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Leo Australia

Team PROFILE

Agency Type

Creative

Ownership

Publicis Groupe

tagline

The Business of Reinvention

LEADERSHIP TEAM​

Clare Pickens

CEO

Andy Fergusson

CCO

Catherine King

CSO

Julia Sheehan

GM Melbourne

Amanda Wheeler

Chief client partner

Tim Woolford

ECD

Tommy Cehak

ECD

Key Stats

Offices

Sydney, Melbourne

Headcount

115+

Gender Balance Staff

M: 46%
F: 51%
Non-binary: 3%

Gender Balance Leaders

M: 40%
F: 60%

Client book

Client Wins

4

Client Losses

0

Client extensions

N/A

Largest clients

Suncorp

ANZ Bank

HBF

Agency Scorecards report

Leo is nearly unrecognisable from the agency it was just two years ago—and not merely because it dropped the Burnett name.

CEO Clare Pickens injected some serious gusto into the Publicis-owned agency and it regularly finds itself at the top table of creative agencies in Australasia.

The agency described 2025 as a “defining” year for the business and it isn’t hard to see why.

Its revenue climbed significantly over the year driven by some important new business wins. In 2024, it won the consolidated creative account for all of Suncorp’s brands and ANZ Bank, onboarding them in 2025. In 2025, it became AOR for Fitness First and Nature’s Own, as well winning project work for Canon and ABC News too.

The Publicis Groupe didn’t tell B&T if any of its agencies lost accounts during 2025. However, we didn’t record any client losses for the agency. Nor did it have to contest any defensive pitches.

But it was in the work where Leo really shone. Lots of agencies talk about moving beyond just advertising but Leo is really doing it.

The B&T Award-winning (and Cannes Lions Titanium finalist) ‘Haven’ for Suncorp is a fascinating piece of technology and builds deep brand interactions.

Its ‘AAMI Driving Test’ again builds a brand interaction that most marketers would crave. Its work for Suncorp would also result in a Gold Australian Effie and the Grand Effie, while winning a Gold APAC Effie.

Its less-awarded work for brands such as Red Rooster and Prime Video also caught B&T’s eye, proving that the agency can bring a sense of levity to proceedings too.

In its submission, Leo said its leadership prioritised a culture of transparency, stability and clarity of direction, and that its own internal engagement audits had made progress on those fronts.

Its monthly all-staff Shareathon sessions celebrate the work, provide transparent updates on agency performance and recognise team contributions. Its brilliantly named twice-yearly Leopalooza days are used to focus development across the agency.

Leo told us that it reviews its gender pay gap quarterly and its median gender pay gap within the agency stands at zero.

Over the course of the year it developed inclusive leadership training and its access and inclusion plan to help boost diversity in its office. Through the Publicis Groupe’s Viva la Difference framework and the Baby and Child Feeding Policy, it offers a flexible workplace for parents.

It also revised its staff training syllabus with quarterly Business Management sessions that focus training to equip leaders with stronger financial literacy and strategic thinking capabilities.

This is the sort of work that won’t make the top of the hit parade, but will ensure Leo’s band members are all finely tuned for years to come.

Hightlights reel

Suncorp: 'Haven'

Over the last five years, Suncorp has shifted its strategy from ‘recovery’ to ‘resilience’. Because if people make their homes stronger in the face of extreme weather, it reduces claims, displacement and trauma, as well as making premiums cheaper.

Protecting both the Australian way of life, and the insurance industry itself.

A study has also shown that 9 out of 10 claims include avoidable damage. So, Suncorp has created multiple innovative brand acts and products to help make Australian homes more resilient. Including ‘One House To Save Many’ and ‘Resilience Rd’. Now Suncorp is taking all those learnings and applying them to Haven, its most ambitious project, which puts resilience in the hands of every Australian.

Suncorp Haven is a world-first, data-led digital platform that gives every one of Australia’s 11 million homes a unique risk assessment. Telling homeowners exactly what they need to do to make their home more resilient to the specific threat it faces.

It utilises dozens of technologies and massive data sets to deliver the experience. And it is also the first time an insurer has shared its own data and insights to help people reduce their own risk.

Homeowners are encouraged to type in their home address. Haven then pulls from 12 massive data sets, and uses live APIs to create an immersive cinematic experience, uniquely tailored for them.

It tells users about their home’s specific risks, and what they should do to make it more resilient. It even connects them to local tradespeople to do the work. And all the information is collated in a downloadable report. The platform has been supported by TV, OOH, social, PR and digital media.

Hightlights reel

AAMI: ‘THE AAMI DRIVING TEST’

We invited all  Australians to join a nationwide competition to find out who was Australia’s safest driver. We gamified safe driving, and made it something to brag about.

The driving test is built into the AAMI app, and powered by telemetry data. So, every trip became a personalised live score based on speed, braking, acceleration and phone use.

To drive participation, we sparked classic rivalries across the country to see who’s the better driver. Boomers or zoomers? Sydney or Melbourne? Dog people or cat people?

A live leaderboard tracked the competition. Rewarding top drivers with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of prizes and the chance to be crowned Australia’s best driver.

We launched at Australia’s biggest sporting event, the AFL Grand Final, to spark our competitive spirit. And the campaign ran across TV, dynamic OOH, social, digital and PR. As the competition grew, the driver score became the ultimate flex.

We even partnered with athletes to put their driver score on their jerseys. And all that data fed dynamic ads all over the country. So, when redheads drove better than blondes, for example, we told them. And if drivers needed to work on their score, they were served bespoke tips.

The campaign received national earned media coverage, almost 134,000 app downloads (exceeding target by 34 per cent), and nearly 100 million kilometres of road tracked throughout the competition period.

The campaign shifted driver awareness and attitudes – with 86 per cent agreeing that the AAMI Driving Test reminded them or made them more aware of the importance of road safety, while 61 per cent said they were motivated to drive safely because safe driving is being recognised and rewarded. But most importantly, drivers became safer after participating.

With an increase of 18.7 points for entrants starting with a drivers score of 50 or below, and 13.7 points for entrants starting between 51-60 points.

Hightlights reel

Destination NSW: 'Feel Feelings You've Never Felt Before'

While most Aussies have been to Sydney once, qualitative research undertaken by The Lab showed that people know Sydney for its incredible icons, but there’s a sense that once domestic travellers have seen these, Sydney doesn’t offer anything significantly different from other cities, so they don’t return.

We had to make Aussies completely reappraise its most famous city. 

The next chapter of Destination NSW’s ‘Feel New’ platform is designed to help locals and visitors reappraise Sydney as a vibrant, surprising and evolving destination. The campaign spotlights the Harbour City’s infinite range of experiences – the kind you might only hear from a local.

The brand draws inspiration from Sydney’s vibrant culture – particularly as home to the largest Aboriginal population, custodians of the world’s oldest living culture – and its spectacular natural landscapes.

The next chapter in DNSW’s ‘Feel New’ platform encouraged people in the other states to come to Sydney to ‘Feel feelings they’ve never felt before’. 

We created four films that showed a protagonist being snapped out of the everyday feelings they were experiencing to feel something entirely new in Sydney. In OOH, we created bold and dynamic visuals that would make people immediately stop and reappraise what they thought Sydney was about. In digital, we created a dynamic itinerary tool that would mix and match unique experiences that only Sydney could offer.

Destination NSW also partnered with six NSW Icons of Culture – Olympian Jess Fox, comedic duo The Inspired Unemployed, ultra-marathon runner Nedd Brockmann, content mastermind Lucinda Price (aka Froomes), ARIA-winning musician Budjerah and chef Dan Hong.

Each icon curated their own personal itinerary – ‘Feeling Drops’ – offering visitors a fresh, feeling-led way to experience the city, whether it’s the energy of an early-morning harbour kayak with Jess Fox or taking in the beauty of the Hawkesbury River and freshly picked oysters on a Sydney Oyster Tour with Dan Hong. This huge integrated campaign utilised TV, OOH, digital, social and PR. And focussed on the markets of regional NSW, Queensland and Victoria.

Impact of Feel New campaign include: $34.8M generated in visitor expenditure. Sydney became #1 position for 12 month consideration for a trip to Sydney amongst domestic travellers – overtaking Melbourne. 

Leo's take on 2025

It was Leo’s year. With new clients, new hires and new momentum we re-established ourselves as a leading creative agency in the market.

We embedded our new positioning and propriety OS, and smashed our own sustainable growth targets consolidating Suncorp Group, ANZ Bank and new business wins for ABC News, Nature’s Own, Cenovis and Fitness First.

Significant new business wins drove talent growth opportunities in both offices, leading to a slew of internal promotions, exciting new hires and completely new roles, such as our first ever Transformation Director.

Success was cemented by the launch of work such as AAMI Australia’s Driving Test, DNSW Feel New for DNSW and Amazon Prime Video, Go Full Cricket; and by wins such as; the Australian Grand Effie for our sustained transformational Suncorp platform, LIA’s Creative Agency of the Year (Australia) and contributing to Leo’s continued success as APAC Creative Network of the Year.

Michelle Walsh, Creative director

One of our most seasoned creative leaders, Michelle continues to consistently deliver innovative and cutting-edge work.

If we were a band, we'd be...

Beyonce, Cher, David Bowie, Lady Gaga, Tyler the Creator

As a legacy agency constantly reinventing ourselves for the next genre or the modern audience, we would liken ourselves to great artists who stand the test of time but who are able to constantly reinvent, to find creative expression in all genres and to appeal to the changing desires of their audiences.

Critic's Comment

“Leo is now firmly ensconced as one of the country’s top bands and it continues to deliver impressive and effective music for clients.”

Leo Australia

B&T's Agency Score

8.5

Previous season: 8.5

This year's Agency Scorecard was assessed by an Advisory Panel.

See all Agency scorecards
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