Australia’s Best Creative Agency Named In TrinityP3 & B&T Top Business Winners
HERO has stormed into 2026 in top place according to a groundbreaking new ranking by TrinityP3 and leading Australian marketing magazine B&T.
B&T reports that the Australian agency market is undergoing a seismic structural shift with holdcos dominating media pitches and indies dominating pitches in creative, PR, customer experience and other marcomms disciplines, according to a groundbreaking new report by TrinityP3.
Fading are the days of agency of record briefs, being replaced by a roster of specialist agencies and the rise of in-housing of certain services.
This has created a landscape where at one end of the spectrum there are big holding companies and their platform solutions that dominate media planning and buying, particularly for multinational and large domestic clients.
At the other end are highly specialised creative, PR, social media, experiential and digital agencies vying for non-media services.
“What that means for indies is that in the next 12 months, you can’t just be a good generalist agency,” TrinityP3 founder and global CEO Darren Woolley told B&T.
“You’ve got to have something that makes you stand out, because we’re literally talking about 500-plus indies competing, there’s not enough space for them to just be another advertising agency.”
A specialist agency could be one that is an expert in a specific category, or focuses on companies in the B2B sector versus B2C.
TrinityP3’s New Business Report analyses data from 440 pitches in 2025, identifying the agencies that had the most wins across and the most active client sectors.
It focused purely on volume of wins, not the size of the prize. That research that is already carried out by RECMA and COMvergence for media agencies. What makes the report unique is that it reveals the results of many pitches that have not been made public.
The report found food manufacturing was the most active category, followed by tourism and travel, banking, healthcare and technology.
Other trends picked up by the report is that many companies are no longer looking for ‘agency of record’ partners, and instead are shopping around for specialists.
In fact, specialist agencies heavily dominated pitch wins for a growing number of sole-service briefs in social, PR and CX, according to the report.
A high profile example of this is the Optus’ pitch roster that B&T first revealed last June. The telco supplemented holdco creative and media muscle with specialists. Woolley said that five years ago, far fewer companies appointed agencies to carry out specialist services.
“Clients are looking beyond just needing a media agency and a creative agency. It’s growth in these other specialist areas that’s different,” he said.
“There’s also a lot more project work happening because clients are finding that they’re either doing some services in-house or they’re getting a one-stop shop, usually a network agency or large indie and always have to add these smaller specialists in. Smaller clients are also pitching because they’re looking for a better deal.”
The Top 10s
The leading Australian creative agency in TrinityP3’s rankings was HERO, according to B&T. The magazine caught up with HERO creative chairman Ben Lilley, who revealed “Most of our new clients come through referrals or recent work that‘s piqued someone’s interest. Otherwise pitches themselves are very much a lottery for us and I doubt we’re any better or worse at it than anyone else.”
Lilley believes that HERO’s promise to ‘turn brand into HEROES’ is resonating and AI has been a “game changer” with work including Mastercard Transit Tales, Toyota C-HR Diamond Collection and Fujifilm Mindography.
“Right now, being independent is of course a major advantage too. I think more than ever, clients want direct access to their agency’s decision‑makers and to have senior people working on their business,” he added. “Our model is deliberately streamlined to offer just that: senior access, strategic rigour and creative innovation, backed by real-world impact and results.”