Innocean

It was a big year for Innocean in 2025.

After launching its media division in 2024 to service the Hyundai (which owns 10 per cent of Innocean), Geotab and Sandhurst accounts the agency said it embarked on a “radical knockdown rebuild” of its business model.

Now, it’s a “unique end-to-end offering” that fuses “creative, media, technology, and data”.

That change in approach has proven lucrative, with revenue climbing a quarter and headcount growing by nearly 40 per cent to 85 people. 

In fact, the media division now accounts for a quarter of Innocean’s business, handling north of $40 million in media billings, and has a team of more than 20 staff.

The business also unified its P&L between divisions, to help make that integration more complete.

The agency now lists 10 clients on its books, including new retained additions Carnival Cruise Line and Scope. Innocean now manages the creative and production for both.

Its work for Carnival started as a project, which became a brand campaign followed by a retainer agreement. In fact, Carnival is now Innocean’s third-largest client, behind Hyundai and Kia. It did lose one account in 2025, though it described it as not “significant”.

Innocean’s creative work—notably its activities for Kia—certainly caught the eye with the ‘Tasman Town’ and ‘Zombies’ campaigns setting the bar for automotive advertising very high in what is often a bland, derivative category. It’s impressive stuff, to say the least. The work would result in two bronze APAC Effies.

Under band leader Jasmin Bedir’s stewardship, Innocean has become a vocal proponent of gender equality. It’s no surprise that it likened itself to Rage Against the Machine in its submission, saying it has “a shared activist mentality and an uncompromising commitment to challenging the status quo”.

That activist spirit manifests in Innocean’s Fck The Cupcakes social enterprise and its more recent research into modern masculinity, The Invisible Man. Both these initiatives spotlight important issues that the industry should be more vocal about.

Innocean boasts a 55 per cent female leadership team and has a very diverse workforce throughout its ranks.

It also offers some industry leading support initiatives for staff including menopause leave, a new gender affirmation policy, gender neutral parental leave fully funded (including super) up to 12 weeks. Parents are also given ‘soft landing’ when returning from parental leave with up to two months of guaranteed working from home.

That said, Innocean’s median gender pay gap rose from 9.8 per cent to 22 per cent during the calendar year. The agency said this was due to its new media team being predominantly male, and its head of media Kathryn Furnari departing for Thinkerbell, and Tom Cumberworth joining as GM of media.