Earned media and PR has never played a more pivotal role in how a brand is seen, trusted and experience by consumers. The very best get into the minds of punters through brilliantly creative earned media coverage and some good old-fashioned PR pitching that directly connects target audiences to brands.
This Best of the Best list, like most, was far from easy to put together and we leant heavily on the insights of a suite of industry insiders, as well as our Best of the Best nominations form below.
We did want to give an honourable mention to HerdMSL’s Skye Lambley, Organic’s Sarah Smith, Aruga’s Donna Kramer and WiredCo’s Michelle Hampton, all extremely talented consumer PRs who came across our desk on numerous occasions.
Before you go any further, make sure you nominate suggestions for future B&T Best of the Best lists. We read all of your suggestions and we take them into account. Next week, we’re looking at the Experiential Agency Leaders. Let us know who you think should be on the list by submitting a nomination below:
Without further ado, here are B&T’s Top 10 Best of the Best Consumer PRs!
10. Emma-Jane (EJ) Granleese, CEO and founder, History Will Be Kind
Emma-Jane (EJ) Granleese founded History Will Be Kind (HWBK) in March 2014, building a team committed to creating great work at the crossroads of public relations, social media and digital communications. Working with clients across technology, FMCG, health, retail, travel, tourism, infrastructure, non-profit and entertainment, Granleese and the team creates moments in, well, history.
Before founding HWBK, Granleese was the managing director of Weber Shandwick Australia, where she also oversaw the sister company GolinHarris. Under her leadership, Weber Shandwick became one of the top-performing agencies in the region. She is particularly skilled in leading and rallying high performing teams, part of the reason why HWBK is one of the fastest-growing and most-awarded independent agencies in ANZ.
B&T continues to recognise Granleese for her significant work in the space, listed in the Women in Media Power list from 2020 to 2022 and crowned in the Women in Media Awards in the PR category multiple times (2018, 2020, 2022)
9. Laura Cario, managing partner, Havas Red
Laura Cario has over 16 years of experience in this space, collating extensive expertise in implementing strategic PR, social media and marketing campaigns. Along the way, she has worked across various sectors including food, beverage, travel, tourism, lifestyle, health, beauty and FMCG.
Cario has spent the last two years at Havas Red as the managing partner of consumer and brand, where she leads a team of close to 20 PR and influencer professionals. She stepped into the role following a seven-year tenure at Edelman Australia, where she led its operations across the brand, food, beverage and tourism sectors.
Havas Red’s ‘Odd Jobs’ for Tourism Tasmania is a Finalist in the Best Consumer PR Campaign category at this year’s forthcoming B&T Awards. This smart, insightful PR campaign addressed the softened influx of travellers in winter. It proved a hit, too, surpassing all KPIs and becoming the most successful PR campaign in Tasmania’s history.
8. James Curtis, head of consumer PR & influence, Ogilvy PR
James Curtis has been at Ogilvy PR for nearly a decade and brings more than 18 years of experience across Australia and the UK. In his role he plays a key role in new business growth and agency leadership, helping guide the day-to-day running of the business, strengthening its creative excellence and driving the next stage of growth.
Curtis has been client lead on KFC for eight years and has been instrumental in making it one of Australia’s most creatively recognised brands. His approach combines earned-first thinking with cultural insight to create work that sparks conversation and drives measurable impact. Beyond KFC, Curtis applies his earned-first thinking across a number of other accounts including Tourism New Zealand, eBay, ING and Coca-Cola.
Across his decorated 18 year career, Curtis has led major earned-led initiatives in tourism, aviation, sport, technology, gaming, FMCG and the NGO sector. Highlights include leading the launch of the Invictus Games in Australia (also managing Prince Harry’s visit) and working on Tourism Australia’s domestic strategy through the pandemic and into its global ‘Come and Say G’Day’ campaign.
Ogilvy PR was responsible for the nostalgic and much-loved ‘Meet me at the Coke sign’ campaign. With thousands of people passing by Sydney’s Kings Cross billboard every day, Coca-Cola proudly shared the milestone with those who also hold a connection to the sign. Ogilvy brought these milestones to life by securing national media coverage, including a heartfelt segment on Channel 7, shining a spotlight on Sydney locals and their real-life moments.
7. Dena Vassallo, CEO and founder, SOCIETY
Described by one of industry peers to B&T as a “gun”, Vassallo brings 20 years of international experience at some of the world’s largest and most influential communications agencies to the table. In 2017 Vassallo founded SOCIETY, delivering an authentic approach to marketing communications.
Her impact can’t be questioned, taking out Bronze as the PR Leader of the Year at the 2024 CPRA Golden Target Awards. This award added to the hefty collection of metal, including four CPRA Golden Target Awards, including the Medium Agency of the Year.
SOCIETY has an impressive portfolio, working with Woolworths, Optus, Unilever and Stockland. Last year, the female-led agency expanded into the US, and it continued this momentum picking up Violet Crumble and YPulse in the overseas market. Just yesterday, it announced it had added Rydges Hotels & Resorts, Minda, Pixelforce and City of Holdfast Bay to its list of clients.
On Aussie shores, SOCIETY recently highlighted the importance of full funding for public schools. It did this by launching a month-long national road show to create media moments that would capture the attention of politicians. The ‘For Every Child’ campaign attracted widespread coverage national news outlets including radio, broadcast, print and social.
6. Stuart Terry, founder and director, We Are Different
We Are Different is an agency that represents the next generation of PR—a team who understands that although the media and creator landscape has changed, the power and influence of earned is as strong as ever. As consumers continue to skip past traditional ads, We Are Different has built a team and service capability that helps some of the world’s biggest brands earn the attention of the next generation.
Since founding the agency in 2019, Terry has led Different to become one of the industry’s most recognised and awarded independent earned-first creative agencies. Its planning, creative and production capabilities stretch across anything non-traditional, including earned, owned, social and influencer channels.
The agency’s success is attributed to its delivery of industry-leading work with year-on-year consistency. At this year’s B&T Awards alone, We Are Different is the most-nominated PR agency across categories, up for Best PR Campaign (2x nominations, one for Paramount+, one for Kleenex), Best Creator-Led Campaign (Fujifilm), Best Sponsorship Campaign (Jack Daniel’s), Best Retail Campaign (Kleenex) and Consumer PR Agency of the Year.
In 2024, We Are Different took out three golds and three silvers in the CRPA Golden Target awards, followed by being shortlisted for another four this year for its work on Fujifilm and Kleenex.
5. Alexandra Bryant, managing director, Special PR
Alexandra Bryant is a communications and marketing trailblazer with more than 15 years of experience in strategic communications, integrated marketing, brand building, content ideation and fostering stakeholder partnerships.
At Special PR, Bryant is tasked with leading the agency’s operations across Sydney and Melbourne, driving the PR offering in Australia. Before joining Special PR more than two years ago, Bryant spent time at Red Havas AU where she specialised in travel, tourism, food, beverage, retail and FMCG. Her key clients included BIG W, William Grant & Sons, Booking.com, Tourism Fiji, ABG, Ben & Jerry’s and NIVEA.
Special PR has yet again been recognised amongst the finalists in the B&T awards in the Best Consumer PR Campaign and Consumer PR Agency of the year categories. Its ‘Last Flight Club’ campaign for Virgin Australia and Visit Victoria chief among its standouts from the last 12 months. The riotously fun campaign delivered significant business results for Virgin and Melbourne alike.
4. Simone Gupta, co-founder, Supermassive
Simone Gupta, co-founder of Supermassive, is an absolute PR powerhouse who has built quite the resume over her 20 plus years in the industry. Before founding Supermassive with Laura Aldington and Jon Austin, Gupta was the head of Havas PR Australia, overseeing a portfolio that included Red Havas, One Green Bean, Havas BLVD and Organic.
She has also spent a lot of her career on the banks of Thames, holding significant leadership roles in London at agencies such as Edelman and Ogilvy PR. Here she was instrumental in winning major clients including Google, Vodafone and TK Maxx.
But more recently, Gupta lead the PR and government engagement strategy for social change initiative ’36 Months’, pioneered by Michael ‘Wippa’ Wiplfi and Rob Galluzzo, founder of FINCH.
The campaign demonstrates the power of earned-first, advocacy-led creativity. From parental concern to world-first law to the global stage, it is proof that strategic, culture-led campaigning can change not just minds, but systems, and safeguard an entire generation’s right to grow up on their own terms—which is why it has been shortlisted for B&T’s Best Consumer PR Campaign.
Supermassive’s night doesn’t end there as it is shortlisted for a quartet of B&T awards, including the hotly contested Consumer PR Agency of the year.
3. Taylor York, national head earned & owned thinker, Thinkerbell
Taylor York began his career in 2013 with internships at Mango Communications and McDonald’s. He has been with Thinkerbell for the better part of five years, joining in 2021 as lead thinker – earned.
Since then, York has quickly risen to his current position of national head earned and owned thinker, with the earned team growing five-fold and diversifying its services into influencer, social and AI. Taylor now also oversees and integrates the agency’s owned offering across Thinkerbell North (Sydney) and South (Melbourne, managing close to 25 PR, social and influencer experts across the agency.
York’s expertise spans marketing sciences-backed earned media, integrated strategy and creative, crisis communications, brand sponsorship, content production and influencer partnerships, making him and Thinkerbell key players in the industry.
In 2023, Thinkerbell took home B&T’s PR Agency of the year, followed by this year adding a silver in Cairns Crocodiles’ PR category for its work ‘Irresistibillboard’ for V Energy.
2. Rob Lowe, co-founder & CEO, Poem
Highly respected amongst his peers (and highly recommended by them to B&T), CEO and co-founder of Poem, Rob Lowe has more than 20 years in consumer communications. Over that time, Lowe worked at some of the world’s leading PR agencies, including Eleven (which he led the launch of in Australia), One Green Bean and Hausmann Communications. He even spent five years in London at Freud Communications. Lowe co-founded Poem in 2015 and now the agency works with top brands including Uber, PlayStation, McCain, Nespresso, Amazon, Tourism Australia and Sonos.
Poem has produced some impressive work in 2025, none more so than its work for Uber. ‘‘It’s Common Sense’ has the earned attention agency in the shortlist to win B&T’s Best Consumer PR Campaign. To raise awareness for Uber Green’s transition to a fully electric fleet, Poem wanted to show people that looking after the environment is the most ‘True Blue’ thing they can do. So Lowe and team turned to the most iconic Aussies to bring this idea to life—Michael Caton, Stephen Curry, and Anthony Simcoe. Poem was so confident that the hilarious ad was going to be talked about, it put no media spend behind it.
If Lowe is able to win such a stacked category, he will be adding more metal to his impressive collection of hardware.
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1. Kiefer Casamore, GM Melbourne & Amy Ashworth, MD Sydney, Eleven
Rounding out our list and taking out the hotly contested top spot is none other than the incredibly effective, talented and respected Kiefer Casemore and Amy Ashworth from Eleven—B&T’s reigning PR Agency of the year and again a finalist for this year.
Casamore is the general manager of Eleven Melbourne, where he is also the executive general manager. In his current role he leads all the business’ operations and the group’s creative output. He is a communications specialist and integrated marketer who across his career has gained extensive knowledge and experience working with brands and organisations across Australia and Europe.
Eleven Melbourne released last year, ‘Winnie-the-Pooh: The Deforested Edition’, a first-of-its-kind reimagining of the iconic 1926 children’s book. The campaign was created in partnership with Who Gives A Crap to draw attention to the catastrophic reality that over one million trees are cut down every single day to make traditional toilet paper, and as a result inspire people to make the switch to Who Gives A Crap’s 100 per cent recycled toilet paper.
Amy Ashworth is Casamore’s Sydney counterpart and has recently been promoted from general manager to manging director. Known for her leadership and innovative thinking, Ashworth plays a pivotal role in driving Eleven’s growth and shaping its reputation as a cultural impact powerhouse.
She started her impressive career in the UK, climbing through the ranks at 3 Monkeys and Liquid Ideas. She’s been with Eleven for eight years, Ashworth has worked with an impressive portfolio of clients including Allianz, Mastercard and Kellogg’s.
Recent standout work from Ashworth and the team includes the ‘Wheelchair Ballkid’ for Mastercard. Here, Eleven created a wheelchair ball-kid pilot program and 3D printable device to help people in wheelchairs pick up and store balls. All in order to make tennis tournaments more inclusive using technology. This powerful campaign not only helped Eleven secure front page news and TV coverage on every channel, but it also helped it take out B&T’s PR Agency of the year.
These two are the definition of consumer PR powerhouses, and that’s why the dynamic duo has taken out the top spot!
