Telstra launches new national brand campaign ‘More Reliable Than Family’ via The Monkeys
Telstra’s new national brand campaign for its home internet has rolled out on screens nationally this week with a TVC, developed by The Monkeys, part of Accenture Song, showcasing its reliable home internet.
The TVC depicts an Aussie family in a very real way to demonstrate the reliability of its home internet, juxtaposed against how unreliable big brothers can be, with a good-natured theme of “more reliable than family”.
The story focuses on Jayden, the youngest brother in a family of five. While the rest of the family are enjoying a relaxing afternoon at home deep in their devices, someone’s forgotten to pick Jayden up after AFL training. But like all the best stories, the underdog gets the win in the end.
The campaign, which launched on Sunday, will run nationally until mid-May across free-to-air, pay and catch-up TV. Throughout the campaign period it will run across AFL & NRL games, Married at First Sight, The Project, national news programs and more.
Says Brent Smart, chief marketing officer, Telstra: “We are going for a more emotional approach in a category that’s been about rational stuff like speed and price. We wanted to deliver a relatable campaign that portrays Aussie families as they really are. Or at least how mine is.”
Client: Telstra
Creative Agency: The Monkeys, part of Accenture Song
Chief Creative Officer: Tara Ford
Executive Creative Director: Barbara Humphries
Creative Directors: Cameron Bell, Sam Dickson
Senior Creatives: Jake Ausburn, Alex Polglase
Business Strategy Director: Ben de Castella
Chief Client Officer: Belinda Drew
Group Business Director: Amanda Porritt
Senior Business Director: Ash Robertson
Head of Production: Penny Brown
Senior Producer: Kaija Wall
Integrated Production Lead: Sarah Miller
Digital Design Lead: Eva Godeny
Creative Services Manager: Mel Meehan
Production Company: Revolver
Director: Steve Rogers
Managing Director/Co-Owner: Michael Ritchie
Executive Producer/Partner: Pip Smart
Producer: Alex Kember
Director Of Photography: Germain McMicking
Production Designer/Costume: Margot Wilson
Music & Sound: Rumble Studios
Composer: Peter Corrigan
Sound Designer: Tone Aston
Music & Sound EP: Michael Gie
Stills Photography: Hart & Co
Photographer: Cory White
80 Comments
how this story would have worked on paper, and I really wanted it to work, but it just doesn’t quite get there. Personally, I think it needed less time in the set up and more time in the pay off. But I applaud any agency and client who uses drama. It’s a dying genre in ads for the safety of comedy.
Stupid ad. Doesn’t get the message across succinctly.
…who is left feeling that Telstra is helping to enslave us all to our screens?
but a very sweet piece of film
This doesn’t leave me feeling good about anything. The idea and script are great… i think you bought the wrong treatment though. Families are doing it tough right now, this just adds to that.
Completely agree!
This ad raises huge concerns for child safety. What would the Morcombs have to say about a child walking home in the dark alone? Where is his mobile phone to call home? Where is the duty of care of all family members to ensure someone will notice a person is not home at the right time? This advertisement strikes too many red flags.
Awful ad. Dark, ominous and showcases a fractured family dynamic. Fail.
The new ad is terrible. It makes me horrified to think this was even allowed to air. Families are all people have, and these days they are smaller, further apart and not easily accessible since covid and the price increase of life. So internet is not more reliable. It is convenient and a bad replacement.
The safety of comedy?
Good comedy isn’t easy, and very few brands are doing it anymore.
Agree with the rest of it. Bit of a long walk
For a company that sells tech and connection, it’s odd to show tech and connection turning Aussie families who fail to be there for one another because they’re sucked into screens
…to see some clean storytelling. Getting so bored of technique over story. It’s lovely (and effective) to actually connect with an audience.
The Insight is imperfect to me but I would love to see more clients (including my own) have an appetite for great classic drama. Breathe of fresh air in the ad break and always a timeless.
Just highlights how much staring at screens is bad.
Could easily have been an ad telling people to drop the devices and pick up the relationships in their life.
This house looks like a dystopian nightmare.
I love the security ad — with all the choppers, etc.
But this one is not thought through.
Totally dystopian.
People do be on they phones though
Everyone, every device, all at once.
Drama? Er, isn’t this meant to be comedy? Isn’t the idea of the forgetful brother shouting out in the rain while his would be passenger brother plonks into his comfy armchair and eats his snack, comedy? It’s really only the sound mix which is ‘serious’.
Why should I go with Telstra?
Or did I dose off.
Takes a while to get there but it’s just nice to see this style of humour edging it’s way back into ad-land again. A year or two ago this probably would have been killed in the concepting phase for some tenuous attempt to label it offensive.
I dig. Well done Monkeys Syd.
Loved the casting and story telling.
So the product is so good and can provided such an addictive service that it will make your family unreliable.
But if it was unreliable, would it therefore make your family reliable because they wouldn’t be glued to their devices?
Is the reliability of Telstra the downfall of a functioning family?
Totally agree. It is a mega fail. I wish it could be taken off the tv. Devices rule; family responsibility comes a very poor second.
Very dark
Glued to devices….
Pick a bar? What the hell is pick a bar?
I’d just call him
You are like that dude on TikTok who shows how simple it is to do things that other people make look hard.
This could be funny if it was for another product taking the piss out of our addiction to technology. Holding up a mirror to society is a massive own goal if you are the company enabling the anti-social behaviour.
people complaining about “highlighting” screen addiction while looking at screens to do it.
Maybe I’m a bit stoopid but I don’t quite get the ending?! Was the brother supposed to pick up his brother from training? If so, why didn’t he just jump in the car and zoom off? Why did he yell back in to the house? Did he know he was home?
Maybe I’m just tired. Forgive me if I’m missing the obvious.
I was equally confused and then realised he did zoom off and was calling out for the brother at the sports field – I thought he was outside his house – for ages – and then it suddenly clicked.
Monkeys nz is doing a droga5 nz
Yet the kid doesn’t have a phone?
Nice film. Reminiscent of great Kiwi ads before Lee Tamahori broke into movies. Execution tick. Story? It’s just wrong. Why’s the little brother, the only active one, the only one without a phone?
I love this new NRMA ad.
Visually consistent. Long, long story brought back to a little moment.
Well done Monkeys and NRMA.
Nice film. I suppose. Reminiscent of Lee Tamahori narrative ads of the ‘90s. Except they made sense. How come the only active member of the family doesn’t have a phone? What is Telstra really trying to say? ‘Cause I really don’t feel any better about them than I did before watching this ad. Not so much dystopian as just a little f**kd up.
Feels very familiar to the DDB work.
Is this really the best we can do?
Beautifully crafted. True. Honest. Makes ya feel, makes ya think. Well done.
So dull. Great line tho!
Oh dear. The usual tosh from the usual imbeciles. Perhaps being St. Patrick’s day they are wee leprechauns, who’ve crept out of the peat bogs again. With their wee intellects and wee everything else. As usual they don’t have the strength of character to identify themselves, or own up to the work they have produced, so that it can be what is laughingly called ‘critiqued’ on these pages.
It must be galling for theses wee intellects not to work with clients like Brent, his team, & of course the talent of the guys at the Monkeys. Brent wills his agencies to do well, & has genuine/demonstrable ambition to create ‘work that works’ for the brand and strikes home with existing and potential customers. As he and the Monkeys did so well for NRMA/IAG. Also of course Brent is prepared to invest in production and media. Must be fecking frustrating for all wee people…Enjoy your Guinness today
Richard Goodrich.
Makes ya feel?
Depressed.
Makes ya think?
What have we all become,with Telstra’s aid an abetting.
Not well done.
This is equivalent to a VB ad showing a house of drunks.
THIS IS COMEDY! ….maybe I’m missing something.
Anonymous comments are lame I agree
But no one has to praise this ad if they don’t think it’s that good regardless of who is involved in making it
Hi Richard – are you saying that just because of the profile of the client or the agency responsible for the work, we should all fall in line and say how amazing the work is?
Great craft, lovely film. Nice idea. I just figured the boy’s phone was flat? Or he doesn’t have one? Also, nice to see some different faces, tones, and feelings portrayed. Well done.
One of the worst commercials I’ve seen. Telstra should get their big fat corporate heads out of our lives.
This is really really depressing.
I’m sorry I missed the funny between the darkness, lack of family conversation, arched brickwork, vertical blinds, screen-obsessed family, and that final rain scene.
It just left me feeling empty.
If he hasn’t got a phone he must be the only teenager in the entire world that doesn’t.Or is he so damaged by his families addiction he’s chosen not to have one?
Hello ‘Gary’, loved watching you play back in the day. My essential point is, people should put their (real) name to and own their comments. Robust & intelligent & owned debate/observations/criticism are all absolutely valid of course, just not mealy mouthed moaning from behind a facade…
I seem to remember that “pseudonym” essentially means ‘fake writer’ or similar. So for me it follows that fake writers make fake comments…
Richard.
Sure, the Monkeys part of Accenture song did so well on NRMA that Brent fired them.
While I agree Richard,sadly that train left the station many years ago.
Anonymity is not only ingrained it is what drives these forums.
I can’t wait for the Sportsbet version of this ad… grim
Some of the comments here are harsh but I think its fair to say with all the talk, hype and PR from some of the people involved in this work, you’d expect this to be the best thing on Aussie screens. This is nowhere near the standard they think they preach. It’s okay at best.
Telstra are the most unreliable ISPI have ever had the misfortune of having to use. I am stuck with fixed mobile broadband internet as they won’t give us NBN. We suffer dropouts multiple times every day and cannot rely on their service at all. They completely ignore our complaints, once we have waited for hours to talk with them.
Spare us your corperate propaganda Telstra. We see right through it.
“How likely are you to recommend telstra to a friend? 1 to 10: -10.”
Sad lot Charlie Bucket vibes.
Advertising people still watching this while our mothers, sisters, cousins et al uninvolved in our industry have already turned off.
‘ Too clever by half’ as an industry legend once proffered.
I came here in the hope someone could tell me what this add is about. It makes no sense to me. I just don’t get it.
I did the same Muriel. I have watched it several times and still couldn’t understand what it was all about. Comes over as grim and depressing. Why couldn’t the boys actually ring or message each other? Because “They both didn’t have a Telstra mobile” No.1 must have! Boring ad which made want to know what I was missing……NOT MUCH
Same, and I worked in advertising for many years.
but got very bored here
It’s the kind of work all writers should aspire to.
Terrible ad for a telecom- why would phones not be used by someone in the situation depicted? All kids have them, if they’ve somehow lost theirs then their team mates have them. What is the message supposed to be anyway – devices from Telstra are so attention grabbing you’ll forget your family responsibilities?
Does someone know who is playing the piano on that ad please?
Thank youuu
Disappointing that this ad has a message that it’s service is better than family….Telstra has never had a consistent, caring or responsible service for years but most of all it has been consistently unreliable.
I think you all need to brighten up and see the funny side of this. It’s called comedy.
You can’t tell me that no one has forgotten to pick someone up or forgotten an appointment and raced out the door.
I didn’t see that though. It was done so poorly I couldn’t pick up on that being the story.
I didn’t get it, had to think too hard, this ad is too deep, keep the kiss method.
Without that explanation , the ad made no sense at all. Most people who watch it just say, Huh??
Why the f didn’t he call “family” on his mobile phone on the Telstra network. No body talks to each other in the “family” All on phones, computers & social media etc. BAD look for the family connection you are trying to promote. Dumb add does not make any sense. Would have cost a lot of money to produce.
Absolute Crap commercial
I had to search for the meaning of the ad, very poor depiction and confusing.
Possibly the only kid in the country without a mobile phone…totally unrealistic.
I love this Ad, can’t see it often often.
So I’ve seen this ad half a dozen or more times now during the Australian Open and I’m here on this site to try and figure out just what on earth the ad is trying to say. Sorry, but it’s just not at all obvious what the intention is nor, and probably more importantly from the standpoint of the campaign, just what it is that Telstra internet gives me. It’s all very well being clever or subtle by not having any dialogue, but sometimes you do actually have to tell your audience what you want them to know.
So the brother calls out “Jayden” when he finally reaches the footy field in the rain, however can anyone please tell me what he says on the couch when woken up by the door slamming??
Almost sounds like he’s saying sh!t haha
When the Add is almost always presented chopped at the beginning & at the end there is no point to the story. Thus the reason I came here with the question “what’s the point of the Add”? A waste of Telstra’s money that they accept the cropping.