The New Wave ~ HERO
The New Wave is Campaign Brief’s Q&A series spotlighting the next generation of independent creative companies and exploring how the indie model is evolving. From structure and speed to culture and capability, we unpack where these businesses are finding their edge and what’s driving client decisions today. Next up is HERO.
1. Give us the elevator pitch – who are you and what do you do?
We exist to turn brands into HEROES, by delivering outstanding effectiveness through awesome creativity. So we’re pretty ambitious about the ideas we want to be known for and the results they deliver.
This year, we’re proud to have ranked number 1 Australian indie at the 2026 World Independent Advertising Awards. And to have also created a number of globally awarded AI and tech ideas, like Transit Tales for Mastercard, Fujifilm Mindography, Toyota C-HR Diamond Collection and Maybelline Through Their Eyes. Plus a pretty dumb but fun bit of tech for Hoegaarden China, which involved creating an arcade game controlled by stroking a capybara’s butt, that was recognised in this year’s Cannes Entertainment Lions for Gaming (along with Transit Tales in the Digital Craft Lions.)
2. Are indies still challengers, or have they become the norm?
Independent agencies will always be challengers. It’s why they exist.
There’s not much point in being independent if you’re just going to conform to the norm. The creative freedom and infectious independent spirit are what attracts people to work for them and clients to seek them out.
By nature, indies are built to question convention, move fast, disrupt and be different. It’s also just a better way to work! As Steve Jobs said: it’s more fun to be a pirate than to join the navy.
3. What’s your unfair advantage over the networks today?
HERO’s not really a traditional independent. It’s more what we’d call an amplified indie.
We deliver the entrepreneurial speed, agility and senior access of an independent agency. But we’re also able to tap into our global networks for insight, expertise and scale if we need it. This gives our clients the best of both worlds: scale and agility, backed by global reach and insights.
Adding to this is the collaborative nature of our relationships with our clients, from the pitch stage right through the partnership. They get to see how we got there and what we cut along the way. So they’re a key part of our creative process.
4. How are you using AI to compete above your weight?
Everyone and every department across HERO is now using AI in some way, shape or form. From streamlining the briefing process and creative visualisation, to pumping out a personalised birthday track for an unsuspecting HERO with Suno.
It’s in creative and tech innovation that AI has really transformed how we work though. Campaigns like Mastercard Transit Tales, which used AI to create 34 million different real-time stories tailored to individual commuter journeys, simply could not have been created or even conceived without AI. The maths behind this is just too mind-boggling. Similarly, for Instax Mindography, we used AI machine-learning paired with fMRI neuroscience to literally read memories and then reproduce them as printed images. Again, this incredibly complex technology idea wouldn’t have been possible without AI.
So while many agencies are finding success introducing AI to their operations and processes, we’re having the greatest success in introducing it as a creative and technology solution and partnering it with our creative process to produce much more interesting brand platform ideas.
5. What kind of clients are choosing indies right now – and why?
Every kind of client is considering independents and asking how they can fit into their marketing model.
The global networks are no longer the automatic default for big banks, telcos or major brands. Big business doesn’t necessarily need a big agency. We’re seeing that play out across the market in recent pitch activity, where clients are looking for partners who can offer senior thinking, speed, flexibility and a more direct connection to the work.
6. What’s next – growth, staying lean, or something else?
Rather than just steady growth, we’re after intelligent growth: continuing to experiment with the different facets of AI and new technologies as they emerge, adopting what works for our clients and our business. It’s not about jumping on the next tech or AI trend, or overhauling our operations just to be ‘AI-powered’.
Every brand problem, every new project and every behaviour change campaign requires different approaches. But the core of our HERO methodology hasn’t changed. We are and forever will be in the ideas business. So the greatest service we can offer our clients is strategically rigorous brand thinking that delivers awesome creative thinking and outstanding results, regardless of how it might be made.
For us, great work’s always been built on authenticity, believability and human truth. That’s what connects with not just consumers, but people. It’s what turns brands into HEROES.
Check out the other New Wave Q&As below:
Read cummins&partners’ Q&A here
Read Connecting Plots Group’s Q&A here
Read Jacko Jacko & Jacko’s Q&A here
Read Chimera Project’s Q&A here
Read Today The Brave’s Q&A here
Read Tightknit Studio’s Q&A here
Read Bastion Australia’s Q&A here
Read We Are Different’s Q&A here
Read SICKDOGWOLFMAN’s Q&A here
Read Kill Boring Dead’s Q&A here
Read Oblong Creative’s Q&A here
Read The Many Australia’s Q&A here
Read Bureau of Everything’s Q&A here
Read Art of the Possible ANZ’s Q&A here
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