Work of the Year: LBB AUNZ’s Favourite Campaigns of 2025
As the year comes to a close, the LBB AUNZ team has examined our 2025 Work of the Week archive to select our favourite campaigns from the year.
Here, managing editor Brittney Rigby, news and features editor Tess Connery-Britten, managing director Toby Hemming, and reporters Lilya Murray and Tom Loudon make their top picks.
It’s Better With Spark - Spark - Colenso BBDO
Brittney Rigby, AUNZ managing editor
A relatable moment — a lack of phone coverage resulting in borrowing a friend’s phone — makes way for something epic: a car breaking apart to send its passenger on a solo adventure through gorgeous New Zealand landscapes, a nightclub, and snow; featuring dumplings and dancing and a goat.
It’s quirky, but it’s also clever — positioning Spark as an experience-provider as much as a telco, and injecting the category with creativity (just as agency Colenso has done with Spark-owned Skinny in New Zealand, and Telstra has done in Australia). The full 90” spot is where the magic is, but sadly only ran in cinemas, with TV and social channels getting cutdowns. But the media play is perhaps fitting for the mini blockbuster.
My love for this film (and its perfect soundtrack) grows every time I watch it. It’s silly and strange and funny and warm and emotional and very Kiwi. A true delight.
‘Into Art’ - Telstra - +61 and Bear Meets Eagle on Fire
Brittney Rigby, managing editor
I could make an argument for Telstra’s entire 2025 catalogue to appear on this list, yet I can’t help but feel like ‘Into Art’ remains underrated.
It totally surprised me. The telco had already shown us it cared about craft, but out of nowhere launched this three-minute, documentary-style film about three people who don’t like art being made into art.
It was a total departure from its work to date — CMO Brent Smart is adamant he wants the brand to feel the same, not look the same — and saw an incredibly talented sculptor named Sam Jinks made three lifelike sculptures of Wally, Midori, and Bradley, the latter of whom, “went past the Louvre and went to the pub.” Now, the trio are immortalised in silicone, resin, and fibreglass at the National Gallery of Victoria.
It isn’t pretentious or condescending. And it is charming and Aussie and beautifully generous. This is what a brand committing to the arts really looks like.
The Cobbler - Telstra - Bear Meets Eagle on Fire and +61
Tess Connery-Britten, news and features editor
Tess Connery-Britten, news and features editor
In a year of outstanding Telstra work, ‘The Cobbler’ is the beautifully-crafted campaign that sticks in my mind: a fairytale brought to life in regional Australia as a cobbler drives a shoe cart around town. The cart was built from cement, tiles and bricks -- as heavy as it is detailed, but floating effortlessly through the landscape on camera.
The Steve Rogers-directed film is whimsical and perfectly in line with the ‘Wherever We Go’ platform, whilst also giving us something entirely different. In some ways, it’s reminiscent of the brand’s 2024 Christmas spot, which featured an equally whimsical singing donkey travelling the country, and also shone a spotlight on regional Australia. Except this time, the spot targets businesses, showing the telco is willing to invest just as much craft and care into a B2B ad.
We Go There - SBS - Droga5 ANZ, part of Accenture Song
Toby Hemming, APAC managing director
Turning 50 is usually a cue for reflection, restraint, and a gentle slide into comfortable maturity. A moment to grow up, calm down and maybe reach for a cardigan. Thankfully, SBS has never been much interested in that sort of thing.
To mark its milestone birthday, the broadcaster created an ad you quite literally cannot watch anywhere else. ‘We Go There’ is built on a simple, confident truth that SBS shows things others will not, and sets out to prove it.
The result is a 60” film featuring full frontal nudity throughout, acting as a reminder that SBS has always preferred risk to safety. There is, quite literally, a lot on show, but this is not shock for shock’s sake. The execution is playful, self aware, and unmistakably SBS. The nudity is the device, not the point.
Does it make audiences see SBS as braver than they assumed, or simply remember that it always has been? Either way, in a world obsessed with reach, making something deliberately unshareable is a smart and brave move, bold, funny and very SBS. Thank goodness it turns out that 50 does not mean settling down after all.
Silent Films - Telstra - Bear Meets Eagle on Fire, +61
Lilya Murray, AUNZ reporter
Three cinema-only films -- ‘Magnetic Boy’, ‘Four-Legged Friend’, and ‘Mirror, Mirror’ -- pay homage to old Hollywood, accompanied by a haunting soundtrack and attractively reinventing the traditional 'silence your phone' message.
They perfectly appeal to their audience -- strange and crafted enough to be appreciated by film buffs, and despite that strangeness, feeling very human in a year characterised by debate around AI’s role in creativity.
Time Machine No, Thyme Yes - Uber Eats - Special
Lilya Murray, AUNZ reporter
Cher orders a time machine via Uber Eats with the intention of returning to the beloved 1980s, but is unexpectedly rerouted to the 1680s. And despite being ‘burned alive’ on suspicion of being a witch, she remains delightfully deadpan.
My favourite attempt at humour in this film is the ‘anti-ageing cream’ search in Cher’s history: visible for two seconds max. The comedy is superbly done, evident in the fact it has run all year and is still enjoyable.
It's an incredible addition to the 'Get Almost, Almost Anything' platform -- holding tight to distinctive brand assets like the green bag, doorbell, celeb appearance, and style of humour, yet still surprising and delighting. A campaign that works hard for the brand without feeling like hard work for audiences.
Karangahape Returns - Karangahape Road Business Association - Motion Sickness
Tom Loudon, AUNZ reporter
Motion Sickness genuinely cares deeply about the City of Auckland.
This year alone, the indie took home two Cannes Grands Prix, a Grand Effie, and was named an Immortal Awards global finalist -- all while delivering stunning OOH supporting Auckland’s Restaurant Month, launching a fleet of vintage taxis offering free, one-way rides into Auckland’s CBD, and encouraging foot traffic on Auckland’s famous Karangahape Road.
A strip once celebrated among the world's coolest streets, Karangahape Road has seen thinning footfall, its vibrant past slipping into memory. In a bid to tell a different story, ‘Karangahape Returns’ transformed shopping receipts into a new kind of currency.
For two weeks, the space operated as a hybrid of souvenir shop, museum, and economic experiment. A receipt from a local purchase became legal tender for objects defying conventional value: a jar of pasta water from iconic restaurant Coco’s Cantina, a full back tattoo from artist Thom Hinton, a deadstock suit from a legendary tailor, and even a one-month lease on the pop-up shop itself.
As Motion Sickness founder Sam Stuchbury said, the pop-up is a love letter to Karangahape Road itself. The project, framed as a “twisted loyalty programme” meets “experimental art project”, inverted traditional retail logic and actively built the world it advertises, proving the most powerful way to save a street isn't just to talk about culture, but to contribute to it.
Scamageddon - Telstra - Bear Meets Eagle on Fire, +61
Tom Loudon, AUNZ reporter
Cybersecurity advertising can feel impersonal, with threats like faceless lines of code or anonymous hooded silhouettes. But in Steve Buscemi, the Aussie telco found a far more memorable antagonist.
As a bumbling alien emperor (overlord of the Zalunians), the actor launches a retro-futuristic fleet to inflict "scamageddon" upon Australia, only to be thwarted by Telstra's secure network.
Directed by Randy Krallman and shot in Prague, each scene pays homage to the aesthetics and nostalgia surrounding sci-fi villains, with a deliberately crafted retro-futuristic world of analogue buttons and box monitors.
Embodying a menacing yet familiar villain, Steve Buscemi provided “lovely accidents” like unscripted riffs in a made-up alien language, elevating the work into an engaging character piece.
The campaign came on the heels of Telstra’s dominant award run, including a Cannes Grand Prix and Marketing Team and CMO of the Year at AWARD. The telco’s creative momentum has shaken up the category in the AUNZ market, intending not only to lead with technology, but with unforgettable, craft-rich storytelling.
