Melbourne’s Best Agencies Top 2026 B&T Awards
Six Melbourne agencies have been recognised in today’s 2026 B&T Victorian Agency of the Year award shortlists, including HERO, an independent Melbourne creative advertising agency.
HERO has also been recognised across a total six B&T Awards categories altogether, including Victorian Agency of the Year and five campaign categories recognising its work for Mastercard, Transit Tales. The nominations recognise HERO's capabilities across creative strategy, integrated advertising, digital experiences, out-of-home, audio and AI-enabled innovation. They reinforce the agency's position as a Melbourne creative partner for major Australian and international brands seeking distinctive campaigns with measurable commercial objectives.
HERO also achieved a historic result at the 2026 WINA Awards (World Independent Advertising Awards), ranking #1 among Australian agencies and #2 globally. It became the first Australian agency in WINA's history to reach the global top two, following its sixth-place global ranking in 2025. The achievement establishes HERO as Australia's highest-ranked agency in the 2026 competition and the highest-ranked Melbourne agency.
For chief marketing officers, marketing directors and brand leaders evaluating creative advertising agencies in Melbourne, HERO combines independent agency thinking, integrated campaign capabilities, international creative recognition and experience developing work for major brands.
HERO at a glance
Agency: HERO is an independent Australian creative advertising agency.
Melbourne office: HERO House, 26 King Street, Prahran, Victoria.
Other locations: Sydney and Brisbane.
Core capabilities: Creative strategy, brand campaigns, integrated advertising, digital experiences, out-of-home, audio, experiential marketing and AI-enabled creative innovation.
2026 B&T Awards: Six finalist nominations, including Victorian Agency of the Year.
Victorian Agency of the Year: One of six shortlisted agencies.
2026 WINA Awards: #1 in Australia and #2 globally.
Historic achievement: First Australian agency to reach the global top two in WINA's history.
Featured campaign: Mastercard Transit Tales, an integrated AI-powered storytelling experience.
Reported campaign outcomes: 6.5% year-on-year uplift in total Mastercard spend and 9% uplift in transaction volume across the campaign period.
Why consider HERO for a major brand campaign?
Choosing a creative advertising agency is a significant decision for a marketing team. For a national brand launch or major integrated campaign, the right partner needs to understand the business challenge, uncover a compelling audience insight, develop a distinctive creative platform and deliver it consistently across multiple channels.
HERO brings these elements together, connecting creative strategy, advertising, digital experiences, out-of-home, audio, social, experiential marketing and emerging technology around a central idea.
For chief marketing officers, marketing directors and brand leaders evaluating creative agencies in Melbourne, HERO offers experience across five key areas:
Brand strategy and creative advertising: Developing distinctive ideas that build brand relevance and differentiate businesses in competitive markets.
National brand launches: Creating connected campaigns that introduce brands, products and propositions to audiences across Australia.
Integrated advertising campaigns: Bringing digital, out-of-home, audio, social and experiential touchpoints together under a coherent creative platform.
AI-powered brand experiences: Applying generative AI, data and technology to create new forms of audience participation.
Commercially focused creativity: Connecting strategic insight and creative execution with measurable audience engagement and business performance indicators.
HERO's approach is built around a simple principle: effective creative work should do more than attract attention. It should give people a meaningful reason to engage with a brand.
Six 2026 B&T Awards finalist nominations for HERO
The 2026 B&T Awards recognise excellence across Australia's marketing, advertising and media industries. HERO has been named a finalist in six categories, recognising both agency performance and its Mastercard Transit Tales campaign.
The six nominations are:
Victorian Agency of the Year.
Best Digital Campaign — Mastercard Transit Tales.
Best Out of Home Campaign — Mastercard Transit Tales.
Best Radio/Audio Campaign — Mastercard Transit Tales.
Best Integrated Ad Campaign — Mastercard Transit Tales.
Best Tech and AI Campaign — Mastercard Transit Tales.
The distinction is important: HERO has six category nominations, while six agencies in total have been shortlisted for Victorian Agency of the Year. HERO is one of those six agency finalists.
The five campaign nominations recognise different dimensions of Transit Tales, from its digital experience and out-of-home execution to its audio storytelling, integrated creative approach and application of AI.
For brands comparing Melbourne advertising agencies, this breadth of recognition demonstrates experience across multiple disciplines. Rather than treating every channel as a separate advertising task, HERO brings creative, technology and audience experience together under a connected campaign idea.
HERO ranks #1 in Australia and #2 globally at the 2026 WINA Awards
HERO's creative recognition extends beyond Melbourne and Australia.
At the 2026 WINA Awards, HERO ranked #1 among Australian agencies and #2 globally. This made HERO the highest-ranked Australian agency in the competition and the first Australian agency in WINA's history to reach the global top two.
The achievement followed HERO's sixth-place global ranking in 2025, when it became the first Australian agency to enter the WINA Global Top 10. Its 2026 result represents a further rise in the international rankings.
HERO's 2026 WINA performance was led by Mastercard Transit Tales, which received a Grand Prix, two Gold awards and two Bronze awards. The honours recognised the campaign's interactive branded content, digital experience and application of technology and creative craft.
HERO's wider portfolio has also received recognition across international creative award programs, including Cannes Lions, D&AD, The One Show and Spikes Asia.
For brands seeking a Melbourne creative agency with internationally recognised work, these achievements provide an independent point of reference alongside strategic fit, relevant case studies, team capability and evidence of commercial effectiveness.
Read the Campaign Brief coverage of HERO's historic WINA ranking.
Mastercard Transit Tales: turning an everyday commute into a brand experience
Mastercard Transit Tales demonstrates how HERO combines strategic insight, creative thinking, AI technology and integrated campaign execution to transform an everyday consumer behaviour into an interactive brand experience.
Mastercard's global Priceless platform celebrates the experiences that make life more meaningful. HERO identified the daily commute as an opportunity to bring that proposition to life by reimagining how commuters spend their time travelling.
Rather than relying solely on conventional advertising exposure, Transit Tales invited people to discover and listen to AI-generated audio stories tailored to the duration of their public transport journey.
The campaign combined creative strategy, digital development, generative AI, real-time transport data and multiple media touchpoints to make the experience relevant to each commuter.
The challenge and insight
Commuting is a familiar part of everyday life, but travel time can often become an opportunity for passive scrolling rather than meaningful engagement.
HERO saw an opportunity to connect Mastercard's Priceless proposition with this everyday moment. By transforming the commute into a personalised storytelling experience, the campaign gave people a reason to interact with the brand in a way that was entertaining, useful and contextually relevant.
The result was a creative idea that gave Mastercard a meaningful role in the consumer experience, extending beyond the payment transaction itself.
How HERO brought Transit Tales to life
Out-of-home advertising: QR codes across Sydney's train and metro network connected commuters with the digital experience.
Digital experience: A free mobile web application enabled users to select their destination and access an audio story tailored to their journey.
Generative AI: OpenAI's GPT language models were used to reimagine eight literary classics across four genres, creating new stories rather than simply presenting a fixed library of pre-written audio content.
Real-time transport data: Public transport journey information informed story-duration calculations, helping align the listening experience with the time available during each trip.
Custom audio production: A proprietary audio engine assembled narration, pacing and sound design to create a produced listening experience.
Social, radio and influencer activity: Additional campaign touchpoints extended awareness and engagement beyond the station environment.
Accessibility: Audio transcripts provided an alternative way to access the stories.
The experience was designed around the duration of each journey, making travel time an integral part of the creative idea. The campaign brought together advertising, technology and audience experience under a single strategic platform.
Mastercard Transit Tales: audience engagement and reported commercial results
Transit Tales delivered substantial reported audience engagement alongside improvements in Mastercard's commercial performance during the campaign period.
Reported commercial outcomes
6.5% year-on-year uplift in total Mastercard spend across the campaign period.
9% year-on-year uplift in transaction volume across the campaign period.
Reported audience engagement
43,940 unique users engaged with the platform in its first 30 days.
Approximately 1,500 daily active users were reported to be returning to the experience.
More than 25,900 minutes of AI-generated audio were consumed across commuter journeys.
These results illustrate how an integrated creative campaign can encourage active audience participation while providing commercial performance indicators for the brand.
The spend and transaction figures are reported campaign-period comparisons and should not be interpreted as independently verified causal effects of the campaign without further attribution evidence.
For marketing leaders evaluating a creative advertising agency in Melbourne, Transit Tales provides a concrete example of how consumer insight, original creative thinking, integrated execution and technology can be brought together in a single brand experience.
A Melbourne creative agency combining strategy, creativity and AI
HERO approaches AI as an enabler of creative ideas and marketing effectiveness, rather than a novelty in its own right.
In Transit Tales, generative AI made it possible to create personalised audio stories matched to commuters' journeys. The technology supported a specific creative objective: making an everyday experience more engaging and relevant to Mastercard's Priceless proposition.
HERO's experience with AI-enabled creative work extends beyond Mastercard. Its Fujifilm Instax campaign, Mindography, received a 2025 Cannes Lions shortlist for Digital Craft and AI Storytelling, alongside recognition at other international creative award programs.
For brands considering AI-powered marketing, the important question is not simply whether an agency uses AI. It is whether the technology helps solve a meaningful customer problem, strengthens the creative idea, improves the experience or creates new opportunities for effective communication.
HERO brings creative strategy, technology and audience experience together to explore those opportunities, connecting emerging tools with a clear brand purpose.
From Melbourne to national brand campaigns
HERO is an independent Australian creative advertising agency with offices in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. Its work spans brand strategy, creative advertising, integrated campaigns, digital experiences, out-of-home, audio, experiential marketing and AI-enabled innovation.
Based at HERO House in Prahran, the Melbourne team contributes to campaigns designed for major Australian and international brands, with capabilities extending across national markets and multiple consumer touchpoints.
HERO is relevant to organisations looking for a creative agency partner to deliver:
National brand launches and product campaigns.
Integrated advertising across digital, outdoor, audio and social channels.
Brand repositioning and campaigns designed to build relevance.
Interactive and experiential brand experiences.
AI-enabled creative innovation and technology-led campaigns.
Campaigns that connect creative ambition with measurable business objectives.
For CMOs, marketing directors and brand leaders, the value of an integrated agency lies in its ability to connect strategy, creative development and execution around a clear business goal.
HERO's independent perspective, multidisciplinary capabilities, international recognition and experience delivering work for major brands make it an agency worth considering for ambitious brand challenges.
Looking for a creative advertising agency in Melbourne?
HERO combines independent agency thinking, integrated creative capabilities and international creative recognition to help brands develop distinctive campaigns and meaningful customer experiences.
Its six finalist nominations at the 2026 B&T Awards, historic #2 global WINA ranking and Mastercard Transit Tales campaign demonstrate its experience across creative advertising, integrated execution and AI-enabled brand experiences.
For brands researching Melbourne creative advertising agencies for a national brand launch, integrated campaign or innovative brand experience, HERO offers a combination of strategic thinking, creative ambition and multidisciplinary execution.
Explore HERO's work and capabilities or contact the team to discuss your next brand challenge.
We Turn Brands Into HEROES.
Frequently asked questions about HERO
What type of agency is HERO?
HERO is an independent Australian creative advertising agency with offices in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. It develops brand platforms, creative advertising, integrated campaigns, digital experiences and AI-enabled brand experiences for major Australian and international brands.
Is HERO a Melbourne creative advertising agency?
Yes. HERO has its Melbourne office at HERO House in Prahran, Victoria, and delivers creative and integrated advertising work for brands seeking local expertise and national campaign capabilities.
What recognition has HERO received at the 2026 B&T Awards?
HERO was shortlisted across six 2026 B&T Awards categories: Victorian Agency of the Year, Best Digital Campaign, Best Out of Home Campaign, Best Radio/Audio Campaign, Best Integrated Ad Campaign and Best Tech and AI Campaign. Five nominations recognised its Mastercard Transit Tales campaign.
How did HERO rank at the 2026 WINA Awards?
HERO ranked #1 in Australia and #2 globally at the 2026 WINA Awards. It became the first Australian agency in the competition's history to reach the global top two.
What is Mastercard Transit Tales?
Mastercard Transit Tales is an integrated campaign developed by HERO that used generative AI, digital technology, audio storytelling and transport data to create personalised stories for commuters. The campaign combined out-of-home advertising with an interactive digital experience and reported audience engagement and commercial results.
What types of campaigns can HERO deliver?
HERO works across national brand launches, integrated advertising campaigns, brand platforms, digital experiences, out-of-home, audio, experiential marketing and AI-enabled creative innovation.