With the B&T Awards taking over the Hordern Pavilion in Sydney on 8 November, we thought we’d take the chance to reacquaint you all with the Finalists’ work.
For this first round-up, we’re taking a look at the B&T Award for Bravery, one of the most hotly contested and sought-after trophies. Last year, BMF took home the trophy for its “The Reluctant Shanty” for the UNHCR.
Here, in their own words — and in alphabetical order only — are the finalists.
BMF, “TasmanAi”, Tourism Tasmania
As AI image generators like DallE and Midjourney started to infiltrate the art world, Tourism Tasmania launched its own ‘image generator’ – ‘TasmanAi’.
Instead of using artificial intelligence, TasmanAi turned prompts into actual original art made by Tasmanian artists.
Via a bespoke web page, Tourism Tasmania invited the internet to turn its weird and wonderful ideas into very real, physical pieces of art, relying on cutting-edge technology like human hands, long tea breaks and horse hair brushes to bring prompts to life in weeks or months instead of mere seconds.
Collaborating with nine local Tasmanian artists practising painting, drawing and sculpture and multimedia, people could submit their most inspired prompts via the TasmanAi website in the hopes of securing their very own, unique, piece of Tasmania to keep.
Dig, “Margret – Bulla Chief Cottage Cheese Officer”, Bulla
This campaign was picked up and featured on Gruen (refer Gruen video), cited as the most effective use of social/TikTok they had seen. Achieved mass reach with 37mn views, strong brand equity uplift, and sales growth.
Cottage cheese is seen as a product of yesteryear, consumed for dieting. Our job was to establish relevance to younger generations.
Counterintuitively, younger people, like Gen Z’ers are increasingly connecting in socials with authentic content from older “gran-influencers”.
Enter Margaret, Bulla’s Chief Cottage Cheese Officer.
In this hilarious and self-deprecating campaign, we see Margaret takeover Bulla’s TikTok to show young people what they’re missing out on. Margaret featured in content that felt authentic to her character whilst keeping native to TikTok. Putting on her own twist on popular TikTok formats such as the ‘Of course’ and ‘Everything I eat in a day’, as well as whipping up her own original content that showcased the benefits, deliciousness and versatility of Bulla Cottage Cheese to her loving audience. Her role has been pivotal in solving the problem Bulla faced introducing Bulla Cottage Cheese to new audiences and bringing relevance and modernity to a heritage brand.
Imagine trying to sell-in to Bulla’s stakeholders that the best way to engage younger generations was to lead with an older person.
@bullafamilydairy Jumping on the #OfCourse trend! ❤️ Margaret, Bulla Chief Cottage Cheese Officer #CottageCheese ♬ original sound – Bulla Family Dairy
Football Australia, “Til It’s Done”, The Matildas
Australia’s women’s football team, the Matildas, had been overlooked for years. Fans, the media and local sponsors weren’t interested in them – or in women’s sport.
But the Matildas never gave up on their desire to change perceptions of women’s sport, leave a legacy and succeed on the pitch.
In 2023, Australia hosted the first FIFA Women’s World Cup in the Southern Hemisphere. Football Australia and Ogilvy created a rallying cry for the Matildas, galvanising the nation behind the team and women’s sport.
Drawn from the middle of the team’s name, ‘Til It’s Done captured the relentless drive at the heart of the Matildas’ story – in three simple words. It was a mantra for the team and their fans as the FIFA Women’s World Cup unfolded. And they rallied behind it. In droves!
Til It’s Done helped turn the FIFA Women’s World Cup from a sporting event that no-one watched into the biggest TV broadcast ever in Australia.
The Matildas advanced to the semi-finals, their most successful FWWC campaign ever. And when they lost that match, we knew their story wasn’t done.
Under 24 hours later, we went live with an iconic outdoor ad. A to-do list with the team’s audacious achievements crossed off. Uncrossed from the list? Everything still to be done.
’Til we’re recognised by FIFA.
’Til we’re not wearing men’s hand me downs.
‘Til we make the country proud.
‘Til all women are paid the same.
The poster, the ‘Til It’s Done language and campaign elements like the online video captured the Matildas’ inspirational story and provoked a long-overdue conversation about women’s sport. Days after our poster ran, the Albanese government committed to $200 million in funding for women’s sport. An incredible achievement for a once-overlooked team. A team that’s never done – ’til it’s done.
Howatson+Company, “TOUCH”, Mastercard
Over 500 million people visit the cinema every year. Yet for those who are blind or have low vision, the experience is an afterthought. They rely on audio descriptions, screenreaders or a companion to explain what’s on the screen.
To launch Mastercard’s Touch Card – a bank card designed for the blind and low vision community – we flipped the script and created an inclusive cinema experience that was truly priceless.
‘TOUCH’ is a feature-length motion picture without pictures. Brought to life solely through Dolby sound, without images or audio descriptions. Made so all audiences can enjoy the magic of cinema together, no matter their level of vision.
It follows an original story of a neuroscientist trapped inside his father’s mind, along with his ex-girlfriend and an unsuspecting delivery driver. To escape, they must journey through crumbling memories and forgotten worlds.
This new kind of film was developed in collaboration with consultants, composers, writers and actors from blind and low vision communities all over the world – alongside award-winning filmmakers.
TOUCH premiered at iconic theatres across Australia, where both sighted and non-sighted people were invited to experience the film together. After one premiere, the project garnered +AUD $10million in earned media coverage and reached 74+ million people.
But this is just the start. The production learnings from TOUCH have been turned into a lesson module and taught in leading film schools, giving future filmmakers a blueprint to make more inclusive productions.
Innocean Australia, “No Good Reason”, White Ribbon
Due to years of PR catastrophe, White Ribbon’s (WR) reputation was in tatters. When the Australian media spoke about WR, the focus was never on the cause or their primary prevention initiatives, but their scandals.
In 2023, 1 woman was killed every 5 days by a current or former partner. Despite this level of violence, Australian men were simply standing by, relying on flimsy reasons such as “I wouldn’t know what to do” to excuse their inaction.
WR wanted to spotlight the issue while also preparing men to detect and prevent the more covert acts of violence that affect women, such as coercion or financial abuse. However, its reputational baggage meant any attempt to educate men was dismissed and shut down.
With only a $20k budget, we had to; (1) reverse the media narrative around WR and (2) educate men across the nation—a formidable challenge, even if we had millions.
To bring the Australian media on side and connect in a language they understood best, we created ‘The Daily Issue’. A special edition newspaper that included just 1% of the 48,000 harrowing violence against women stories in 2023.
Disguised as a typical newspaper, the 500 articles covered every form of violence, from coercion to financial abuse. Juxtaposed against the real reasons men were giving to justify their inaction, a stark reminder of the cost of silence.
Rather than playing it safe and spending what little we had on a miniscule amount of media, we invested our entire budget into producing a single asset. Not only did the media become the mouthpiece for connecting with Australians, but out of the $10.6 million we received in earned media, all articles were positive except one —a novel experience for WR.
M&C Saatchi Group, “BWSHHHH”, BWS Id Checks
To comply with legal requirements, bottle shops must check the ID of anyone who looks younger than 25. However, this often led to awkwardness and conflict in BWS stores, making young customers feel unwelcome and Team Members nervous about asking.
We needed to reframe the ID check process creatively and with a limited budget. The solution? Make young people feel like it was their idea.
BWS leaked a ‘secret discount code’ that required showing ID proactively. By whispering “B W Shhh” at the counter and showing their ID, customers received a $5 discount. The key was how we released this information. We recorded an internal film introducing the initiative as a secret pilot for staff and their immediate family, to test before possibly opening it to the public.
We then leaked this staff film to an influencer, who remixed it into a viral beat for sharing. The ‘secret discount code’ quickly spread through social media, used by over 8,000 people in the first week, and even appeared on deals sites and life hack forums, all at minimal cost. Young people loved it, thinking they had discovered a secret hack.
M&C Saatchi Group, “UNCLOUD”, Minderoo Foundation
Launched as a safe version of smoking from a seemingly anonymous source, vaping has been able to grow in a vacuum free of truth and without challenge; branded, flavoured and socialised into aspiration. It felt like a safe and sexy habit to dabble with for many youth.
Against this backdrop and with traditional health messaging failing to slow the vaping epidemic, we had to take a different path. Introducing UNCLOUD, a revolutionary campaign that elevated the voices of those affected most, to lead a peer-to-peer platform to warn of the true horrors of vape addiction and shift behaviour and change the culture surrounding vaping from the inside out.
To launch, we got young Australians whose mental and physical health had been affected to write their own warning labels, in the style of iconic anti-cigarette packaging, empowering them to share their warnings with peers at UNCLOUD.ORG. These weren’t warnings from faceless legislators, they were warnings from the heart.
Each and every placement needed to be carefully crafted to appear authentically throughout in youth culture, with strategically placed warnings within TikTok, video games, and physical spaces.
With incredible results, UNCLOUD showed that youth-led public health messaging can be far more effective than traditional approaches, providing a blueprint for future initiatives.
Special, “Pepsi Max – Tastes OK”, Pepsi
Pepsi ran giant billboards featuring a Diet Coke can.
It picked a fight with one of the biggest brands on the planet.
It broke sacred rules of advertising.
It was brave. But it was brave for a reason.
When it comes to picking a cola to go with a meal, Coke has always been the default in Australia. Our tough task was to snap cola drinkers out of default mode and get them to bring Pepsi Max to the table instead.
Instead of using stunning product photography or highly rational taste tests to convince people that Pepsi Max tastes better than its rivals, we used the competitor itself.
Because when looking at our competitor, we noticed something we couldn’t unsee—their iconic logo design had a flaw hiding in plain sight. The word ‘OK’ sat smack bang in the middle of their name. And when it was rotated just right, it was all you could see.
OK. Not great. Not amazing. Just OK.
In a leap of bravery, we chose to share this observation with Australia via high-impact billboards, purposefully selecting controversial locations that would catch the eyes of many (including those who worked for our competitor). We also ran double-page press placements and social posts so you couldn’t miss the disruptive image.
The Hallway, “Impressions”, Boody
BACKGROUND
Boody was on a mission to ‘own comfort’ in their category, leveraging the unique benefits of their bamboo underwear to drive sales.
PROBLEM
It’s uncomfortable being a woman. One reason for that is that the vast majority of underwear available to us digs, rubs, itches, hurts and leaves deep semi-permanent impressions on our skin. 30% of women say uncomfortable underwear affects their mood. 50% of us take our bras off as soon as we get home. But we’ve been uncomfortable in our underwear for so long, we’ve come to accept that our discomfort is simply to be endured.
IDEA
Women’s discomfort may be ubiquitous, but we’re so used to it that we don’t even talk about it. So, to launch bamboo underwear brand Boody’s new positioning, ‘Make Yourself Comfortable’, we let the discomfort do the talking – and presented Boody as the answer to this long-suffered problem.
EXECUTION
A photographic campaign that revealed the painful consequences of wearing underwear made without consideration for comfort, and that helped us empower women to demand more from their underwear drawers.
Think HQ, “The Unsaid Says A Lot”, The Department of Families, Fairness and Housing
The Unsaid Says A Lot campaign was born out of a pressing need to shift perceptions and foster a deeper understanding of the lived experiences of Trans and Gender Diverse (TGD) Australians. It addresses the subtle, often overlooked forms of discrimination that TGD individuals face daily.
The campaign was long overdue, and what set it apart was the end-to-end collaboration with members of the TGD community, setting a new benchmark for government-led initiatives.
The Unsaid Says a Lot highlights the importance of authenticity, community leadership, strategic communication, and comprehensive support for everyone involved. All while showing the power of resilience and solidarity in driving social change.
