Keen industry observers will have noticed that Special Australia has been on something of a roll over the past year or so.
Perhaps roll is underselling it. The agency has been excelling on every front.
Its new business success has been remarkable. The quality of its work, across clients of all shapes and sizes, has been near-unmatched.
And it continues to have one of the most compelling staff development packages and commensurately enticing opportunities for staff from whichever office to work on some of the largest and most important briefs in the industry.
It’s why Special was named Agency of the Year at the 2025 B&T Awards. It’s why the agency won eight separate trophies on the night, too. It’s also why the agency received 9.2 out of 10 in its recent B&T Agency Scorecard – currently the highest we’ve awarded thus far.
This success, however, is not the result of an alchemical blend and brutalising hard work. It is the result of two things: a “relentless” focus on finding the best talent, and that exceptional creativity is the only dependable lever creative agencies can pull to grow.
“We’ve been at this now for about 10 years. Everyone here has worked at other agencies. So the question in my brain is what’s the difference day-to-day working here versus working at another agency?” Julian Schreiber told B&T across the boardroom table in Special’s Surry Hills office.
“This is the first agency that I’ve ever worked at where there is an almost taken-for-granted belief that creativity legitimately pays the bills. That affects every decision you make, all the way through. It isn’t like it’s just the creative department that believes it, and then there are other people who are trying to find other ways of making money. Everyone believes it.
“The side effect of that is that good spreads because you try to make everything great, you try to make everything creative and everything interesting because you legitimately believe that it grows people’s businesses. I’m really proud of that, but I’m not surprised.”
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That attitude shows up in the work Special produces for clients, too. At the 2025 B&T Awards, it won Campaign of the Year trophies for four different clients with four very different executions and four very different budgets – no other agency demonstrated such a breadth of work.
Its ‘Mum-nipulate The Algorithm’ for Kitchen Warehouse (produced together with indie media agency Hatched) won Best Digital Campaign and the Data-Driven Marketing Award.
Its ‘Coopers Forever Original “1 of 1″‘ for the Coopers Brewery won Best Out of Home campaign.
Its internet-halting ‘Made for Down Under’ Bonds campaign starring Robert Irwin won Best Social Media Campaign.
Its inspired ‘Export Ultra Cold Call Back Service’ for DB Breweries won the Siren Award for Best Radio/Audio Campaign.
Quite remarkably, Special didn’t win any trophies for its work with Uber and Uber Eats, despite it having four campaigns shortlisted for the client. Such was the strength of the competition at last year’s awards.
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“All those jobs are very different sizes, scopes of work, shapes of work,” said Lindsey Evans, Special’s global parter and CEO.
“But that doesn’t matter when you put talent first, create a culture where that talent can thrive, the rest of it will look after itself. People will do the best work of their careers, that will go onto attract more clients and that will make us financially successful. And so it continues.
“But we’re never working around the scale of a project or a budget. That’s part of the pressure but it comes with the standard. All of our clients have a shared ambition, shared values. Kitchen Warehouse’s budget is very different to Uber’s. But that creates an environment for everyone to do the very best on every job. We’re really proud that we don’t just have one or two clients we’re doing great work on and loads of others that we just shove under the table.”
It’s an attitude that has led to a flourishing of Special’s business in Australia. In the course of the 2025 calender year, it won 11 pieces of new business including Warner Bros., Jack Link’s and Honda. It lost none (although none of its clients held a competitive pitch, either).
In total, it lists 33 clients – 12 on retainers and 21 as project-based clients. Outside of the clients we’ve mentioned already, the agency lists Chobani, Metcash, Origin Energy, TL and Virgin Australia among its retained businesses. It also has a seriously impressive list of project clients including Airbnb, Airwallex, RACV, Audible, Xero and even ANZ Bank, despite declining to take part inn its 2024 creative pitch.
Clearly, those clients all see the same thing: the work, works.
“There was a point three or four years ago… when it was perceived that we can do great work for Uber Eats but could we do it for everyone else?” said Heyde.
“Internally, too, it was felt that you had to be on Uber Eats to do great work. And I remember you [Schreiber] coming back from Cannes one year and saying how motivated you were to export our creative to our client base. I think it has been three or four years of hard work, culminating and spotting the opportunities. I think we’re seeing the fruits of that.”
We think Heyde might be being slightly hard on himself and the team there. We’ve run the numbers and since 2020, Special has won 18 Agency of the Year B&T Award trophies including three Grands Prix. One client doesn’t make an agency that prolific.
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What does, however, is a no-nonsense, low ego approach to deciding what’s right, what’s wrong and how to move forward. Debate is not only commonplace within Special, it’s encouraged.
“If you’re going to have debates, you’d better be open, brave and kind [Special’s values], otherwise you can really do some damage,” said Heyde.
That extends to the clients, too.
“I really like ‘listen to understand, not defend,'” added Sasha Firth, Special’s Sydney MD.
“With clients, internally or externally, it’s like ‘What’s the real part of the problem?’ Not ‘This is fine’ or ‘This is the answer you want’. It allows you to dismantle it, identify the problem and then come up with the answer.”
“That’s the genius power of Tom [Martin] and Jules [Schreiber],” added Evans.
“I’ve never seen creative leaders like them because most creatives are listening to defend the work on the table, not listening to understand whether the work we’ve put on the table was actually the right work in the first place. That’s a very hard job for a creative to do and they do it like no one I’ve ever seen before.”
Special’s team said it had a number of figurative and literal tactics to avoid complacency with work or falling into un-creative, non-thinking rhythms with clients and resolving problems which seem to be at an impasse. Handbrakes are pulled, physical elephants are ceremonially placed and then removed from rooms.
“It’s liberating for clients to be able to have that conversation. I’ve had it a couple of times with clients, saying to them ‘Remember we talked about the handbrake? I’m pulling it,'” said Firth.
“If it’s not quite right, don’t try to make it something it’s not.”
That openness leads to better work which, in turn leads to more clients which, in turn leads to better performing staff which, in turn leads to awards. Which do absolutely matter.
“They’re the currency of people’s careers, particularly creatives,” said Evans.
“I do struggle because there are too many awards in our industry and they’re not all created equal. I struggle with the agencies that say they don’t enter awards. You’re not participating in the industry to which you belong. But they matter not for the status and the trophy but they matter when you walk through the door. It’s an acknowledgement of everything that’s gone into what’s been done and achieved as a team.”
“We’d be lying as well if we said it didn’t help [get clients],” added Heyde.
“The number of times I’ve heard clients say they go onto B&T and look at the shortlists and say ‘Let’s speak to them’. It’s like you’ve done the hard part for them.”
“It doesn’t tire, either,” said Evans.
“I think back to the first time that we won Emerging Agency of the Year and I still get as nervous, as anticipatory, I still sweat and care about it, just like it was our first one we ever won.”
