B&T Award for Bravery

BMF

"The Reluctant Shanty", UNHCR

In the lead-up to World Refugee Day (20 June), Australians for UNHCR wanted to boost awareness of both the plight of refugees and the refugee assistance programs they run globally to support displaced people worldwide. In order to shake people from refugee charity fatigue, BMF needed to lean into a political, hot-button issue - boat refugees.

With this in mind, the agency turned its attention to sea shanties, a 400-year-old genre of traditional folk song that was once commonly sung as a work song to accompany rhythmical labour aboard large merchant sailing vessels. But, thanks to TikTok, in 2021 sea shanties had a resurgence. To launch its shanty, BMF needed to garner the attention of a captive audience, so it partnered with Nathan Evans – the fresh, global face of sea shanty music, UK #1 artist, and TikTok megastar – to co-create 'The Reluctant Shanty' song. A track based on in-depth interviews we conducted with five reluctant sailors - boat refugees from Iran, Vietnam and Afghanistan.

The real and harrowing survivor stories were painstakingly turned into a song and music video that honoured their resilience, hardship and courage, in close consultation with Australians for UNHCR. On the eve of World Refugee Day, Evans gave a mysterious sneak peek of 'The Reluctant Shanty' song to his 1.6 million TikTok followers, igniting conversation about its haunting lyrics and themes. Then on World Refugee Day itself, Evans and Australians for UNHCR simultaneously dropped the entire track and revealed its true meaning to the world.

B&T Award for Diversity

R/GA & We Are Warriors

Blak Powerhouse

We Are Warriors (WAW) launched on January 26, 2022, intentionally subverting the day’s contentious legacy and reclaiming it for Indigenous Australians. The Indigenous-owned social enterprise spotlights Blak excellence so the next generation can see it to be it. Quickly gaining momentum, a year later, R/GA was asked to strategise a way to bring the community together and maintain that positive energy. The agency's idea was ambitious.

A takeover of one of Sydney’s iconic museums – The Powerhouse. But R/GA only had six weeks to make it a reality. Historically, organisations are focused on attempting to change how non-Indigenous Australians see Indigenous youth. But real change starts from the inside. WAW is changing how Indigenous youth see themselves; making Indigenous success more visible; so they can see it to be it. Enter the Blak Powerhouse – a free, all-ages event of art, photography, music, dance, discussion, and premiere of documentary film, Through the Fire.

On January 26, 2023, WAW transformed a historically white colonial space to hold a history-making event that championed Blak Excellence. The takeover was designed to reframe the focus of 26 January and transform it from a mournful reminder of the past to a day celebrating the survival of Indigenous peoples in Australia, pride and positivity in the present, and the possibilities of the future. And it succeeded. It earned an advertising equivalent value of $800,000 in media coverage and had the largest attendance in Powerhouse history. It also gained huge sponsorships and support from global partners such as Adobe, Google and TikTok. As a result, the Powerhouse museum will hold Blak Powerhouse annually.

Best Digital Transformation

CHEP Network

Never before has the pace of change in the world felt so dynamic. New media channels such as Threads are created overnight. New technologies including Generative AI are wreaking immense disruption on the marketing landscape. COVID accelerated digital change by as much as 10 years.

Never before have marketers needed an agency that can help them react and adapt better to a changing landscape and bring together data, tech, media and creative skillsets that will help them prosper and more effectively navigate these changes.

CHEP is that agency.

With more than 350 digital thinkers, no agency in Australia is better equipped with digital native, innovative creative, engineering and media talent. CHEP's work this year has shown greater understanding of how to prosper in these turbulent seas than any other. CHEP's work for Samsung has modernised the way that it assesses value from its marketing investments, builds strategic insights and transacts with its customers.

CHEP's work for ANZ bank helped it reinvent its digital marketing operations leading to a complete reinvention of its personalisation, content creation and analytical capabilities. CHEP's generative AI work for Telstra has tested the boundaries of generative art, generative performance marketing, generative AI assistants and content creation leading to a wholesale change management programme across the business.

People & Culture Award -
Fewer Than 100 employees

Nature

In the past year, Nature embarked on a strategic transformation that helped grow its team to 60 people, increase its consulting capabilities and unlock upstream revenue opportunities. The real firepower behind its achievements will forever be directly correlated to its people and culture. Life at Nature moves fast, is intellectually challenging but it never takes anyone or anything for granted. The agency genuinely cares about every single employee.

Nature's value lies in how it creates consistency and stability, even in the face of the toughest parts of the gig. Nature believes consistency is king (and queen) and its values-led rituals are a testament to this. In its weekly town hall ritual, Nature brings everyone together to share updates and shoutouts.

This ritual also features in the final stage of the recruitment process, where candidates join employees to get the full flavour of what life is like on the inside. It’s no surprise that Nature has never had a single candidate turn down a role after this experience. Nature hires people who want to keep on growing and in return, it invests in them. This year Nature launched its in-house training program which includes a self-serve platform and a customised growth plan, plus the agency delivers more than an hour of L&D every week to everyone.

The agency says its biggest milestone this year has been achieving B Corp certification. Nature was the first in our industry to gain B Corp certification across Australia and NZ! B Corp is a globally recognised certification awarded to organisations that can measurably prove that they use business as a force for good – engaging in care, advocacy and action for the benefit of people and the planet, not just for profit.

People & Culture Award -
More Than 100 Employees

BMF

As the home of the long idea, BMF knows all too well that the longest idea is agency culture. In fact, that approach leads to long-lasting relationships with its people, clients and its team.

The agency's core principles: Cheeky, Gutsy and Humble, are at the heart of everything it does but see them all in balance. It is cheeky because it is just the right amount of wrong, gutsy because it loves a challenge and humble because, at BMF, the team knows that it is important to recognise when they get it wrong. Which, may we add, happens rarely.

Admittedly, that all sounds very nice. But the approach is borne out in the stats: more than a third of BMFers have been with the agency for more than five years — something very few agencies can say. What's more, it even had two members of staff return during the judging period.

The agency has a range of initiatives to encourage marginalised communities in the workplace to thrive, including a return-to-work program for those returning from parental leave, and an ongoing battle against sexism and prejudice within the industry.