Australians punch above their weight on the global stage. The small (population-wise) and scrappy country we call home is known for our world-leading athletes, actors, scientists, and, of course, media and marketing professionals.
We’re good, innovative, and have earned our reputation as good operators. But, our accents are a bit different and the image of Paul Hogan as Mick Dundee is still pretty firmly in mind. It means that we’re seen as a bit exotic.
This is all built into the concept behind new US agency Aussie Brands USA. Formed by ex-pat Christian Murphy and American Matt Plavoukos, the two are taking innovative, entrepreneurial Australian companies and helping them open the door to the very large and potentially lucrative North American market.
The agency began with boobs
The decision to launch Aussie Brands USA began with breast health product Boob Protect. They are inserts for female athletes that help them compete and train without concern of injury. Founder Susie Betts is a childhood friend of Murphy’s.
“I thought what she was doing was amazing,” Murphy told Mediaweek. “She had experienced really severe painful lumps in her breasts. It’s called fat necrosis. It was built up over time from impacts received when she was in her youth playing netball, sport, lots of contact sports.”
Matt Plavoukos
Betts couldn’t find a safety product for female athletes when her own daughters started playing AFL, so she developed the product and launched it in Australia.
“We own and manage and control the brand in this market,” Murphy explained. “She’s very involved in what we’re doing, but we’re running it here in the US and Canada as well. We thought: ‘Our experience with Susie has been pretty good, maybe there are other Aussie brands down there who might also be interested in partnering with us in different ways’. And so that’s sort of really where the impetus for Aussie Brands USA has come about.”
Where the value of the Australian perspective on products is felt most is possibly with the more accessible, earthy attitude surrounding its products. For the launch of Boob protect, the agency found that there is a cultural difference in the sort of language used, stripping its accessibility.
“They don’t even like using the word breast, even in a professional sports setting,” Murphy said. “There is a real cultural difference where the brand is very cheeky, while trying to actually open up and normalise the conversation around boobs in sports, women’s health, breast health.”
Plavoukos echoes Murphy: “There is a language barrier between the Americans and the Aussies. You know, it’s the same language, but different words.”
Christian Murphy
Plavoukos advises that it isn’t important that the products the agency represents are Australian in identity, but rather it is more about the personality and the voice of the product. That said, he does recognise that there is a mystique to Australia as an idea that can translate well to an American market. He points to one of our greatest (*cough* *cough*) exports: “Foster’s advertising is obviously legendary here. It created this mystique and perception about, you know, a beer that’s probably not super quality, but, you know, it’s a brand in and of itself. So that’s why we think there’s an opportunity to, you know, to really push on those levers.”
It doesn’t end with boobs. They’re marketing sausages too
Among the early client base for the business is an Australian exporter of spices and seasonings. It is tied to a product Murphy has launched in the US: Murph’s Aussie Snags.
Murphy was frustrated that he wasn’t able to buy a good quality sausage locally, so set out to launch his own business. He bought his own equipment and began selling them through his local butcher, where they would sell out within hours.
You can get a beer brat here and there and you can get chicken ones, but they’re pretty bad. It’s not like when we go to a supermarket, there’s like all those different beautiful flavours of Aussie snags, you know?” Murphy laughed with a sense of Aussie pride.
The sausages speak to the promise of the agency. The US offers a large customer opportunity, but there are cultural differences and the potential to exploit gaps in the market that an outsider can see.