Best Ad Campaign

The Hallway

Boys Do Cry

The "Boys Do Cry" campaign was created by indie agency The Hallway in partnership with The University Of Melbourne's Centre For Mental Health, Heiress Films, mental fitness foundation, Gotcha4Life, and with support from media, marketing and creating social purpose organisation UnLtd. 

The campaign took The Cure's hit song "Boys Don't Cry" and, with permission from the songwriter, Robert Smith, changed the lyrics to "Boys Do Cry". The result was an incredibly moving and potent campaign. The ad is simple but brilliant. It features a 30-man choir singing the reworked lyrics "Boys do Cry," led by Good Oil's Tom Campbell. The choir featured a diverse group of men gathering to sing some incredibly important reworked lyrics, taking aim at toxic masculinity as well as outdated and unhelpful gender norms. It has since become the toast of the industry but, more importantly, kicked off incredibly important conversations about mental health and sharing the mental load with each other.  

Best CTV Campaign

Finecast

MediaCom x Finecast

Campaign: Dell Consumer

Finecast partnered with Dell, one of MediaCom's top clients, to reposition their consumer brand as a leader in a highly competitive Australian market heavily dominated by a close competitor. Dell's primary audience - "people who have a high propensity to purchase premium devices" - were broadly identified as young, high-income Aussies. Research indicated that its competitor had gained a foothold with this audience in Australia. MediaCom developed two key audience archetypes: "Digital Affluents" (DAF) and "Young Upcoming" (YUC), based on their attributes and attitudes towards technology.

The strategic objective of MediaCom was to help the brand grow revenue and direct sales. In partnering with Finecast's addressable TV solution, MediaCom effectively demonstrated that combining audience data and targeting its DAF and YUC segments with high-quality broadcast environments on a connected television drives both long-term value and short-term results. The campaign was activated programmatically, using Finecast's deterministic viewer login data to ensure maximum accuracy delivering the highest quality addressable activation across the entire Australian BVOD ecosystem on connected TV.  

Best Digital Campaign

M&C Saatchi Group

Thrive by Five

M&C Saatchi found a remarkable way to deliver an old message in a new way. The importance of early childhood development is not new news; for decades UNICEF and medical and scientific bodies have been sharing the neuroscience that backs it. However, the message rarely cuts through because it’s traditionally shared by doctors and scientists in complicated terms.

M&C Saatchi brilliantly realised it needed to find a way to make people understand it. So, the agency went back to basics and created the world’s first neuroscience TED Talk given by a seven-year-old. For over seven minutes, Molly, now one of the youngest people ever to give a TED talk, presented facts, experiments and scientifically proven ‘serve and return games’ any parent can action, in a way even exhausted parents could follow. The simplicity of the campaign created a complete cut-through effect. 

Best Media Campaign

Special

Campaign: Motor Neurone Disease NZ David’s Unusables

Motor Neurone Disease (MND) is a devastating disease and New Zealand has one of the world’s highest mortality rates from it. Special was tasked with increasing the awareness and understanding of MND in New Zealand on a limited budget. The agency's biggest challenge was getting the public to understand the debilitating nature of the disease if they hadn’t experienced it themselves.

Special took ‘put yourself in their shoes’ literally and simulated the experience of MND by creating 'David’s Unusables’. The media-led idea digitally charted the ‘real-life’ decline of David Seymour by selling items he could no longer use on New Zealand’s leading e-marketplace, Trade Me. By unexpectedly combining forces with one of the largest e-comm platforms to make MND more relatable to everyone, Special was able to create a campaign that just didn't raise awareness but educated Kiwis. 

Best Media Platform

Seven

Over the past year, Channel 7 has led the field and dominated the media landscape as never before.

No other media platform experienced as much revenue and consumption growth as Channel 7, and no other platform invested as heavily in transformative new technologies that benefited viewers and advertisers.

The past twelve months have seen Channel 7 achieve truly spectacular and record-breaking results, leading to it being crowned Australia’s Fastest Growing Brand by Brand Finance Australia in January 2022.

Channel 7 dominated across the board, garnering “number one” superlatives with the likes of “Program of the Year” for the AFL Grand Final, “Regular Series” for The Voice, “Local Drama” for Home and Away, and “Lifestyle “Program” for Better Homes and Gardens, just to name a few.

Channel 7 also saw a record-breaking 21 million watch its presentation of the Tokyo Olympics. And more than half the 20 most-watched TV shows were on the platform (including four of the top five). Enough said!

Best Out of Home Campaign

Thinkerbell

FURPHY WHAT THE TRUCK

Thinkerbell was tasked with launching Furphy's new Crisp Lager. However, considering the Australian beer industry is well and truly saturated, Thinkerbell needed to do something unbelievable to stand out in a bustling market and get people to sample Furphy's easy-drinking beer. To combat the sea of sameness and pique beer-drinkers' attention, Furphy devised a plan to create an unbelievable visual Furphy of its own.

The plan was to use 7.8-tonne Furphy Crisp Lager’-branded truck turned on its back and wedged between two buildings in Sydney's CBD. With help from internationally celebrated installation artist James Dive, the truck's design certainly made people stop and stare.

Images of the billboard-in-disguise went viral within hours. Commenters and news publications had their own take on the story, speculating it could be a glitch in the simulation, the brilliant work of Banksy or the driver just having the absolute worst day. With its reach and engagement across social and PR, Furphy's beer-truck billboard took Crisp Lager from unknown to the most talked about beer in the country.

Best PR Campaign

Special

Campaign: Motor Neurone Disease NZ David’s Unusables

Motor Neurone Disease (MND) is a devastating disease, and New Zealand has one of the world’s highest mortality rates from it. Special were tasked with increasing the awareness and understanding of MND in New Zealand on a limited budget. Their biggest challenge was getting the public to understand the debilitating nature of the disease if they hadn’t experienced it themselves. Special took ‘put yourself in their shoes’ literally and simulated the experience of MND by creating 'David’s Unusables’.

The media-led idea digitally charted the ‘real-life’ decline of David Seymour by selling items he could no longer use on New Zealand’s leading e-marketplace, Trade Me. By unexpectedly combining forces with one of the largest e-comm platforms to make MND more relatable to everyone, Special was able to educate New Zealand and capture nationwide PR attention in the process.

Best Radio/Audio Campaign

Host / Havas

Crime Interrupted

Keeping a step ahead of serious crime requires a range of diverse skill sets but The Australian Federal Police (AFP) struggled to recruit such candidates for these roles. Host/Havas rejected traditional recruitment comms, which audiences were tuning out of, and met them where they were tuning in - true crime podcasts. Partnering with the team from Australia’s top true crime podcaster, Casefile Presents, Host/Havas turned the AFP's recruitment messages into a six-part true crime podcast called ‘Crime Interrupted’.

Each episode delved into a particular crime and, through an intriguing narrative, showed the scope of professions required to stop them. The podcast created resonating entertainment in a compelling format, designed to pull listeners in rather than forcefully pushing into their lives. It was ultimately the AFP’s most successful campaign in history. 

Best Regional Media Campaign

Howatson+Company

Campaign: Belong Regional

In 2017, Optus announced a strategy to invest more than one billion dollars in regional Australia and increased its media spend in 2020 and 2021 to match Telstra. It was a significant move that challenged Telstra’s network superiority and market share. Belong, Telsta's value brand, had not traditionally invested with sustained significance in regional markets and consequentially struggled with a low share of voice and market.

Howatson+Company’s challenge was to take on Optus to win back mobile market share for Belong and Telstra. To provoke regional Australians to switch, Howatson+Company created a bespoke data set to identify market opportunities, addressable audiences, and channels of purchase influence, a comparative creative message and sustained excess share of voice. The result for the Belong brand was increased brand awareness, consideration, and sales that beat all expectations. 

Best TV Campaign

72andSunny ANZ

Google x AFL: Helping you help them

72andSunny took on a brief of using Google’s sponsorship of the AFL and AFLW to build positive sentiment and brand health for the Google brand. It knew emotional storytelling and TV centred on helpfulness would be essential. 72andSunny found that participation with AFL is what allows communities and families to thrive. However, playing a support role for family members participating in the AFL can be challenging. Who do people turn to when they need help? Google. Helping you help them is a long-term platform idea to bring to life the power of Google as a tool for everyday moments to help your family, friends, and community.

In the 2021 season, 72andSunny told the story of an immigrant father who, via Google, teaches himself all the things he needs to support his daughter’s football passion. In the 2022 season, it told the story of a granddaughter who uses Google to discover ways to reconnect with her Nan, who has dementia, through their shared love of AFLW. With a single-minded focus on culturally relevant, emotional story-telling, 72andSunny ANZ drove the highest brand uplifts for Google globally and the best-in-class case study for AFL activation. 

Best Use of Social Media

WiredCo. _{(formerly The Wired Agency)}

PIZZAS FOR PODIUMS

For Gen Z, there’s something magnetic about the Olympics, with 81 per cent claiming to be interested in the Games. The appeal makes sense, given that their athletic peers have emerged as global well-being leaders and advocates. For any brand brave enough to grab a slice of the Olympic action without paying a hefty fee to the International Olympic Committee, there can be Olympic-sized consequences, both financial and reputational, if one was to break the IOC's "ironclad" rules.

The idea behind WiredCo.’s “Pizzas for Podiums” campaign for Pizza Hut was simple: the more medals Australia won, the more pizzas they gave away in real-time on social media. Did the Australian Olympic Committee complain? They sure did! Did WiredCo. listen? No, sir! WiredCo. didn’t pay a cent for daring to digitally hack one of the most significant events on Earth with their Pizza Hut’s chief executive officer, Phil Reed, declared it "the most successful campaign in Pizza Hut’s 50-year history." Today, Pizza Hut enjoys the fastest-growing QSR position for 40 consecutive months. 

Best Use of Sponsorship

CHEP Network

Performance Enhancing Music

As sponsors of the Olympics, CHEP Network didn’t want to talk about Samsung’s mission to create human-driven innovations that defy barriers to progress; they set out to live it. CHEP gave Olympians an edge over their competitors by leveraging something already used by athletes across the globe - music. They created personalised tracks, each scientifically proven to enhance performance. They tested and fine-tuned 13 audio triggers, including isochronic tones, personal mantras, cadence, and more. Finally, it brought the tracks to life through their favourite Australian artist.

The Olympic Athletes could use their tracks to prepare and compete in Tokyo as the world listened along on Spotify through a branded playlist supported by video and audio platform takeovers. CHEP launched the campaign, which concluded at the end of the Paralympic games, with key assets; the Performance Enhancing Music tracks and a documentary film found on YouTube and supported by cutdowns across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, SNAP and YouTube. It set up OOH street posters during the Olympics and connected with younger audiences through a custom-built AR SNAP AR lens, allowing customers to create their performance-enhancing music.   

Best Use of Tech

HERO

Victoria Police x HERO

Campaign: Victoria Police, Senior Constable Laurie Fox

Victoria Police has lost 20 officers to suicide since 2012, one of the highest rates of workplace suicide in the state. It was a situation that called for an unprecedented response. To understand the scale of the issue, HERO conducted many one-on-one interviews and focus groups with different members across Victoria Police. One specific objective for their work was to get at least half of the Victoria Police members to engage with the anonymous Bluespace website, an online site purpose-built to provide professional mental health support. To reach and positively impact this audience, the agency needed to develop and deliver a message in a way members couldn't possibly ignore.

Senior Constable Laurie Fox took his own life on New Year's Eve, 2012. Eight years later, HERO brought Fox back using Deep Fake Technology to share a peer-to-peer message broadcast directly to every officer on the Victoria Police force. The memo encouraged officers to seek anonymous support from trained counsellors at the newly launched Bluespace website. The film saw Bluespace increase site traffic by 350 per cent. Nearly 80 per cent of the organisation visited the site post-viewing. The average engagement time was six minutes; showing officers weren’t simply clicking through but watching the video and engaging with support materials. 

Best YouTube Campaign of the Year

Vidico

Incredible Glasses, Incredibly Affordable For Every Aussie Face

Campaign: Bailey Nelson: Incredible Glasses For Every Aussie Face

Vidico teamed up with Aussie-eyewear brand Bailey Nelson to develop its first defining brand statement using a delightfully colourful video. Vidico wanted to get on the radar of the Australian public and obtain recall, so playing safe wasn’t an option.

The competition is solid and hard to differentiate, so the real opportunity was creating a strong brand story that showed Bailey Nelson’s unique personality. Vidico developed a straightforward concept with a mix of elements - an excellent tension point to kick-off and capture attention, funny examples of the Bailey Nelson product in use to show its place in customers’ lives, plus a way to sledge competitors. A presenter format led the story to walk viewers through the so-wrong-but-common journey of buying glasses. Transitions, shape cut-outs, and masks engage viewers, and emphasise unique selling points.

Thanks to the ability to shoot long-form, the campaign included five consideration and conversion cutdowns plus the suite of statics for display, ensuring the whole funnel was a priority. Ultimately, the brand campaign obtained a 40 per cent increase in branded search, with YouTube describing the result as "best-in-class".