Ben Lazzaro CEO Australian Made on the heavy-lifting Green & Gold Kangaroo

Ben Lazzaro is CEO of Australian Made Campaign Limited  which administers the globally recognised Australian Made Logo. It's a very famous logo and a true mark of Aussie authenticity and has been around for 30 years. And right now it's more popular than ever and the opportunities for #SMEs are significant.

Being Australian and making Australian products is generally a positive in most markets, including domestically, so when you're buying Australian made products you're getting products made to some of the highest standards in the world, and that's from a quality and a safety perspective. And in certain sectors that's never been more important than right now.

Ben Lazzaro has a background in engineering, moved into doing marketing and communications for engineering and technical based firms and has been CEO since 2017 .

In our discussion we talk about;

• How the Green & Gold Kangaroo does the heavy lifting  because it is unique to Australia
• The Australian Made Logo as a  country of origin product certification trademark.
• How products are licensed to carry this brand
• The criteria (set by Australian Consumer Law) and the laws that govern making a Made In Australian claim
• The mechanics of the substantial transformation test
• The cost of using the logo which is essentially 1/10 of 1% of the turnover of those products
• How the money raised gets pumped back into the campaign on compliance, auditing, things like that to protect the integrity of the brand, chase down misuse and the collective marketing campaign
• The extremely pro Australian sentiment in the marketplace at the moment (which started  as the COVID pandemic starts to take hold) and the reasons behind this
  • Saving jobs
  • The imbalance between local and imported products and over reliance on imports
• The massive (400%) growth in applications to use the Australian made logo
• The simple process for applying
• How small businesses use the logo
• The 34 classes of goods in Australia that can apply to use the brand
• How #KidsClub ( teaching resources on our website) is growing the understanding of the positive attributes associated with buying Australian
• The upside in Australia's clean great environment
• Ethical labor and sustainability.
• The research that found around 87% globally knew that this thing (the logo) meant there was an Australian produc and that even if they don't know our brands specifically, they know it's Australian, they know it's green and gold
• The business opportunities and using the kangaroo in social media to grow a global audience
• The opportunities domestically with 99% of Australians recognising and 92% trusting products carrying the Australian Made Logo
• #manufacturingsovereignty #selfsufficiency
• Investing in our local manufacturing capability - something that is a positive outcome from Covid-19 for Australian manufacturing with that focus on sovereignty, and self sufficiency, potentially giving Australian manufacturing be a bit of a positive 'jab in the arm'
• The renewed focus from government, and a lot of funding, to generate manufacturing and manufacturing 4.0
• How smaller manufacturers that will benefit from the fact that we're going to invest in skills here
• Opportunities in electric cars, electric buses
• How Volvo Trucks in Queensland is turning out 60,000 trucks carrying Australian made logo with, I think, half a dozen sites out there in Waco, Brisbane

www.kerrcapital.com.au

https://australianmade.com.au/

#Australianmade 

#madeinAustralia

#growninAustralia 

#productofAustralia

#Australianmadelogo

#thegreenandgoldkangaroo

#globalconsumers 

#qualityproduce

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Reach out to Michael Kerr via the website if you need personal assistance or advice for your small business.

michael.kerr@kerrcapital.com.au

www.ownertoownerpodcast.com.au