Peter Kirk’s Spikes Asia Diary: Why Aussie Ads Need to Break Out of Their Comfort Zone

Peter Kirk, Founder and Creative Director of Indigenous Australian-led creative consultancy Campfire X, recently represented Australia on the 2025 Spikes Asia Film Craft jury. Here, Kirk shares his key takeaways from five days of assessing some of the APAC region’s best work. From the power of raw storytelling to why Australian ads may be missing the mark, Kirk (above far left) reflects on what set the winners apart—and what local creatives can learn from the experience.

Since landing back in Aus I’ve had a few ECDs and suits ring me wanting to know how their submissions went. My comment has been and will always be, no comment. The 5 days in Da Nang was an experience, the panel I was on Film Craft was a panel of the most respectful, charming and creative peeps I’ve met in quite a while. We chose a Grand Prix winner, and I must say it was unanimous, which as some of you may understand, is often very hard to achieve.

So other than tell you the winner, let me share with you some general thoughts.

In no particular order, here are some musings of the experience:

• Five days was not long enough, I wish I had booked my trip for 2 days more
• Da Nang is wonderful place, cross between Phuket and Bali, a surfing kinda vibe mixed up with the whole Asian city thingy. I can’t tell you how the surf was, when I went to jump in the life attendants ran down the beach and told me it was closed, no surf today.. I didn’t think it was that bad.
• I enjoyed getting off the beaten track and loved getting into the back streets and amongst the people, communities and neighbourhood. I crashed a wedding reception (it was like 11am) and everyone was quite happy. It was a fun experience and the father of the bride got me very, very drunk.

• We assessed over 300 films in 2 days, from that list we had to chose Bronze, Silver, Gold and a Grand Prix winner. It wasn’t easy and there were a lot of spirited conversations.
• Budgets didn’t really matter, some of the best work we saw had little or no budgets.
• Storytelling was definitely a common thread with the stronger categories.
• Stories that were universal and non country specific did even better.

I suppose I should talk about the Australian entries a bit. Let me say that a lot of the judging was conducted before we got there, that is we were only looking at the finalists in each category as we all judged at our own homes over the last 3 months, what we got to see was the top choices. What can I say about the Aussie work. The production standards were of the highest quality no doubt the craft was there.

However (and I must say these are my thoughts only) I couldn’t help feeling that something was a bit off, something missed the mark with a lot of Aussie work. Halfway through the first day I think it dawned on me. It appears that the Australian work has become quite insular. A lot of the jokes are specific to our country and a lot of the delivery style is brash, loud and over the top. Thanks Neighbours and Home & Away.

My film lecturer taught me (many moons ago) that silence is our biggest tool, “Kirkie you have to learn to listen to the silence between the words” he would say, and he was right. Silence is one of our most powerful tools. I didn’t manage to see too many spots from Australia that were allowed to “breathe” and let the audience take it all in.

One of the panelists in the room with me said the following about an Aussie spot to me (she said it almost apologising to me why she voted no): “Peter it’s just a cacophony of noise.”

I was trying to think why or how we as a country have developed this style and I think that a lot of it comes down to geography. You see a large % of people that work in the comms industries here in Sydney live in five postcodes (PWC study 2018) and in Melbourne it’s three postcodes.

So, when developing a spot, if the people that create these spots live in an environment that is sanitised, the work becomes sanitised. This is no one’s fault, but I would urge our creatives to get out of their environments by being uncomfortable, finding joy in the uncomfortable.

“To play the blues you have to live the blues”

Sydney is a massive city and once you get away from the beaches and the inner suburbs you will find a rich cavalcade of culture, art, expression and variety. A few years ago, I watched a Nepalese version of Hedwig and the Angry Inch in a tiny little cafe in Homebush, it was fantastic, raw and far from perfect. But that didn’t matter it was something different, it was a handful of young artists expressing themselves. Give me that environment than any Paddington hipster bar any day.

One of the ads I saw in Da Nang was beautiful and the people that were cast in it were from the street and most lived in extreme poverty, no amount of casting would give you the same emotion that these young people had. It was confronting, it was raw, and it was diverse. The person who filmed the spot came from the slums of Pakistan – a young person who has seen and lived with hardship on a daily occurrence.

Now before I get some nasty comments and/or people believe I’m just being a bit petty, I’m not. What I’m trying to say is that I would urge everyone who works in the advertising industry in Australia to please break out of your comfort zones, explore the most bizarre things, catch a show, concert or event that you would normally never see, go for it. Believe me your work will thank you so much for it.

Congrats to all the finalists and winners.. Outstanding work all round.