Telstra launches major new brand platform ‘Wherever we go’ via Bear Meets Eagle on Fire +61
Telstra is launching its new brand platform “Wherever we go” with an integrated campaign via Bear Meets Eagle on Fire +61 led by a whimsical animated film called ‘Duet’
‘Duet’ features two characters who journey together through a wondrous world in perfect harmony, as a metaphor for partnership. Brought to life by Oscar nominated animation duo, Smith and Foulkes, ‘Duet’ is set to a whistling composition of the iconic ‘Islands in the Stream’.
The craft and ambition doesn’t stop with film though, and in out-of-home close to 3000 sites, including forty special builds and painted wall murals, feature graphic illustrations by Ben Hassler that have been painstakingly recreated in layers of paper with artist Kyle Bean and photographer Carl Kleiner.
The range of executions and commitment to crafted detail suggest a more contemporary and imaginative chapter for Telstra under ‘Wherever we go’ and marks a conscious move away from the previously more corporate image for the brand according to Brent Smart, Telstra’s Chief Marketing Officer:
“If you want to change how people feel about your brand, you have to change how the brand feels. This work captures the spirit of optimism and promise of partnership that we want the Telstra brand to be all about. We want to show that the biggest brands can also be the most imaginative” says Brent. The campaign launches in both the AFL and NRL Grand Finals, before extending into media buys across broadcast, digital, and social.
“I’m just proud of all the folks who’ve cared so hard to make this work”, says Micah Walker, Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Bear Meets Eagle On Fire. “It’s not that often you get to make work this considered and crafted, and to do it at this scale, is just really rare.”
Adds Blake Crosbie, Managing Director of +61: “This campaign has also been a great journey with Telstra and the work is the beginning of redefining the relationship they have with their customers. It puts partnership at the center of the Telstra brand.”
“We’ve really pushed the boundaries within the media to bring this campaign to life. It’s about creating a world of epic wonder, from the screens to the streets, and places Telstra in high reaching, high attention, premium environments,” says Helen Guard MD of Media.
Creative agency: Bear Meets Eagle On Fire +61
Media agency: OMD
Client: Telstra
Chief Marketing Officer: Brent Smart
Head of Brand and Sponsorship: Alita Mcmenamin
Head of Creative Excellence: Anna Jackson
Senior Brand Manager: Jon Hollett
Brand Manager: Dene Mackenzie
Media & Marketing Operations Lead: Paula Marreiros
Senior Media Specialist: Robert Aoukar
FILM
Production Company: Riff Raff
Directors: Smith & Foulkes
EP/Producer: Tracey Cooper
PM: Theo Cassels
Character Designer: Chris Martin
Storyboards: Adam Beer
Post Production: Black Kite
Exec. Producer – Julie Evans
Senior Producer – Polly Durrance
Producer – Olivia Donovan
Colourist – George Kyriacou
2D Lead – Guillaume Weiss
Flame – James Belch
Nuke – Itay Greenberg
Nuke – Matt Hutchins
Nuke – Sarah Breakwell
Concept / DMP – Jimmy Kiddell
Concept / DMP – Carlos Nieto
Lead Animator – Conor Ryan
Lead Animator – James Brown
Animator – Loay Shaban
CG Rigger – Martin Villert, Chris Gill
CG Lead – Oleg Troy
CG – Daniel Moore, Kornel Makarowicz, Andrew Bartholomew, James Hansell, Jim Cullen, Aurelien Lemonnier, David Loh, Luis Yrisarry Labadía, Mark Ardisson, Sophie Langton, Alfie Gunter, Ethan Francis, Gabriela Di Vincenzo, Joel Paulin
Additional Post Production: ALT VFX
Music Supervision: Trailer Media
Music Production company: Manderley Music
Music arranger: Ben Cocks
Music producer: Sean Craigie-Atherton
Main Whistler: Andy McKeane
Harmony Whistler: Vanessa Forero
Additional whistling: Ben Cocks
Sound House: Rumble Studios
Lead Sound Designer: Tone Aston
Sound Designers: Daniel William / Renee Park
Sound EP: Michael Gie
OOH
Photography: Studio Kleiner
Photographer assistant: Robin Berglund
Production: MINK MGMT.
Illustrator: Ben Hasler
Paper artist: Kyle Bean
Paper assistant: Andrea Portoles
Agent: Atrbute
46 Comments
…so what was the deal with the fluffy animals then? Completely different brand.
Nice one Micah and the team from BMEOF!
This work just makes me so happy. It’s joyful. It gives me hope. It treat’s the audience like they have a brain and doesn’t need the logo in the first 3 seconds. Classy stuff.
Most people would say the art of advertising is dead, gone and over.
This partnership between BMEOF and Telstra is really proving that doesn’t have to be the case.
The recent campaigns have been so beautifully crafted, with such simplicity, all I have is jealousy.
Well done to all involved in this work (and the other recent Telstra campaigns).
This is a fantastic lesson to our industry that great work still greatly matters.
Beautifully done.I hope it works.
This is completely disconnected from existing memory structures, positioning, brand assets (not even the mnemonic was used). Telstra and agency have just single handedly destroyed hundreds of millions of dollars, all to win an award in the south of France for best use of CGI.
What’s wrong with new Memory structures? Surely you don’t think rinse and repeat is actually effective forever?
This, it’s a disconnected mess
Very Coke…..
https://mobile.riffrafffilms.tv/uk/smith-and-foulkes#reborn-report
I love the animation style. His walk is so cool!
Im not sure im clear on the message. Together goes a long way? But then ‘wherever we go’? What are we saying here?
Wherever we go = Telstra is there wherever you are or need to be. Finally an ad that doesn’t sound like a brief.
Yep — I just don’t get the line? It’s visually stunning, joyful, and a beautiful piece of film. I can see a ton of elements that can evolve here but I’m just lost on the line: who is ‘we’? Telstra? Me?
Just feels a little disconnected.
So we just go and copy a bunch of ideas that have already been made? Sure
You’re so right, how will anyone in Australia know who Telstra is without memory structures!? Without these precious assets the everyday person just ceases to forget the most well known telco in the country.
When will the CB comments learn?
Love love love everything about the craft.
Messaging/brand direction however???
This is beautiful work, and hats off for being able to sell in producing a high-end animated short to client. As a film-maker, I am always super-envious when I see clients open the purse-strings and give creatives and film-makers full reign to make awesome shit for their reel.
I also think the line ‘Wherever we go’ is really nice, and does speak to Telstra’s wide coverage and broad offering…
But I hate to ask, is this same line obvious enough? Is the average punter on the street going to get it as a service proposition? I sadly doubt it.
Also, one slightly creepy interpretation of the OOH executions is that Telstra now hovers omnipresent at your shoulder and moves in total lock-step with you, limbs all tangled to the point you cannot ever hope to extricate oneself from their hold?
And while I LOVE the animation and the music… does it feel like it’s set in Australia? No. Not in the slightest.
Final observation… it does feel very soon to be coming out with a whole new brand platform since the 26-spot stop-animation animals and ‘Better on a Better Network’ campaign… and then the Telstra ‘Four Bars’ campaign less than a month later.
The brand just feels all over the place at the moment. Honestly, what message/platform are we meant to pay attention to? Make up your mind, Telstra.
I said what I said
Beautifully crafted. I can see advertising creatives high-fiving, but I’m not sure the message is following us wherever we go… Customers might need a GPS to navigate this one!
This is a classic case of the new brand manager (or CMO on the speaker circuit) creating a dogs breakfast of a brand. This latest “cool” ad has thrown everything the brand was built upon away. Strategy = fail, Idea = fail, Execution = tick… but this is now a brand all over the place and the telstra marketing fixation on creating cool ads, not strong brands is the big fail here. They only relaunched with “Australia is Why” recently, case in point.
I’m missing the Australia in it.
Imagine if they were swimming in the barrier reef?
Or Uluru was in the back?
Or a typical Aussie suburb?
And the v/o – why British? Imagine Felix Cameron from Boys Swallows Universe as the v/o. Iconically Aussie and next gen of Aussie’s doing amazing things.
This work feels joyously liberated from the over-strategising that seems to be standard practice in big agencies these days.
A large brand that doesn’t invest in building and maintaining consistent memory structures will find its competitors gaining on it – quickly.
Every brand needs them. You don’t get to a certain point and no longer need them.
Otherwise you’re turning up as a different brand with each new campaign (Telstra in 2024) and starting anew. And average joe who is likely to give you <2 seconds of their time, doesn't give a toss if you're #1 in market if they can't instantly recognise it's an ad from the #1 in market.
When you have zero strategists, an unlimited production budget and total trust.
It’s just a lanky guy loping through different magical worlds with his little companion, bringing to life the promise that Telstra works in more places. Tied up with a line that says exactly that. I feel like that’s a pretty easy get.
The spots are charming, and they connect really well to the OOH through character, rather than recreating the whole world. For the record, Coke didn’t invent long, tangly arms and legs either.
It’ll stand out because it’s simple. And for everyone who’s super mad because they’re not leveraging existing assets or memory structures or whatever, maybe calm your little farm. It all feels like a compatible tonal universe, with a common thread of everywhere/everything, and I really feel like consumers will be ok.
Maybe go for a walk or something.
… whether the business draws these new threads together into something truly coherent. It will definitely take time.
Very hard these days (or ever really) to really own an illustration style as a distinctive brand asset.
Loved the spirit of this.
Rarely do I feel connected to an Aussie brand these days, when all they do is hold a mirror up to society in their ads, which all look the same.
This made me feel something.
I can see the reef, the aussie terrace, the outback, just not in a cheesy cliched way. And it’s all the stronger for it.
Beautiful work
that they don’t need to be consistent. All of this great work is simply based around connectivity and it’s great! Well done, I love everything about this new direction
It doesn’t feel like Australia because it wasn’t made by Australians.
What a shame for one of our most iconic brands to be shipped overseas.
It’s bloody beautiful I’m not denying that, but I’m sure some Aussies could have made it just as beautiful.
But not even using an original Aussie track!? Shame on you.
such a strange comment. are you saying Australian agencies/brands should never be allowed to work with overseas directors, production co,’s, animators, illustrators, musicians, artists???
My unbiased opinion is that these are brilliant
means it’s good and you lot are jelly
why are aussies obsessed with things ONLY being worked on by aussies?
such a narrow minded view
“But not even using an original Aussie track!? Shame on you.”
@Aussie Aussie, You are everything that is wrong about Australian advertising.
The fluffy animals made sense, were cleverly connected to network performance and were beautifully shot. This is the complete opposite.
It seems like there are a lot of completely different campaigns – in style, tone, visuals, messaging – being thrown at the wall now by Telstra in the hope that something sticks.
It’s a weird approach TBH.
Thing is it’s different. And that’s a big deal in Australia when you have most brands desperately trying not to be noticed.
Nice feeling, probably increases brand predisposition. Maybe it needs ‘wherever we go’ at the end to sell the message on this execution to Joe Punter but I do feel that ‘Together’ would be the better line for the brand platform
Totally different feel to the retail spots which won’t be a surprise to them and maybe it doesn’t matter? but that’s for the branding experts
This looks like it was made by ad people in poncy gentrified areas and won’t resonate with broader Australia.
Let’s see.
It also feels very one off, I’m not sure how this will help build the brand long-term.
Love the OOH work. Love the whistling. The rest is nice.
Doesn’t get any more Aussie than a song by the Bee Gees, mate.
Oh wait, they were from Manchester.
The OOH feels little borrowed?? https://www.behance.net/gallery/36649759/Steppenwolf-Poster
Great posters.
Poncy gentrified areas is the target audience, not rural bogans like you who can’t afford the plans.