TRUTH

When the day has been filled with frustration, there’s no better remedy than just sweating it out.

TRANSFORMATION

With daily pressures and niggles, life can get the better of you. But there’s a lot to be said about the power of exercise when trying to clear your head — we all know that feeling of exhilaration we get after exercising which helps us take on the day.

So, to launch the scientifically formulated POWERADE ION4 active water, we sought to inspire people of all ages to tackle life’s pressures head on, by sweating it all out.

Along with the new TVC, we employed our high profile POWERADE brand ambassadors, Sam Kerr and Dylan Alcott, across a series of creative executions on social, OOH, POS, and in fitness centres. Their presence gave the campaign an instant, authentic athletic presence in market, and truly helped to inspire Aussies to get active, and to sweat out the daily pressures of life.

TRUTH

Trains travel in a straight line. If you get hit by one, you’ve probably done something pretty silly, which makes getting hit by a train one of the dumbest ways to die.

TRANSFORMATION

Rather than a typically earnest public service announcement, McCann opted for a mix of offbeat humour, a catchy tune and a collection of amiable animated characters to launch our message as an online music video under the compelling title Dumb Ways to Die. Within 24 hours of its launch on 16 November 2012, the Dumb Ways to Die song reached the top 10 chart of iTunes and was ranked number six on the singer/songwriter category on the global iTunes chart just 48 hours later.

The video has now amassed over 200 million views and 5 million shares, making Dumb Ways to Die the most shared ad of all time.

TRUTH

When your brand embodies the spirit of living with no regrets, and unapologetically giving into your cravings, always – what music icon could Menulog possibly enlist to represent this philosophy as a brand ambassador? Did somebody say Snoop Dogg? Fo shizzle.

TRANSFORMATION

This is a perfect storm for how to turn one of the world’s self-confessed “lamest jingles” into a hip and happening rap track courtesy of Snoop – spawning the adoration not only of over 14 million Tik Tokkers, but also pretty much everyone who heard it.

Snoop’s iconic image has helped feed the minds of a nation across TV, outdoor, social, digital, radio – ensuring that Menulog’s catchy lyrics are now instantly stuck on repeat in people’s heads. And even enshrined in a thousand Tik Toks thanks to McCann Australia’s megahit Menulog #Deliverydance Challenge.

Thank you, my man.

TRUTH

V/Line is Victoria’s regional train operator, but with more, younger country folk living and playing in the city, less people were using the service to go home. Young Victorians were fleeing rural towns for the big city, and well, they were just too busy with their new lives to visit friends and relatives back home in the country. Which niggled them with guilt.

TRANSFORMATION

To increase V/Line’s patronage, we needed to give adult children in the city a reason to visit their parents in the country more often. So, we used the strongest power in the world — a parent’s guilt.

A brand new product was developed — The Guilt Trip: a pre-purchased ticket that people (such as parents) could send to someone who would feel guilty for not visiting (such as their children…) The Guilt Trip ticket was promoted through traditional media and public relations. Online films, regional media and Guilt Trip handbooks were used to get country people to spread the word. Social media was used to enhance the guilt. The Guilt Trip platform was designed to allow users to publicly guilt their family and friends to come home – through Facebook and Twitter.

The travel experience as we knew it was completely rebranded. People no longer went home to visit their parents; they went on a Guilt Trip. V/Line’s 11% increase in ticket sales and enormous 400% return on investment saw Guilt Trips become the only campaign in Australian history to be awarded the Cannes Lions Grand Prix for Creative Effectiveness as well as the Spikes Grand Prix for Creative Effectiveness, along with countless other Cannes Lions and global awards.

TRUTH

Many Australians mistakenly assume that Coca-Cola drinks are shipped all the way from the US. When, in fact, Australia has been making Coca-Cola on its shores for over 80 years.

TRANSFORMATION

Coca-Cola wanted to break the myth that their drinks are only made in the US. So, to commemorate 80 years of great tasting Coca-Cola beverages made by Australians in Australia, we decided to tell the full story of their heritage in this country.

From the bottlers and delivery drivers, to the corner storeowners, collectors and staff, the Australian Made campaign told some of the stories of the thousands of Australians that have helped shape eight decades of Coca-Cola, made and shared down under.

And, as a little cheeky nod to Coca-Cola’s heritage down under, we even flipped the famous ‘Coke Sign’ in Sydney’s Kings Cross upside down. Giving a great thumbs up, to Coke down under.

TRUTH

Telstra asked us to develop a social content campaign that increased awareness of the NRL sponsorship by tapping into the passion fans have for their club.

This is well worn territory and standing out is a challenge, especially on a smaller budget. So we found a different way into the fans’ hearts that enabled us to also gain the support of the clubs. Because who else is more passionate about footy than the team mascots?

TRANSFORMATION

Mascot Madness is an entertaining, quirky and heart-warming social campaign and four-part video series that captures the unusual stories of the game’s greatest followers.

TRUTH

Brisbane City Council approached JSAcreative to address the challenge of educating and engaging with Brisbane residents about the obstacles that must be faced when planning the development of Brisbane’s inner city which was growing by approximately 1,300 people per week.

Going beyond simply telling residents about these challenges, Brisbane City Council wanted them to experience the pros and cons of planning for residential growth first hand, and moreover, have the opportunity to be a part of a community wide conversation about the development of the inner city.

TRANSFORMATION

We created ‘Plan Your Brisbane’ an educational, multi-platform gamification experience that allowed residents to plan their own Brisbane, realising the trade-offs and impacts their actions make in the process.

Working with Brisbane City Council, we developed initial design concepts that would form the foundation of the game. What was originally a flat Tetris style game rapidly evolved, taking on an isometric line art style that lent itself to a ‘blueprint’ of Brisbane, with bespoke illustrations designed.

Developing the game, the mechanics see users trying to house 1000 residents, adding high, medium, and low density dwellings to a reactive map. The results of their actions were measured via a scoreboard showing the number of residents housed alongside gauges displaying impacts to lifestyle, travel time, greenspace and affordability.

From a UX and UI perspective, the existing properties on the map appeared in blue when the game began, with any properties added by the user appearing in full colour, drawing immediate attention to the changes that they made.

Users also had the ability to share their results via social media, creating more awareness for the game. Furthermore, a dedicated link at the bottom of the game map gave users the ability to ‘have their say’ about the planning of Brisbane. This feedback was used by Council for the second phase of the campaign.

To ensure audience participation for the game, we delivered an integrated, creative campaign that drove awareness for the game. This included the production of a 30” cinema ad as well as a digital creative campaign driven by two 15” social videos as well as Snapchat and Instagram videos. Furthermore, a city-wide campaign comprised of display media, TVC, press, outdoor and adshels was delivered.

Phase two saw the creation of ‘8 guiding principles’ campaign that outlined a clear and actionable roadmap for Brisbane’s future including a set of 40 actions to guide the future of Brisbane. Our involvement in phase two included a creative campaign that highlighted the positive outcomes of these actions across a range of print, TVC and digital media.

OUTCOME

The objective was to engage with over 100,000 residents and we exceeded this with the game receiving engagement with 100,869 playing the game, 15,881 reaching the target of housing 1000 residents, and 5,267 filling in the post-game surveys.

The social videos reached 148,336 people with a total of 246,981 impressions, the addition of Snapchat as a channel saw engagement with youth soar. Additionally, the cinema advertisement achieved an audience reach of 48,206 people.

Positive sentiment was expressed on social media and via a number of news sources, and the momentum that both the game and campaign experienced in market has flowed across to a number of dedicated plan your Brisbane events, with these seeing strong participation as well.

Plan your Brisbane has gone on to win several Australian awards including The Queensland Community Engagement Award and National Urban Development Award by the Urban Development Institute of Australia (UDIA) as well as the Award for Project Innovation at the Property Council Awards. It also received industry recognition by the Brisbane Advertising and Design Club with awards across digital motion graphics, UX design, microsites, animation and motion graphics. Finally, it gained international praise, being awarded the 2019 International Project of the Year by the International Association for Public Participation.

TRUTH

L’Oréal Revitalift is Australia’s leading anti-aging product range. However, in a time where Australia had actually overtaken America (per capita) as a world leader in cosmetic procedure spend, the brand had a major issue.

The truth is that our biggest competitor wasn’t in the beauty category at all. It was the cosmetic procedure market, which had quickly become a $300m business in Australia.

TRANSFORMATION

Laser or L’Oréal was a world-first product comparison, proving that it’s possible to get the same results as cosmetic procedures without the expense and pain.

Showing Revitalift’s effectiveness in an honest and authentic way, broke through a frustration that had been felt after years of confusing cosmetic industry claims. This was the ultimate ‘before and after’ product test and the real-life results spoke for themselves, also seeing the campaign awarded at the APAC Effies and McCann Australia named APAC Agency of the Year.

Truth

In early March 2020, global COVID infections were climbing exponentially and Australians needed to adopt an unnatural set of behaviours, like social distancing, to avoid the devastation that other countries were facing. However, for socially hungry Aussies, staying apart from family and mates was a foreign concept.

Transformation

Models were predicting widespread death across the country if behaviour didn’t change immediately. So, the Federal Government chose McCann to develop communications for what was to become Australia’s most important behaviour change campaign since WW2.

Needing to be always on and ready to react to a rapidly changing situation, a dedicated team was assembled within 24 hours. Their task? Fundamentally change the behaviour of Australians — and save lives.

What resulted was a multi-faceted, multi-lingual, responsive campaign that lived across every channel, every day, for 3 months. From the initial health response and COVIDSafe app campaign, to the Treasury JobKeeper/JobSeeker stimulus and Department of Home Affairs messaging, we delivered over 10,000 assets that helped Australia avoid the wide-scale effects of the first wave of COVID-19, seen across the rest of the world.

Results

• Within two weeks, awareness of social distancing as a way to help stop the spread went from 0% to 95%.
• Despite significant public concerns, the COVIDSafe app saw the highest number of downloads in the shortest period of time ever in Australia – over 6 million in 3 weeks.
• Trust in Government also rose to over 70% over the course of the first wave of the pandemic.
• Ultimately, these results helped Australia avoid the same devastation seen across the world. With ex-Chief Medical Officer, Prof Brendan Murphy, declaring the response to our first wave had saved about 14,000 lives.

Truth

It is a sad and unacceptable truth that police officers are significantly more likely to experience suicidal thoughts and behaviours than the general public or any other occupation.

Transformation

To reach and positively impact an unresponsive audience, we needed to develop and deliver a message in a way they couldn’t possibly ignore.

Senior Constable Laurie Fox took his own life on New Year’s Eve, 2012. Eight years later we brought him back, with Deep Fake Technoloy, to share a message Victoria police officers couldn’t possibly ignore. Presented as an internal video, Laurie’s peer-to-peer message encouraged officers to identify and recognise the 8 signs of suicide ideation in their own behaviour and direct them to seek anonymous support from trained counsellors at the newly launched Bluespace website.

From beyond the grave, Laurie Fox was able to tell his story. The film saw Bluespace increase site traffic 350%. Average engagement time was 6 minutes, meaning officers weren’t just clicking through, but watching the video and engaging with support materials. The story was picked up by multiple media platforms including Channel 9, The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, national radio networks and received a social and media reach of over 52m, shared by the UK Metropolitan Police, NYPD and Canadian Police.

We’d like to acknowledge the bravery of Laurie’s family who opened themselves up throughout the process, so the impact was as effectual and real as possible.

Truth

Topo Chico Hard Seltzer is pure water, mixed with alcohol, and crafted with a variety of contradictory flavours that taste unexpectedly great. Making this new “better-for-you” alcohol beverage, a drink full of perfect contradictions.

Transformation

Topo Chico was Coke’s first global foray into the hard seltzer market. However, with hard seltzer an unfamiliar drink in most markets around the world, Coke needed to launch a distinctive brand that was true to Topo Chico’s Latina-cool roots, but that would also do a category education job.

Given that Topo Chico hard seltzer embodies contradictions that just somehow feel right — like the unlikely mix of water and alcohol — we created the ‘Perfect Contradiction’ campaign to the launch the brand globally.

Combining the excitement of the unexpected and the beauty of owning your contradictions, our launch campaign featured a bevy of unique, vibrant characters, like brides in black and dancing grandmas, to embolden people to express their inner contradictions — and to grab a can of Topo Chico, no matter who you are, or where you are.