A new advertisement sponsored by Meat and Livestock Australia stars a raft of migrants, two gay dads and transgender comedian.

The showing comes after an Australia Day lamb ad was the second-most complained about for the year to date. It was criticised for anti-vegan bombast and lack of sensitivity to Indigenous people.

Now the meat lobby is shaking off its chest-beating image in favour of something more ... cosmopolitan.

Packed to the rafters

The new advertisement starts with Luke Jacobz "with a z" who addresses the concern that there are "too many perky white males are contributing to a lack of diversity on our screens".

Suddenly Jacobz disappears and is replaced by Indian Australian actor Arka Das who continues the diversity tour of Australia.

First there is Indigenous model Samantha Harris, swiftly followed by comedian Jordan Raskopolous, a Christian minister, a soccer player named Jesus, and a woman speaking sign language.

"All religions, faiths and beliefs," he riffs. "People of colour, who isn't? White white, translucent whites, beige whites, red white and dark whites (who are darker than the light-dark guys)".

The ad ends with Das offering a lamb chop to whoever was there first. An Indigenous couple (Cathy Freeman and Greg Inglis) step forward: "That would be us". Geddit?

Worth noting too the ad was commissioned and made mainly by white men.

"You'll Never Lamb Alone" was crafted by The Monkeys advertising agency in Sydney and lead by their CEO Scott Nowell. 

Political repast

Though it stops short of promoting the lamb-based trend food of halal snack packs advocated by Sam Dastyari, the clip is capitalising on a political moment.

It thumbs its nose at fear of foreign food and racism. It shakes television producers on the shoulder saying "wake up and smell the charred meat!".

But is this really altruism by the government-sponsored Meat and Livestock Association (MLA)?

Marketing boss of MLA, Andrew Howie, is a believer.

His company drew on census research and their own and found that 92 per cent of Australians are proud to live in a diverse and inclusive multicultural nation.

"Australia is always changing and what the multicultural mix is always changing, but TV isn't keeping up with it. It's very much still a white anglo dominated sphere."

He said the company had a cohesive campaign including braille outdoor ads, and targeted ads in Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin and Vietnamese.

"We have several different campaigns over the year. The Australia Day ad is all about getting people to buy lamb for that particular day, whereas the spring campaign is more about evening out the demand that we need for the higher supplies we see in spring."

When asked if the ad was a ploy for a bigger overseas market, Howie said no.

"Australia is still the biggest market share in lamb sales, with 45 per cent sold domestically, so it's aimed at Australians."

In fact, Howie said the only deceptive thing about this ad is the toy baby, a practicality of workplace laws.

"All these people are actors, but they're not pretending to be something they're not, we haven't made anything up."

Meaty commercialism 

Ads have long been front runners in commercially beneficial, feel-good politically-attuned campaigns.

Back in 1985, Ikea put out the first tv commercial with a gay couple.

More recently, think of Dove and it's sappy body-love campaign, Holden hiring dreamy male actors and powerful female actors to target women car buyers and NAB's "more than money" series featuring a Chinese-Australian family.​

The lamb ad draws on all of these, but in a self-effacing satire that avoids sentimentality and gives a little nod to hard-working minority comedians. In doing so, the ad is clearly seeking a younger consumer.

"Australian lamb's heartland are baby boomers who grew up with a Sunday roast, but there's changing multicultural mix and we need to tap into that and show the relevance of lamb to a newer, younger audience," Howie said.

Humour and diversity in one meaty, moneyed marinade. Someone should tell the Liberal backbench.