT OXFORD 29:38.910 And also if you go to a restaurant now and then very often you'll actually probably you won't just know the kind of meat, but you'll probably actually have-- it'll tell you where it was from. And I kind of love that too. That's a great way of letting the same way that we do with wine and we know where it was made, where it came from, so. All part of the brand story.

GRAEME YARDY 29:59.866 Yeah, absolutely. And that is very much tied to the brand story. And I think as soon as you start talking to producers about some of the stories. And we're talking about multigenerational families who have been on the land. They know the land so well, and they know the weather so well, and they know their animals so well, and so. The challenge for me is how you bottle that [inaudible] craft so that it actually flows right through into what we're doing and--

SCOTT OXFORD 30:35.146 And you get a little piece of that story when you buy a beautiful piece of meat. You get a-- yeah.

GRAEME YARDY 30:39.943 Yeah. But also to make it feel unique and distinctive because-- in the sort of agricultural world, we've been-- we love a story about farmers [when I think in?], but it's often the challenges, how do you make it distinctive and meaningful for-- we know that pretty much over 40% of Australians these days have never visited a farm and the like. So it's sort of a tyranny of our organisation and [inaudible] it's actually quite hard to visit a farm these days.

SCOTT OXFORD 31:12.252 Yeah, yeah. And security, modern life, all of that. Yeah.

GRAEME YARDY 31:16.983 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it's part of the system too, the buyer's security [inaudible].

SCOTT OXFORD 31:23.594 Which makes sure that the product is safe and clean and healthy. It was because we protect.

GRAEME YARDY 31:29.075 Absolutely. Yeah, look, I mean, beef, I think that a [inaudible] issue over the last few years where we're sponsoring the Australian Olympic Team. We had a false start last year [and through athletic sense?]. So we're absolutely full steam ahead in planning for this year and trying to, I guess, work out what might happen. It's still not 100% clear, but we got lots of tricks up our sleeve for this year, I guess, in making a big bang, whether that goes ahead or not. So we've been pretty sort of-- I feel like we've worked pretty smartly this year, and we learnt a lot last year about what happens when you put a lot of eggs in that basket. But it's still super exciting. I mean, getting to work with actually some fantastic athletes and some ambassadors but also really get to the heart of what beef is and the brand essence about being the greatest, and its brand purpose about helping people achieve their greatness. We can take that in lots of different ways. We can take that from a nutrition message. We can take that from a broader health and well-being place. But also, it ties really closely just to, how do we get family meals on the table each week, as well, which is for many people, that is our biggest challenge as well. Keeping our families fed and healthy is sometimes the biggest challenge we'll have in life.

SCOTT OXFORD 33:07.904 It's funny. Subliminal brand planting, it's my job to cook dinner tonight. And I've also got to go out. And I've got this in mind that I'm going to pop in, grab a butterflied lamb and put it in the oven. It's got to be lamb today. It's the theme of it. And before--

GRAEME YARDY 33:25.487 Fantastic.

SCOTT OXFORD 33:25.511 --we finish lamb, actually, I did want to mention brand ambassadors. They've been around for a long time; They continue to be around. Some of them are less famous; some of them are influencers who are famous for being nearly famous. I think they call it. But Sam Kekovich, I think he's been your kind of key brand ambassador. How do you keep Sam in the game? And is he a bit like the guy who appears at the end of every Marvel film? Who I am shameful to say I can't remember his name. But Sam's got to pop up.

GRAEME YARDY 34:04.898 Look, the first thing I'll say about Sam is he is so on brand 100% of the time. [laughter] Sam and I talk very regularly, and he's always on-brand. And he calls it like he sees it, whether he's talking to me or he's talking to Australia. And so you've got to absolutely love that for him. And so yeah, look, I mean one thing we know is a lot of Australians just love Sam Kekovich and they love spotting him as the "where is wally" moment and where's he going to pop up. And he's an incredible good sport as well, so if we put him in kinds of themes. I think we've had him jet skiing. We've had him standing in water for a few hours. We've put him in video games. We've put him in a tank, which I secretly think that was his favourite, so. [laughter] And I think potentially the ad might have been-- when we were looking at some concepts and scripts, I think when it was the line, enter Sam Kekovich in a tank. I think that was where we went, "This is the script." [laughter] So yeah, I was--

SCOTT OXFORD 35:27.416 What I find really interesting about Sam is that for those who know him through sport, which is a huge part of Australian culture. But I think there are plenty of Australians who maybe have never watched sport but who know who Sam is because--

GRAEME YARDY 35:42.393 Absolutely.

SCOTT OXFORD 35:42.756 --you actually helped his brand as well.

GRAEME YARDY 35:45.504 Yeah.

SCOTT OXFORD 35:45.587 You're sort of synonymously linked.

GRAEME YARDY 35:48.542 Yeah. Look absolutely. And I mean, look, I think one of the things that people don't know about Sam is actually how much fantastic-- the work he does for charity and through his speaking engagements. So he will go and speak at a lot of community events and things like that. And we spot him a bit of lamb here and there, but he's out there and he does a great job whether it be out [in rural areas?] and obviously produces [inaudible]. But he's done fantastic work over the years and used some of his stuff how to really do a lot of good out there. And that's something that most people don't see most of the year. So but he's always out there and so yeah, we really love what he does there and it's always the case of where are we going to put Sam in the ad? So--

SCOTT OXFORD 36:49.020 I can't wait.

GRAEME YARDY 36:49.346 --yeah, he's definitely a good sport.

SCOTT OXFORD 36:51.841 So we're going to jump from meat to Mars. We want to talk about your time at Mars. And I just wanted to mention that Mars bar is definitely probably one of my earliest brand memories, and it had a tagline back then. I remember seeing it on a billboard. There was a billboard near where I lived in early primary school in the late '70s. I'm pretty sure it said it's still only 40 cents was the tagline. That sounds a bit expensive for the late '70s, so maybe it was still only 20 cents or something like that. But so such a funny tagline to remember, but clearly they were selling it on price which was odd. But Mars is much more than the Mars bar. So tell me about your time in confectionery.

GRAEME YARDY 37:42.034 Yeah, so I did a bit of time in the Wrigley business which they acquired while I was there, and both businesses, Wrigley and Mars, two big sort of American sort of confectionery multinationals, and that was a sort of $16 billion dollar acquisition at the time and that was huge but very complementary brands. But before that, I spent a lot of time in Mars food business which Australia is one of the biggest markets for. So it's Masterfoods, Kantong, Dolmio, and Uncle Ben's which is a huge global rice brand but very small here. And so yeah, I spent a lot of time in that food business here and in North America. And Mars is really interesting in that it's still a family-owned business. It's one of the world's biggest family-owned businesses and the family is still really involved at all levels, and the family-- I mean, a business that believes in brands tremendously. But what's really interesting, it's a very decentralised business, so when the sort of head office, if you like, just outside of Washington DC is really small compared to a lot of the other FMCG big sort of multinationals, and I think if there's a couple of hundred people that work there, I'd be surprised. And so what Mars does is it really is very decentralised to the local market. So as a leadership team in a market like Australia for food or confectionery, you get these amazing brands. You get this amazing sort of growth loss if you like and you get a lot of the tools to lead and manage people and the financials to run the business. But as a local leadership team, you have a lot of autonomy to really work out what's best for you and how to deploy those brands. And so it's a fantastic training ground for running a business, but it's also, once again, an incredible privilege to sort of work with amazing sort of iconic brands and deliver them in your way in your local market.

GRAEME YARDY 39:59.821 But yeah, and I think that's where a place sort of really started to think more about brand purpose and the role of brands, and what brands can be, more than just selling more boxes next year than you sold this year. I think that was a place where I started to really think more deeply about the role of marketing in an organisation but also the role of brands to be something bigger than they were. And that was a journey that Mars were really on about really trying to understand brand purpose and potentially social impact. So whether it be where you source your rice from and thinking about fair price to farmers to beyond that, to thinking about, well, is there a way to work through the supply chain to think about your environmental footprint? And there was some work being done there at the time that which calculated the environmental footprint of Mars which said we would be bigger than in a lot of countries about our environmental footprint, and that's become sort of a-- that was a piece of like, we have to take responsibility for that, and they're doing some amazing work about becoming a very environmentally sustainable company. So yeah. I just find that stuff really-- it was well before anyone was asking them to do that. And that really came from the family and the want to be a progressive company that did their bit for society. And that was very much part of the principles of this is the way that society and business should act. In that, there should be this relationship where it's not something that enforced on you. You should do it. If you want to maintain your freedom, which is a principle of Mars, you should do the things that are right by your people, by the planet, and by your customers and consumers. And if you do that, business can be sustainable.

SCOTT OXFORD 42:01.505 Yeah. And what's really interesting is that they don't blowing their trumpet on that, either. It's almost a well-kept secret, but if anyone dips below the surface, they're going to discover that this brand is actually quite authentic in the way it goes about doing these things.

GRAEME YARDY 42:16.807 Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I feel like when I joined it was. People said, "Oh, it feels really secretive. "And when you got in there, it was not. They were just actually not telling the stories they needed to. And that started to really change there. A few different people that were saying to just be much more on the front foot about telling these great stories from a corporate level. And they now publish some fantastic things that you can see on LinkedIn and those sort of things that around. They publish a Principles in Action report every year, which sort of show some of the work they're doing around communities and environmental sustainability and water usage and some of those sort of things around the world, which are fantastic. And I mean, you sort of go, "Oh, there's some great environmental things," but I think some of that social impact and what they're doing or what can be done for communities. And this is something we forget. A lot of products that you buy in a grocery store are agricultural products. They come from cereals or they come from different sources around the world. Coffee [laughter], we drink every day. And the difference between sometimes paying a fair price, or not, can be the difference between a child in Africa going to school or having to work on the family farm. So I think sometimes, being a bit more of a conscious consumer, and sometimes, we balk at the price of things, but sometimes, that impact right down the line, there is a lot of connection there.

SCOTT OXFORD 43:49.405 I think there's some really interesting room beyond individual brands themselves, even nationally for us to capture this movement, which is ethical. I saw that, at the moment, I can now gauge from all the chocolate companies whose Easter eggs are going to ensure that they're ethically sourced. But there does seem to be a metric that we could create nationally that helped us very, very quickly refer to something and sort of consciously choose to pay more, but knowing that this product is going to go-- directly go back to a farmer, or it's directly going to do something positive, or it's directly going to make a difference.

GRAEME YARDY 44:28.276 Yeah. And ultimately, as a consumer, I have lots of things on my mind, and I'm not thinking very deeply about the products I'm consuming. Because we're thinking about our families, and our jobs, and our loved ones, and whatever's on our plate today. And they're the things that--

SCOTT OXFORD 44:50.846 And whatever brands have-- whatever a brand has subliminally planted in our mind in terms of thinking as well. So there is that powerful role that brands have and a responsibility, as you say, to plant positive things

GRAEME YARDY 45:04.970 Absolutely. So as a brand, we have to make sure that whatever cues we want to stand for, whatever cues, [inaudible] you want to [plan?], whatever--

SCOTT OXFORD 45:14.509 I know that sounded sinister, didn't it? I probably would use different words if I-- but yeah, brand is subliminal. We make decisions based on how we feel. We don't necessarily consciously stop and go, "Will I do this or not." A brain makes those decisions for us. And it's based on the stimulus that we've been provided. And a brand builds a place in your life over time, and it is powerful.

GRAEME YARDY 45:44.503 Yeah. We did some work at MLA a few years ago just doing on the sort of return on investment of some of the levies we've spent. And I was sort of working with a consultant on the economics [inaudible] and sort of walking through here's a little bit around the logic of hopefully see a message and then create some sort of behaviour change. But one of the, I guess, concepts I was sort of discussing with them and they were looking at it from a very do this, get this impact-type arrangement. But the reality is before any sort of purchase or any decision making happens, we come with a life full of experiences. And whether they [believe?] with that brand or the category or just life in general, that creates this environment for that decision to be made. And when we talk about food, it's about how we're brought up. It's things we've tasted. It's our sensitivity to different foods. It's every bit of advertising that may have come before that had any sort of impact on us. It's the way we're feeling at that moment. It's government messages about what you should eat and what you shouldn't. And it's so complex that the idea that you can show someone a message and get an impact and that there's nothing else going on there is ludicrous.

SCOTT OXFORD 47:20.544 Yeah. That's a beautiful example of everything that our whole industry, all the challenges that we face, which is yeah, if only it was a direct linear line between cause and effect.

GRAEME YARDY 47:32.913 That's right. We're not robots yet. And that's probably going to-- I think that's the sort of stuff that will hopefully keep us employed for a bit longer here, so.

SCOTT OXFORD 47:43.878 Yeah. We're running out of time. I've got a bunch of other questions I want to ask you. So I want to sort of dive in and ask you some more personal perspectives. I want to ask you about-- I mentioned that Mars bar was an early brand for me. What's a brand from your childhood that you first remember connecting with?

GRAEME YARDY 48:05.686 Yeah. I mean, I grew up surfing. An older brother that surfed that got me into it early. And the big brands when I was growing up were like the Australian surfing brands, things like Billabong and Rip Curl and Quiksilver, and they're always the really aspirational things. Every birthday was I wanted a Quiksilver T-shirt or something like that or a backpack. They were the things I think that I really identified that [inaudible] when I was a surfer. And that yeah, that's what was important to me when you went to school and I had the stickers on the folder. And so yeah, I think they were sort of the brands. And I think just that they did a fantastic job of selling the lifestyle and the dream of travel and adventure that was so closely linked to surfing and the lifestyle. And at that time, it was probably the '80s. There was a lot of fluro and bright colours, crazy logos. But yeah, that was sort of the first brands that I think I really identified and really had real [inaudible] for me and felt like I identified and it was about that-- it was [inaudible] establishment at the time. It was about, I guess, yeah, it was an adventure and travel that really sort of sold it for me. There was always pictures of people surfing in exotic places, and it just looked like a dream.

SCOTT OXFORD 49:47.169 And they gave you the collateral to promote them. They made it very easy for you to wear their brand and for you to put it all over your folder and stickers and things. Yeah. If you're into art, then Mambo is that beautiful kind of-- the more artistic version that was something for everybody.

GRAEME YARDY 50:04.903 Absolutely. The Mambo shirt, I remember having a t-shirt that had a great bit of art on the back, which I always loved and I think it secretly offended my parents at the time.

SCOTT OXFORD 50:18.080 That was probably one of the bonuses that came with it.

GRAEME YARDY 50:20.932 That's right. Yeah. So even better, right? But yeah, so look, I mean, I think it's interesting with those brands because they obviously just became huge. Surfing became huge, and they expanded around the world, and those sports became much more mainstream. And I thought that I lost my love for them [inaudible], but there's been a lot of things that were going on. And I've never been in Chicago, in a shopping mall in Chicago. I was there for work. And right at the back of this shopping mall, and it was middle of winter so I couldn't shop [inaudible]. But here was a Billabong, the Billabong sort of retail store. I really felt challenged by that. And just like, "Wow." It's like, does this stand for anything anymore? And is it just going down the route of being-- I didn't think the quality was there, and it just felt like it's just sort of fashion. And it didn't really feel particularly-- yeah, it felt like it lost its way. And so for me, there was a bit of a sort of cautionary tale there about trying to find the magic in the bottle. And when you do, you just got to hold onto it. And I need to be very careful letting it out for the commercial reasons. We all need to pay the bills, and we need to expand. There's huge risk there for brands as well, especially for brands that really tap into things like culture. You can become disoriented pretty quickly. So I do feel for some of the [inaudible] brands who really started more in the '60s and '70s, really at the height of when surfing was [inaudible] culture.

SCOTT OXFORD 52:16.790 Yeah. And it's that level in the commercial world of maintaining control of you brand, isn't it? And we've talked before on this podcast about Holden losing its way. And Dick Smith was horrified at what happened to his brand when he sold it. And mind you, if you're selling a brand with your name on it, I don't know if that was ever going to be a massive surprise. But yeah, I was going to ask you if there was a brand that's broken trust with you. And it sounds like, to some degree, that Billabong kind of has. What about a brand today that you love? Is there a brand that really has a special place in your heart today?

GRAEME YARDY 52:55.478 Yeah. There is. It's the outdoors brand. It's Patagonia. It's one that, once again no [laughter]. They do a fantastic job of selling the dream of travel and adventure. And they have an amazing passion for sustainability and making fantastic products that are sustainable and are ethically sourced right back through their supply chain. But I think I was sort of attracted to the brand originally-- I think I read the book by the founder, Yvon Chouinard, who started it back in the '60s, and he was just trying to make better gear for rock climbing and surfing and adventuring. And he just realised that there wasn't products that were up to the speck of quality that he needed. But I think throughout the way, he found that his passions were the outdoors, and he wanted to make sure that he was doing the best to protect the things that he loved as well and not do harm. I think that's always been-- he's sort of been an aspirational hero of mine about how to run business in a way that puts people and planet first, but they've been incredibly successful at that as well. And they're not afraid to take a stand on issues that are important to them. And I'm probably a huge fanboy of them. One time, we were in California, they're in sort of Ventura sort of between LA and Santa Barbara, and you can go in there and there's store and that [inaudible]. And I don't think I'm actually [laughter]-- I don't think, as much as these things are important to me, they are the true believers.

GRAEME YARDY 54:59.647 If you want to work there, you need to be a true believer, and I'm not sure I'm even there. It's aspirational. I just think they do a great job of their brand, and they're very consistent. And down to what brand sort of says, "We're going to make the best jackets so you only need to buy one in your lifetime"? [laughter] I think that says-- that's a great promise.

SCOTT OXFORD 55:28.591 Yeah, absolutely.

GRAEME YARDY 55:29.598 That's a great promise to make, and it's sort of self-defeating. But they're the types of companies that I think I want to support. And they're the types of brands that resonate and that their storytelling is amazing. So I highly recommend-- yeah. I highly recommend some of the books that Yvon Chouinard's written.

SCOTT OXFORD 55:51.119 Yeah. Nice.

GRAEME YARDY 55:51.442 If you're interested in purpose and creating a great place to work that actually takes brand [inaudible] and takes them right into-- yeah, right into the workplace. So definitely inspirational.

SCOTT OXFORD 56:05.042 I'll get those links from you and we'll pop them in the show notes, for sure.

GRAEME YARDY 56:08.700 Yeah, absolutely.

SCOTT OXFORD 56:09.496 For sure. I want to talk about any mistakes or misconceptions you've seen around brand. What's the biggest mistake you've ever seen someone make?

GRAEME YARDY 56:18.993 Yeah. I mean, I think it's the one probably most marketers have made and that's making change for change's sake. I think we all have our-- I had this conversation not long time ago with a friend of mine, another marketer, and his father is a doctor. And he said his father-- someone comes in, he looks at the symptoms, and there's usually an answer or there's a very prescribed way forward. Our job is we're dealing with humans. We're dealing with multiple different products with multiple markets. We're dealing with emotion. We're dealing with every possible [inaudible] under the sun, so there is no prescribed way forward. So we all come with a set of experiences and knowledge and ways of doing things. So in a lot of certain ways, we always think we sort of know best or at least can improve things. I think most marketers come with very much a growth mindset, so the temptation is always to change things and I think we often don't go-- so we change a lot of things. We go, "Oh, we need to update the logo," or we need a new line or something like that where actually probably the best thing to do is actually just be more consistent with what you have and that is usually not often what agencies want to hear. But I think the difference is agencies can play a lot of [fantastic?] role of helping to tell stories better and helping to strengthen the narrative of what already exists. And obviously, that's our experience with lamb. But for a brand, I mean, we always want to-- we always want what we're communicating as a brand to match what consumers think of us. And that's rarely the case. Even the best brands, they just want you to just do it, but there's other things that people think about those brands as well, not just that one single message. It's because of the experiences or what they've heard or what they know about that brand. So even the best brands struggle with that and the consistency, the distinctiveness, making sure that you're true to your story, and actually you are meaningful and have some form of meaning for your target consumer. That is just critical because other than that, you're forgettable.

SCOTT OXFORD 58:53.795 Absolutely. Well, I for one, from an agency perspective, one of the things I love is evidence to work from and if the evidence says if it ain't broke, don't fix it, then who are we to change it? But yeah, we are always chasing something new and fresh. All right, so last question before we wrap up. What is a dream brand that you've never worked on but actually would love to? And it can't be Patagonia [laughter]

GRAEME YARDY 59:24.494 No, that's okay. Funnily enough, I've never worked in this space and I'm not sure I want to because I know some of the stakeholder challenges are very difficult, but I would love to-- I think I would just love to be the marketing guy for something like Fiji or somewhere like British Columbia. I love Australia, but I also love ski mountains. It's so naturally beautiful. I see myself on lots of shoots in exotic [laughter] places.

SCOTT OXFORD 59:59.278 The Joneses.

GRAEME YARDY 01:01.826 But it has to be work and I just have to go there and take my surfboard or my skis or snowboard or something like that, so yeah. So I think, yeah, I think the travel world is a really tough marketing space, but--

SCOTT OXFORD 01:16.570 Especially at the moment.

GRAEME YARDY 01:17.256 --yeah, I would love to be out of the office more and into nature and those wild places. Yeah, that's what I love.

SCOTT OXFORD 01:28.798 Yeah, nice. Nice. Well, Graham, it's been awesome hearing about lamb and beef and Mars and the like. And yeah, you're certainly not alone in your incredible respect for Patagonia. I keep hearing more and more great stuff, so they're definitely a brand to follow. So thanks so much for joining me today. Really appreciate it.

GRAEME YARDY 01:51.637 You're welcome. Thanks, Scott. Thanks. I appreciate the opportunity.

SCOTT OXFORD 01:59.470 [music] So as always, please do subscribe. And like all good jam, Brand Jam should be spread around generously, so share us on your socials, via text, and good old word of mouth. Don't forget, you can let me know via brandjam.co who you'd like me to interview and the brands that you'd love to hear about. And in signing off, a quote. If we ever felt we control brand, we just need to listen to brand geniuses like Jeff Bezos who famously said, "Brand is what other people say when you're not in the room." I'm Scott Oxford, thanks for joining me today on Brand Jam. [music]