Melbourne-based creative agency Apparition Media has copped a hefty $30,000 fine after it failed to get council permission after erecting a massive billboard for Australian Avocados on the side of an inner Sydney unit block.
The agency – which specialises in hand-painted ads and billboards – got whacked by the NSW Local Court on Monday for the ad that appeared back in 2021 during the delayed Tokyo Olympics.
Australian Avocados promoted heavily during the Games and even won $1 million of free advertising after its campaign was crowned the best ad campaign during the Olympics by broadcaster Seven’s TV audience. Read B&T’s original reporting HERE.
The TVC for the campaign was created by TBWA\Sydney.
Apparition’s offending ad was painted down the side of a Darlinghurst apartment block and measured almost 37 metres in length and came with the tag “our green gold Australian avocados”.
However, Apparition bosses failed to get permission to run the spot from the local council, the City of Sydney, who subsequently launched legal action arguing it was run within a local heritage conservation area and had been erected to seek “corporate gain”.
Appearing in court on Monday, Apparition’s co-founder Tyson Hunter admitted he had failed to seek Council approval because the ad was commissioned on an “urgent basis” and he had concerns any approval process would cost him the $141,000 commission from the agency’s client.
According to The Daily Telegraph, it’s not the first time Apparition had been in strife for illegal billboards. The agency had previously run unapproved work promoting Nicole Kidman’s 2020 TV series The Undoing and was also behind the famous Adam Goodes mural in Sydney’s Surry Hills.
Handing down her judgement, magistrate Christine Haskett said Apparition Media was aware it needed to gain council approval for the avocado ad and found it breached environmental planning and assessment laws.
“Quite simply, (Apparition Media) should not have carried out the development in circumstances where it knew or ought to have known it was prohibited,” Haskett said per The Tele.
The magistrate fined the agency $40,000, which was reduced to $30,000 following the agency’s guilty plea. It was also ordered it to pay the council’s legal costs.
B&T has reached out to Apparition Media for further comment.
