CB Exclusive: From Zero to HERO – Five years on, HERO cements its rise from start-up to top indie

CB Exclusive – This month HERO, Campaign Brief’s Hot List Medium Agency of the Year for 2024 & 2025, celebrated its ‘Five Fun Years’ at Fortress Games in Sydney and Melbourne. CB takes a look at HERO’s evolution from SARS start-up in 2020 to one of Australia’s hottest indies today.

For its 5th birthday, it was fitting to see HERO celebrate at Fortress, the setting for not just its own first Cannes Lion, but also the first Lion ever for its client Maybelline New York. HERO’s globally acclaimed Maybelline ‘Through Their Eyes’ campaign was shot at the very same location. The campaign used voice-changing technology to disguise the identity of prominent male gamers, who were given fake female profiles to experience the relentless abuse and discrimination faced by female-identifying gamers online. This groundbreaking film was then broadcast to millions of gamers at a live gaming tournament hosted by Maybelline, the Eyes Up Cup, contested between 32 of Australia’s most impactful women in gaming. The campaign took off online, achieving 450 million impressions globally.

“I wish HERO could have taken off as quickly,” says founder Ben Lilley (below right), who started the business as the pandemic was nearing its end in 2020. But it was a slow and steady beginning Lilley says, until the agency was added to the Toyota roster in 2021. And that’s when the momentum started to build.

The Toyota win was followed by the appointment of Clemenger and VML alum Shane Geffen (below left) to the role of Executive Creative Director.

“I think Ben and I had a real meeting of minds about what we wanted HERO to be,“ says Geffen. “A place where our people and our clients can do the best work of their careers. Something we strive for daily.”

Over the past five years, HERO has gone on to create some of Toyota’s most boundary-pushing campaigns. From launching the all-electric Toyota BZ4X with the help of fan-favourite fictional character Barry. To crafting the C-HR Diamond Collection, featuring lab-grown diamonds made from melted-down parts of the diamond-inspired Toyota C-HR, in collaboration with Australian design icon Millie Savage. The GR Corolla became a camera to create a real-life animation film. And most recently, HERO launched the new GR Yaris by showing not just what it looks like, but what it can really do with its high-octane Nice to Know It Could campaign, sound-tracked by rock sensation Amyl and The Sniffers.

Arguably HERO’s first big creative breakthrough though was the award-winning Senior Constable Laurie Fox campaign for Victoria Police, which used deepfake technology to tackle the stigma around mental health and suicide in the force. The campaign put HERO on the map as an innovator in both creativity and effectiveness, picking up 2 Gold APAC Effies and both local and global creative metal. In the years since, HERO’s Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane offices have made consistent appearances at Spikes Asia, One Show, D&AD, MADC, AWARD, BADC, Cannes Lions, LIA and the New York Festivals, where it was Australia’s top-ranked agency in 2024. The agency has taken out Campaign Brief Hot List Agency of the Year (Medium) back-to-back for the last two years. And in 2025 became the first Australian shop to make the WINA Festival’s global Top 10, taking Grand Prix, Gold, Silver and Bronze trophies for work including Toyota’s C-HR Diamond Collection and Fujifilm Mindography.

True to its mantra “We Turn Brands Into HEROES,” the hotshop has steadily built its reputation as one of Australia’s leading independent creative agencies, embracing the technology and AI shifts reshaping the industry as innovation tools to push creative boundaries. “Our Decjuba Puffer Plane was our first proper foray into AI,” says Lilley. The social campaign featured a 10-second video of a plane wearing a puffer jacket to announce a new winter fashion arrival, generating over 100M views and fact checked as far away as The Independent UK. For Fujifilm’s Mindography campaign, the agency proved the power of printed photos, combining functional MRI (fMRI) brain scans and AI machine learning to literally reconstruct memories from the mind. Most recently for its Mastercard Transit Tales campaign, the agency created a world-first AI-powered storytelling platform using real-time transit data to match Sydney rail commuters’ journeys to an AI-generated story. “The campaign turned mundane train rides into unforgettable literary escapes and delivered priceless journeys for more than 1.2 million Sydney travellers,” says Geffen.

It’s not just HERO’s campaigns that are award-winning. Melbourne HQ ‘HERO HOUSE’ has itself earned award recognition, from the prestigious Australian Interior Design Awards, to the Interior Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) and the global INDE Awards. Designed to embody the same creativity and ambition that drives HERO’s creative work for its clients, the space has been celebrated as an award-winning design hub in its own right. “It’s a physical expression of our culture,” says Lilley, “Bold, inspiring and built to bring people together. It’s also pretty big on our trademark tangerine, which we’ve slathered pretty much everywhere.”

HERO’s award-winning track record has proven a powerful magnet for top talent, attracting leaders like Ken Chen from VML as Head of Strategy, Clemenger’s Bec McCall (below right) as Group Creative Director, and Susan Young (below left) as Creative Director, each bringing unique expertise to fuel the next chapter of HERO’s growth.

Young, the most recent hire, brings decades of global award-winning experience across South Africa, the UK, New Zealand and Australia, having held senior creative roles at Draft FCB, RAPP UK, iris Worldwide and DDB New Zealand. Most recently, she co-founded Chemistry in Auckland, where as Executive Creative Director she helped build one of New Zealand’s most respected independent agencies, recognised for its own innovative campaigns and creative excellence.

According to Geffen, though, the business is still just warming up: “If the last five years have taught us anything, it’s that our future lies in sticking to what works… heroing our people, our clients, and the work. I can’t wait to see what’s next for HERO.”