Sacha Baron Cohen stars in teaser ad for Uber Eats’ Australian Open campaign via Special Group
Uber Eats has recruited comedian and creator of Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen, alongside Australian tennis icons world number one Ash Barty and Nick Kyrios to feature in this year’s Australian Open campaign, ‘Tonight, I’ll Be Eating for Love’ via Special Group Australia.
‘Tonight I’ll Be Eating for Love’ is centred on an entirely new character created by Cohen, a Rogue Umpire, who is constantly sabotaging the game in order to maintain love on the scoreboard during tennis matches featuring Barty and Kyrios.
While the Rogue Umpire (Cohen) tries to keep love on the scoreboard Uber Eats will post a promo code on their Instagram to unlock free menu items at selected restaurant partners every time the point score is love during the Australian Open. When there is no longer love in the point score, the code disappears. Throughout the tournament there will be thousands of opportunities to win free menu items (delivery fee still applies).
This is the third Australian Open campaign Uber Eats and Special Group have created. It follows last year’s takeover which featured Sharon Strzelecki from ‘Kath and Kim’ fame alongside sporting icon Serena Williams, and a host of other famous tennis faces including Kyrgios.
In 2019, the technology company debuted its award winning Australian Open ambush platform which featured top tennis players stopping mid match on court to enjoy food ordered from the Uber Eats app.
As part of ‘Tonight, I’ll Be Eating for Love’ Uber Eats will feature restaurant partners McDonald’s, Hungry Jack’s, Dominos, Subway and Ben & Jerry’s.
The campaign will be Uber Eats’ largest Australian open campaign running across Channel 9 and Gem, social, OOH, digital, Tennis Australia’s channels and Uber Eats’ owned channels.
Says David Griffiths, head of marketing, Uber Eats ANZ: “We’re delighted to continue our collaboration with Tennis Australia, using the Australian Open as a platform to showcase our latest campaign. Navigating such an unpredictable time to deliver an integrated campaign that is bold, direct and has plenty of heart is a huge credit to our team, Special Group and all our partners. We’re extremely proud and excited to see this one run.”
Says Rebecca Kemp, marketing manager, Uber Eats ANZ: “Hilarious, compelling and riveting brand campaigns help delight existing customers, reminding them about the enormous choice available on the Uber Eats app but just as importantly it continues to drive new customers, and new ordering occasions to the platform. We couldn’t be happier with the surprise and staying power of our latest creative collaborator.”
Says Julian Schreiber, partner and CCO, Special Group Australia: “This is our third Australian Open campaign for Uber Eats, so we wanted to do something new, while still packing a punch for the brand. We realised Uber Eats could again own specific moments in the tennis – this time when the score is love.”
Says Tom Martin, partner and CCO, Special Group Australia: “Collaborating with Uber Eats and Sacha Baron Cohen to create a rogue umpire obsessed with keeping the score at love seemed a bold and completely fresh way to promote the moment.”
Client: Uber Eats
Senior Director Marketing APAC: Lucinda Barlow
Head of Marketing APAC: Andy Morley
Head of Marketing ANZ: David Griffiths
Senior Marketing Manager: Rebecca Kemp
Marketing Manager: Tim Broxup
Marketing Associate: Sharny Mullally
SPECIAL GROUP AUSTRALIA:
Founding Partner & CEO: Lindsey Evans
Founding Partner & Managing Director: Cade Heyde
CCO & Partner: Tom Martin
CCO & Partner: Julian Schreiber
Creative Directors: Jade Manning & Vince Osmond
Creatives: Jeff Seeff & Joel Grunstein
Executive Producer: Sevda Ćemo
Animated Teaser/ Explainer Producer: Alyce Guy
Still Producer: Emily Willis
Social Lead: Lachlan Stewart
Social Manager: Sarah Mckie
Group Strategy Director: Celia Garforth
Strategy Director: Heather Morrison
Team lead: Eileen Cosgrove-Moloney
Business Director: Laura Little
Business Director: Annabel Dempsey
Business Manager: Dharsh Sundran
Talent Director: Emily Stewart
Creative Technologist: Shaun O’Connor
PRODUCTION FILM:
Production Company: Scoundrel
Director: Scott Pickett
Producer: Ben Scandrett-Smith
Managing Director/ Executive Producer: Adrian Shapiro
Socials Director: Yianni Warnock (ex Division)
Edit & Post Production: Arc Edit
Lead Editor: Daniel Lee
Editor: Jack Hutchings
Socials Editor: James Ashbolt
Colourist: Edel Rafferty
Online artists: Chris Betteridge & Eugene Richards
Socials Colourist and Online: Chris Reynolds
Senior Post Producer: Freya Maddock
Sound Studio: Rumble Studios
Sound Engineer: Anthony “Tone” Aston
PRODUCTION STILLS:
Production Company: Chee Productions
Stills EP/ Producer: Matt Chee
Photographer: Christopher Tovo
PRODUCTION ANIMATED TEASER / EXPLAINER:
Post Production: Vandal
Sound: Vandal
Sound engineer: Nigel Crowley
22 Comments
How will anyone know it’s S.B.C?
Would help if he could do an Australian accent….
@GH I wouldn’t have known it was Sacha if I hadn’t read this first
SBC does not have hairless hands like that. Talk about budget dot com.
He created a character for them. This is going to be fun. Congrats.
Is he supposed to be South African?
This looks like it’ll be a lot of fun but the continuity errors are quite distracting, hand double isn’t wearing a watch or rings but then SBC suddenly is?
You must be fun at parties.
Funny and unexpected ad. Is SCB supposed to be a parody of himself here? Feels like the character is intentionally sloppy…
I’m assuming the fun will happen in the ads to come. Not one laugh in the teaser. Feels like the TOV is totally at odds with SBC’s usual style.
Will be interesting to see how this iteration of “Tonight I’ll be eating” goes. Loads of budget, but I reckon it’s a tough brief considering the platform doesn’t reaaaally have an idea at its heart.
Tonight I’ll be eating was a good line, its not an idea and this shows it..
Only so far millions of dollars can get you..
Menulog winning in ad land, if not in orders
Never understood why people wet themselves over this Uber Eats work so much. From the off I found them annoying, tacky and just not entertaining in anyway.
Still, it’s work, it’s been deemed a success by people way more important than me, people got paid, good on em etc etc
I watched this one and had zero emotional reaction to it. It’s just massively whelming. Not over, nor under, just bang down the line, null and void, no ones home, catch ya later.
I’d like to see them do something with it. Huge fan of Sacha so unless he’s out for a quick dolla to pay for the move then you’d think it would be good with him involved. Mind you, Bruno.
Totally agree with whoosh. There’s nothing in any of the Uber eats ads that’s of interest. They’re mildly memorable because of the shit celebrities. It’s C grade work. Just passable. In fact it’s super lazy creative to rely on celebrities.
This particular one is D grade. Fail. Not at all interested in where this goes, unless it gets really SBC loose, which i doubt it will.
Conclusion, if you can’t get SBC to be funny, then you should probably look for a new job.
Can’t wait to see where this goes.
@woosh
When it launched first it just seemed like the idea was ‘celebrity endorsement’ so I was surprised people were talking about it. I mean it works but that’s what happens when you buy interest. But since then I think to the agencies credit they’ve made something of it – making the tennis stuff seem live (though that ‘live tennis ‘idea had been done before by the campaign palace back in the day.) Now its getting interesting with the US stuff as well, sort of ideas within that idea. And good on some marketers for having an ongoing campaign that lasts longer than the next marketing manager or agency that comes in.
Whoever said budgets don’t matter clearly haven’t met this agency.
I often wonder if anyone could articulate the insight behind this campaign. Celebrities like food?
Exactly.
What’s the idea? Celebrities?
It would at least have some vestige of an insight if it came from a place of ‘celebrities staying home ordering Uber Eats so they don’t get harassed by fans/paparrazi’ but no… it’s just… celebs for the hell of it.
It’s great for creative to have such top casting, but I have no idea what this ad is about or what it is trying to achieve? Not sure if anyone will know it’s him either, unless there’s a ton of PR.
I’ll hold my judgement until I see the rest of it. The really shit Aussie / South Afrikaan accent is funny, I’m sure SBC can do a much better bogan accent being married to an Australian. Haven’t seen it on the tennis yet. Re: the broader ‘campaign’ – yes it’s not an idea. Celebrities is pretty much the only thing. And a crap-tonne of media expenditure. Bugger all money in production, everything on celebs, PR and TV. But at least the new team at Special have evolved it into entertainment where they just need to feature the ripped-off catchline somewhere. And sometimes that entertainment is pretty good. Sometimes it’s hit and miss. Shows how shit the Aussie market is when everyone starts frothing over an ad with a celebrity in it, couldn’t imagine that happening in the US or the UK.
This is just the Uber Eats ad but with a different… etc
Getting SBC is a bit of a coup I reckon, so please write a decent script for him. He deserves it. Oh, and so does your client.