In the run up to the B&T Awards (28 November at Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion), we’re casting our eye over the excellent work of this year’s finalists.
This time out, we’re looking at the finalists in the Best Out of Home Campaign category. Because, frankly, there are few things better than a billboard.
Last time out on the B&T Awards Runners & Riders, we looked at the finalists in for the Siren Award For Best Radio/Audio Campaign, presented by our friends at the CRA.. You should also take a moment to check out the full list of Agency of the Year finalists and Campaign of the Year finalists.
As part of each entry, we ask entrants to submit a 300-word condensed version of their entry. So here, in their own words and in alphabetical order only, are the finalists.
Akcelo, ‘Summer Stories’, Spotify AUNZ
In Australia, summer isn’t just a season, it’s a way of life. But after the record breaking high of Spotify Wrapped, as the temperatures continues to soar, Spotify sees a change in listening momentum as Aussies swap commutes and routines for beach days, BBQs and backyard cricket. We needed to make sure that when they returned to routine, they returned to Spotify – by reminding them no Aussie summer is complete without Aussie music.
We created Summer Stories: a hyper-contextual OOH campaign that matched iconic Aussie summer moments with the perfect track. The copywriting was the heartbeat — each execution followed a precise “moment, moment, track” structure. Two short, sharply observed lines captured a relatable (sometimes painfully relatable) scene, perfectly resolved by a song title from an iconic Australian artist.
Every headline was tailored to a specific place, time, weather and cultural nuance. Working with 20 different Aussie artists, across 400+ placements, the work appeared exactly where the moments happened: Bondi surf clubs, servos, Shopping centres, coastal highways. The medium was the message — only OOH could place these micro-stories in the physical context they were written for, making them instantly understood and impossible to ignore.
The impact was as hot as the season: 44 million impressions, +13% YOY growth in content hours streamed. We didn’t just advertise in summer. We wrote ourselves into its stories.
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Avenue C, ‘Pack it. Stack it. Snack it.’, Primo
In a cluttered snack aisle dominated by low-cost, established brands, Primo Cheese Stackers needed to justify its relatively high price point and win over busy, on-the-go snackers.
The creative solution was built around a simple yet powerful rallying cry: “Pack It. Stack It. Snack It.” This rhythmic call-to-action, paired with dynamic visuals of people eating Primo Stackers mid-skate, mid-game, and mid-commute, transformed cracker, cheese and deli meat portability into something tangible and aspirational. The campaign wasn’t just about function; it elevated everyday snacking into moments of satisfaction worth paying for. Designed exclusively for Out of Home, the creative was bold, brief, and built to intercept audiences in motion.
Strategically, the campaign lived entirely in Outdoor—because to “win on the go,” the brand had to “own on the go.” Omni-format visibility ensured mass reach across every movement touchpoint: transit, street furniture, shopping centres, escalators, and retail strips. Geo-targeting near grocery, convenience, and petrol hubs ensured Primo was present precisely at points of purchase intent. The singular focus on Outdoor avoided dilution and created rapid, unified brand salience.
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Dentsu Creative, ‘Healthier Ways’, Zespri Kiwifruit
Australians and kiwifruit share a perception problem. While Australia is seen as a healthy nation, 1 in 4 people are overweight or obese. Similarly, Zespri SunGold Kiwifruit was seen as niche: a tart, hairy fruit reserved for pavlovas, not everyday snacking.
Zespri’s challenge was clear: shift perceptions and make SunGold part of the healthy eating conversation. The opportunity lay in reframing it as a smart, simple snack. Not the only healthy choice, but one worth considering.
The insight? Parents want happy, healthy kids, but unhealthy options are more fun and more visible. During the school run, kids are exposed to 2,800 junk food ads a year. That’s 15 per trip. The world was working against parents’ best intentions.
Enter “Healthier Ways”: a mobile-first navigation tool that helped parents avoid junk food ads and restaurants on the way to and from school. Using GPS and real-time data, the app mapped routes that bypassed unhealthy triggers and guided families toward Zespri activations offering SunGold samples and healthy snack tips.
The campaign combined digital tools with physical experiences, creating a full-funnel ecosystem built around parents. It drove awareness, consideration and conversion through broadcast, pop-ups, and digital integration.
“Healthier Ways” didn’t just shift perception, it earned Zespri a seat at the healthy snacking table and helped parents make better choices, one school run at a time.
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M+C Saatchi Group, ‘Travel Booking’, Commonwealth Bank
At its heart was Johnny G, a Times Square icon who’d been serving hot dogs from the same corner for 46 years. We seeded news of Johnny leaving New York for the first time ever, sparking outrage from his loyal fans and even sending hot-dog YouTubers into meltdown. Then we revealed why: Johnny was on his way to Australia.
In Melbourne, we built a full-scale replica of his famous cart, complete with his family’s legendary “Pushcart Sauce.” We surrounded him with the authentic details of the city – a yellow cab, street performers, a skyline backdrop, and even a bodega where people could send postcards for the chance to win travel credits. For three days, Melburnians didn’t just see an ad. They stepped into it, tasted it, and queued for it.
This was more than outdoor media. It was a sensory, social event that collapsed the distance between Australia and the world. Rather than telling Australians CommBank could help them travel, we made them feel like they already had.
The campaign ran for three days straight and became a cultural moment. It drove national news coverage, live weather crosses, influencer buzz and even a 20% lift in local foot traffic. Thousands of hot dogs were served, and Australians got their first bite of a new way to book and save on travel with CommBank. By literally bringing the world closer, CommBank flipped the logic of outdoor advertising – transforming a functional product launch into an unmissable experience that people lined up for, proving a bank could play in the travel category.
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Mindshare Australia, ‘Hero the Bits Below the Pitts’, Rexona/Unilever
Rexona launched the world’s first Whole Body Deodorant to address a surprising truth: only 1% of body sweat comes from underarms, yet traditional deodorants only target that area. Despite 36% of Australians already applying antiperspirant beyond their pits, stigma and cultural discomfort around body odour made it difficult to introduce a product for the rest of the body.
To break the taboo, Rexona reframed the conversation – not as a problem to fix, but as a celebration of the forgotten bits. The campaign leaned into Aussie humour, mateship and slang, recognising that body parts like “the dogs” (feet), “the peach” (bum) and “the girls” (breasts) are already part of everyday language.
Partnering with LadBible, Rexona crowdsourced over 700 nicknames for body parts and dynamically paired them with creative assets across 1,500+ outdoor executions. From street furniture to transit and retail, each day featured fresh, surprising combinations. Flinders Street Station was rebranded as “Flinders Feet Station,” and pubs were flooded with body-part-themed coasters, sparking conversation and normalising the new category.
The results were powerful. The campaign reached 50% of Australians aged 18–60 and drove a 900% increase in search impressions for “Whole Body Deodorant.” Controversy added fuel – 60 creative variations were pulled due to complaints, proving the campaign was cutting through. Within months, the new product segment captured 4% of the total deodorant category.
By combining humour, cultural insight and hyper-localised outdoor media, Rexona didn’t just launch a product – it created a category. “Hero the bits, beyond the pits” became a rallying cry for a new kind of deodorant and a new kind of conversation.
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Nunn Media, ‘A Proper OOH Disruption’, Yorkshire Tea
Yorkshire Tea is the UK’s number one black tea, built on the promise of a “proper brew.” But in Australia, “proper” can sound stiff, formal – even posh. That disconnect became our opportunity.
Rather than explain the word, we redefined it – loudly, visibly, and unapologetically – through OOH. In Q3 2024, dynamic digital billboards responded to the moment: celebrating Aussie Olympic wins, mocking miserable Mondays, and popping up whenever a “proper brew” could make life better. Timely, local and cheeky, the campaign made Yorkshire Tea feel right at home.
In 2025, we took things up a gear. Partnering with Lucky Generals, Yorkshire Tea appeared to vandalise its own billboards – crossing out “proper” and swapping it for Aussie alternatives like “Good As” and “Bloody Good.” The campaign didn’t just show up in culture; it became the cultural moment. A brand poking fun at itself, inviting Australians to own the message.
OOH wasn’t just media – it was the message. From DOOH copy tailored to weather and location, to graffiti-style provocations that blurred the line between ad and rebellion, Yorkshire Tea turned a potential barrier into a breakthrough.
And it worked. Phase 1 lifted awareness by 6%, brought in 42% new buyers, and delivered +13.8% YOY sales growth – while the category declined. Phase 2 is already outperforming, with sales growing 2.5x faster than the annual average.
By owning “proper” in a proudly Australian way, Yorkshire Tea didn’t just enter the conversation. It made itself impossible to ignore.
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OMD, ‘Wherever We Go’, Telstra
Ahead of Telstra’s brand launch, we faced a monumental task. There was pressure to achieve more business results with less marketing budget. Compounding the challenge, Telstra was ranked as Australia’s 3rd most distrusted brand and struggling to stand out in a saturated marketplace. This necessitated a radical brand reset. Our objective was to communicate our new brand positioning while driving reappraisal, measured by increasing Brand Strength.
Insight revealed Australians increasingly rejected national, corporate brands amid cost-of-living pressures, seeking meaningful connections and willing to pay more for brands that deliver this. This shaped our brand idea?‘Wherever We Go’, repositioning Telstra as an imaginative brand with possibility at its heart, emboldened by the belief that the journey to a better future is shared.
Immersion was imperative. Outdoor was the only medium that physically entered communities to create memorable experiences, turning mundane spaces magical. We launched the most ambitious outdoor campaign in Australia, set to redefine creative possibilities and reshape perception of Telstra.
Execution included over 130 high-reach Large Format sites and 2,500 small format sites nationwide, combined with 46 special builds, murals, and immersive bus stop takeovers. Over 200 unique hand-crafted illustrations appeared across 3,000+ sites (including bonus), ensuring every interaction felt personal.
Results surpassed targets: brand strength increased by a significant margin and national reach hit 92% at 69 frequency. Financially, a 1.6x ROAS and 7.1% profit growth were achieved. Telstra’s brand strength outperformed global telco peers by 20x.?With the collective power of our brand platform ‘Wherever We Go’ and a new benchmark of outdoor advertising, Telstra began winning back Australians by inspiring a sense of wonder…wherever we go.
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oOh!media & PHD, ‘ANZ Falcon’, ANZ
In a climate of rising cybercrime, ANZ needed to make its digital security feel real, visible and reassuring. Understanding that people trust brands that invest in visibility, a principle known as costly signalling, Out of Home became the perfect platform to bring this strategy to life.
POLY and oOh!media brought ANZ’s Falcon, a symbol of digital security into the real world through a national OOH-first campaign. It began with a showstopping 3D Falcon perched above Melbourne’s Bourke Street Mall, capturing national attention and sparking widespread media coverage. But this wasn’t just spectacle, it embodied the “watchfulness” of ANZ’s cyber security promise.
We scaled the Falcon across 4,000 of oOh!media’s full-motion digital screens spanning Retail, Rail, Office, University and Airport environments, synchronising 3D creative across all five environments for the first time. This created a sense of omnipresence, reinforcing ANZ’s commitment to protection at scale.
To make security feel personal, we adapted ANZ’s internal AI ‘Doppelfalcon’ tool into an interactive OOH experience. Commuters could scan a QR code, generate their own Falcon avatar, and see it broadcast in real time – turning passersby into participants.
Finally, we partnered with the Australian Open, integrating the Falcon into branded digital scoreboards across the OOH network, aligning ANZ with one of Australia’s most trusted institutions.
The results were extraordinary: +64% uplift of ANZ’s cyber protection, 75% consideration among exposed audiences (+88% vs. unexposed), and a higher ROI per dollar spent. With 69,000 media-driven product applications, this campaign showed how ambitious creative, behavioural science and the power of OOH can transform brand trust – at scale and in the real world.
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Special, ‘Black Friday’, Kitchen Warehouse
How did Kitchen Warehouse cut through the clutter of Black Friday advertising?
With an out-of-the-box outdoor campaign that culinary enthusiasts loved.
Background:
Black Friday is one of the most cluttered and competitive advertising moments of the year.
Every brand in the space boasts big discounts. And when your competitors include players like Amazon and Harvey Norman, simply outshouting or outspending them is not an option.
Kitchen Warehouse needed work that would cut through the clutter and stick in people’s memories so that they’d remember to shop with them.
Insight
The insight was simple. Black Friday deals are no longer fundamentally differentiating.
Many of the brands and products that Kitchen Warehouse were planning to discount would be available from other retailers, likely at similar markdowns.
And while it was absolutely critical our audience knew we offered these great Black Friday deals, we also needed them to remember and prefer our brand when it came time to shop.
The Idea
Discount Demonstrations – a series of eye-catching special build billboards that showcased Kitchen Warehouse’s biggest discounts and demonstrated what the discounted products do.
Posters for discounted pasta makers were fettucin-ified. Posters for cut price cooking knives were sliced in half. Blender posters blended copy and even the Kitchen Warehouse logo.
The simplicity of the idea made it easy to grasp at a glance, while the charming executions stood out among the sea of same-same sale ads.
The Results
Kitchen Warehouse reached its biggest ever recorded day of online sales the day of Black Friday.
Total sales were up by 31.9% for the campaign period YOY
The total number of orders grew by 34.7% YOY
Net contribution was up 42% YOY, meaning not only did we have a far higher number of sales, they were far more profitable as well.
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Special, ‘Coopers Forever Original ‘1 of 1’, Coopers Brewery
Aussies bloody love a beer. But what seems like a thriving landscape of choice in our bottle-os, is actually an oligopoly dominated by just three giants. And as more small independent breweries sell out, the more they sacrifice their independence and originality. It’s the great homogenisation of Australian beer.
Standing up against all this is Coopers Brewery. Founded by a boot maker, turned stonemason, turned dairyman, turned brewer, they’ve been doing things their own way for 162 years and counting. A family owned business who’ve vowed to never sell out, they can proudly say they’re Forever Original.
The goal of this campaign was to prove they’re Australia’s most original beer, living up to their brand platform of “Forever Original”.
We created a campaign comprised entirely of hundreds of certified 1-of-1 original artworks, each crafted and hand-signed by fellow originals to be proudly displayed in their very own, unique outdoor media placement. We had 1-of-1 creations made of big flocks of sheep, hair sculptures, ceramics, pastel paints, schlieren photography (whatever that is), cake decorations, just to name a few. Hundreds upon hundreds of creations with no repeats, no copies, only 1-of-1 originals.
This campaign didn’t just advertise beer, it turned Coopers into the living embodiment of ‘Forever Original’.
Results
This resulted in brand attribute increases across areas of fun, young and exciting — where Coopers historically had a competitive disadvantage. This placed the brand in a more dynamic light, ensuring it stays relevant in the market.
Measures for Desire, Distinctiveness, and Purchase Intent also improved, particularly among younger drinkers aged 18-34:
Desire – 77%. (17% above benchmark)
Distinctiveness – 64% (11% above benchmark)
Purchase intent – 93% (23% above benchmark)
Importantly, media also delivered on our reach and frequency goals, resulting in 91% (1.3M) reach with a frequency of 44x.
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TBWA\Melbourne, ‘Welcome to Melbourne’, Specsavers
Specsavers’ renowned ‘Should’ve Gone to Specsavers’ tagline has been in-market for over 17 years. The popular colloquialism is synonymous in Australia with visual mistakes that would have been obvious to the clear sighted. The challenge is keeping new work fresh and attention-grabbing.
In 2024, Specsavers launched a new global AV campaign set at an airport, leaving one traveller frazzled, ending far from their intended destination. Rather than extending the same airport related sight joke into a ‘matching luggage’ OOH, we wanted to create something that would travel far and wide.
Airport travel is universally stressful, and this insight led to the creative idea. This heightened state of stress makes travellers more susceptible to sight-related blunders. Perfect for a ‘Should’ve Gone to Specsavers’ moment.
Instead of portraying a sight-related gag, we let the audience experience one. Baggage carousel and airport exit signage doesn’t usually draw news media attention, make the front page of Reddit, get shared across social media, and be discussed at length on talk-back-radio. But this campaign did.
Landing at any destination, large signs welcomed you to the city – just not the location travellers were expecting. Instead, we welcomed travellers to the wrong airport. Oops!
Passengers landing in Sydney were welcomed to Melbourne, those in Melbourne welcomed to Sydney, Brisbane to Darwin, and so on… We did this in OOH placements at every major airport in the country and extended the idea into digital placements targeting Uber rides too.
The ‘Welcome To’ campaign for Specsavers disrupted a familiar travel experience (airport wayfinding signs), and engaged audiences at key touchpoints in the travelling journey (baggage carousel, overhead signs, and roadside billboards). The signs were placed at high-traffic locations ensuring mass exposure, leading to the campaign’s viral impact and reach far beyond traditional Outdoor and the airport itself.
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This Is Flow, ‘Real-Time Runway’, MESHKI
In its quest to evolve from a social-first e-commerce brand into a real-world fashion authority, MESHKI needed to build offline salience by owning a significant cultural moment. The challenge was to transcend a static presence with a dynamic solution that resonated with its digitally-native audience. Our insight was to bridge MESHKI’s online influence with tangible credibility by turning a traditional OOH campaign into a live, reactive feed.
We executed a media-first, full-scale takeover of Melbourne’s Southern Cross Station, transforming it into a fast-moving, shoppable environment. A dynamic content pipeline allowed us to update all digital panels every 15 minutes with real-time influencer and paparazzi-style content captured trackside at the F1. Interactive QR codes served as the shoppable link between the physical and digital worlds, allowing audiences to browse the “Race Day Looks” collection on their phones.
This innovative approach proved to be a powerful performance engine, with outcomes exceeding all benchmarks. The campaign drove a +20% sales uplift in Victoria, which accelerated to +40% in the four weeks that followed. It also drove a +36% increase in website sessions, more than double the industry average for a typical OOH campaign.
Ultimately, this campaign transformed OOH from a static broadcast channel into a dynamic, real-time engagement engine. By using culturally precise, real-time creative, MESHKI leveraged the power of earned media to become the subject of conversation, not just a passive advertiser. This strategy now serves as a blueprint for global brand elevation, proving that the most effective brand-building isn’t about the medium; it’s about how you use it.
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Wavemaker, ‘Wear SPF Every (Sunny) Day’, Garnier / L’Oreal
For horror films, channel activation can be limited. Faced with content restrictions across many conventional formats for ‘being too scary’, we needed to find a way to connect with fans and drive excitement for Paramount Pictures’ cinematic sequel, SMILE 2.
By creating our own permanent media channel in the form of tattoos, we circumvented traditional restrictions, avoided competition, and engaged our younger, ad-averse audience in a memorable and shareable way.
Key takeaways include identifying culturally relevant touchpoints, crafting exclusive experiences that foster community, and leveraging strategic partners to amplify impact.
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