Zoltar Speaks ‘You’re Better on Beef’

Maddie Cotterill

The Meat and Livestock Australia’s Miss Fortune palm-reading campaign has achieved one of the highest number of engagements recorded by oOh!media for an interactive retail advertising campaign.

OOHmedia Miss Fortune MLA

More than 53,000 shoppers interacted with the Miss Fortune campaign, the brain child of BMF and oOh!.

Passers-by were enticed to have their palm reading done at digital ‘fortune teller’ screens tactically positioned in major shopping centres nationally. The Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) is the peak body for the meat and livestock industry.

The campaign that paid digital homage to the famed old Zoltar machines was part of the Meat and Livestock Association’s ongoing ‘You’re Better on Beef’ campaign that promotes the value of beef in providing protein, iron and zinc.

For some shoppers, the prophecies weren’t all good with the execution featuring more than three dozen tongue-in-cheek fortunes ranging from “Unspeakable riches will come your way…from a Nigerian email account” to “The truth hurts my friend. Seek the advice of a pharmacist for a rash cream to soothe what words cannot”.

To produce the campaign, oOh! Media converted its network of EXCITE screens into digital fortune tellers, engaging more than 53,000 shoppers to place their palms on-screen to activate a crystal ball reading.

As well as a live reading, recipients also received their (mis)fortune by phone or social platforms – with a cheeky reminder that with beef, they would be better prepared for what life throws at them.

Group Marketing Manager for MLA, Andrew Howie said “We place a huge amount of value on long term partnerships. BMF are a long-standing creative partner and oOh! have been a key media partner of ours for several years now.

“These partnerships allow us to utilise first-to-market technology to bring to life innovative and ground-breaking creativity. We want to leave shoppers with a positive, fun-filled brand experience, while drawing attention to the health benefits of beef”.

oOh!’s EXCITE screen technology includes sound, touch, and gesture recognition, as well integration with mobile, online and social media. MLA and BMF also received immediate reporting on how many people interacted with the campaign.

Cam Blackley, BMF Executive Creative Director said “With MLA we always look for a way to be playful in our comms and these screens certainly played to that. It was light entertainment at a time when folks are probably a bit frazzled…so with any luck they would have head straight to the meat-counter for their remedy.”

The Miss Fortune campaign follows MLA’s hugely successful recipe-dispensing campaign where shoppers obtained over a million recipes via oOh! panels in shopping centres.

Commercial Director of oOh! Retail Blair Hamilford told us “We love working with clients who aren’t afraid to push the innovation boundaries in an effort to deliver better results.

“By converting oOh!’s EXCITE panels into digital fortune-teller booths, we’ve definitely delivered a quantum leap in interactivity and engagement on a mass scale.”

The month long campaign ran on 25 of oOh!’s EXCITE screens and more than 250 classic and dynamic locations in 100+ shopping centres across Australia, seeking to influence thousands of shoppers when they’re close to butchers and supermarkets.


Leave a Reply