Kiwi agency Special NZ wins big at the Oscars of the advertising world

Special New Zealand's Lisa Fedyszyn, (centre) Jono McMahon (right) and Tony Bradbourne (left). The creative agency won big at the "Oscars of the advertising world" in London last week. Photo / Herald composite

A New Zealand creative agency wins big at an international awards ceremony held in London.

Special New Zealand, a creative, PR and advertising agency based in Ponsonby, last week beat out global giants to win a slew of awards in London, including Global Creative Agency of the Year.

Special’s founder, creative chairman and New Zealand CEO Tony Bradbourne tells Spy the Campaign Global Agency of the Year Awards, a swanky black-tie award ceremony held at Jumeirah Carlton Tower in London’s Belgravia, were a big moment for the New Zealand creative company.

“For Special New Zealand to be named Global Creative Agency of the Year for the second year in a row is real ‘pinch yourself’ stuff,” says Bradbourne.

He explains the awards were a big moment for Special, which has gone from a three-person start-up in Kingsland in 2007 and been built up into New Zealand’s first global creative network - now with offices in Auckland, Wellington, Sydney, Melbourne, Los Angeles, New York and London.

Bradbourne attended the awards with Special New Zealand partner and chief strategic officer Rory Gallery. They had stepped off a plane that morning so their celebrations were short and sharp on the night but, over the next few days as the wins sank in, a few beers were raised.

Special New Zealand chief strategic officer Rory Gallery (left) with the agency's founder and CEO, Tony Bradbourne, at the Campaign Global Agency of the Year Awards in London.

The two men weren’t the only Kiwis mingling among the who’s-who of global agency leaders, who help guide many of the world’s biggest and most well-known brands, and the CEOs of media companies that oversee hundreds of millions of dollars of media spending.

Bradbourne and Gallery sat with fellow Kiwis Sam Stuchbury and Hilary Ngan Kee from NZ creative agency Motion Sickness, who won two silver awards in the coveted Global Creative Agency of the Year and Global Independent Agency of the Year categories. Bradbourne says Motion Sickness is another brilliant independent New Zealand agency generating a lot of attention and good work.

Special has a track record of using celebrities in innovative ways.

Their first major campaign in New Zealand in 2009 featured the godfather of punk: Iggy Pop for Orcon. That won a Cannes Grand Prix, and even received special congratulations in Parliament.

This year, Special Group produced their fourth Super Bowl hit for Uber Eats featuring David and Victoria Beckham, Jennifer Aniston, David Schwimmer and Usher.

Last year Kiwi audiences saw All Blacks and Black Ferns in the “Just Like the Rest of Us” Uber campaign and most recently the group’s current work with Bridgerton star Nicola Coughlan, doing a double period parody in Uber Eats ad “Get Almost, Almost Anything”.

Creative agency Special was behind a recent Uber Eats ad featuring Bridgerton's Nicola Coughlan.

The agency’s global growth and numerous past awards have made headlines previously, but for Bradbourne, receiving this latest string of awards is like winning the equivalent of the Oscars’ Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor awards.

As well as Special winning its second Global Creative Agency award, Bradbourne also won the Global Creative Agency Leader category. This was a first for any agency leader from the Southern Hemisphere. The company’s Auckland CCOs - creative duo Lisa Fedyszyn and Jono McMahon - also won Global Creative Leaders.

“There are arguably way, way too many advertising award shows in the world, and therefore too many ‘agency of the year’ awards,” says Bradbourne.

“It can devalue any agency’s win when a different agency is winning a title every other month.”

He explains the Campaign Awards were created by industry bible Campaign, based in the UK. They decided to settle the score once and for all and pit the best agencies of the year from the US, the UK, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific against each other to find out who is the best of the best.

“It’s judged by leading chief marketing officers from around the world, the submissions are lengthy and detailed, and it’s all audited by PWC,” he says.

Bradbourne cites local work for clients like Partners Life, Kiwibank, Tourism New Zealand, Kathmandu, Uber Eats, Contact Energy, Wellington City Mission and Better Packaging Company as being big contributors to Special’s wins.

“We are very lucky at Special to have some really smart and ambitious clients that push us to knock it out of the park every time,” he says.

Bradbourne says it’s not just having a creative product that wins a global title. The judges looked for a perfect performance that covered business results, effectiveness, innovation, industry contribution and programmes from everyone at Special. And this also blew the judges away.

“Doing all of that well really makes Special stand out on the world stage,” Bradbourne says.

“It’s the scope of the projects we do, and the fact that earlier in the year we were named Most Effective Agency in both NZ and Apac by the Global EFFIE awards also really made it a compelling package to be judged on - brilliant, clever creativity which generates world-beating commercial results.”

Bradbourne says being an agency on the edge of the world creates a unique perspective.

“It sometimes feels like we are looking in on all the trends, but not necessarily part of them,” he says.

“It gives us a fresh approach and understanding of global issues and allows us to frame them in a completely new way.”

He explains as they don’t usually have the luxury of huge media budgets to achieve success, they usually have to think much harder and maximise every dollar of a much smaller budget.

“Rather than that being a barrier, it’s actually an inspiration.”

Bradbourne acknowledges many Kiwi businesses have been navigating some pretty challenging conditions over the last two years.

“It has made it even more vital that they’ve got the best brains in the room supercharging their business.”