When a pop hit meets finals footy
Specsavers has taken Kylie Minogue’s 2000 single “Spinning Around” and spun it into a playful out-of-home moment for the AFL Grand Final. The creative, from TBWA\Melbourne, turns the song title into a classic “Should’ve gone to Specsavers” gag, appearing across Melbourne’s CBD, Richmond and Punt Road on large-format sites, street furniture and a roaming digital billboard.
The timing is deliberate: Kylie is performing at the Grand Final, and Specsavers has a longstanding designer partnership with her. The brand’s head of marketing for awareness and consideration, Anri McHugh, told Campaign Brief that the campaign is “simple, fun and unmistakably Specsavers” and taps into the excitement around Kylie’s performance while keeping Specsavers and eye health top of mind.
Why this works for growth teams
This isn’t just a pun. It’s a cultural piggyback: attaching a brand message to a moment that already has attention, then showing up exactly where that audience is moving. The roaming billboard along Punt Road and the activation under Kylie’s mural at Young & Jackson turn event-day traffic into impressions.
The lesson for digital marketers is that timing and placement are multipliers. Specsavers didn’t need a new product, a new tagline or a complex story. It needed a recognisable asset and a reason to show it at the right moment.
The playbook: ride cultural moments
If you want to replicate this, here’s a simple framework:
- Find the asset. A partner’s song, slogan or meme that your brand can legitimately claim.
- Pick the moment. A live event, holiday or trend where attention is already concentrated.
- Place it on the path. OOH, social or search placements where the audience will be when they’re thinking about the moment.
- Keep the brand line visible. The pun should serve recall, not replace it.
Specsavers’ “Should’ve gone to Specsavers” is the anchor. The Kylie reference is the hook. That combination makes the ad feel both fresh and instantly familiar.
What to do about it
Check your calendar for the next cultural moment your brand has a right to be part of. If you have a celebrity or influencer partnership, look at their catalogue for a title, lyric or catchphrase you can twist. Then choose a distribution channel that puts the creative in front of people when they’re already excited.
The risk is forcing a pun that doesn’t fit. Specsavers gets away with it because the line is already a shared joke about not seeing correctly. If your wordplay doesn’t connect to your product or brand promise, it will just be noise.
For marketers watching the AFL Grand Final, this is a reminder that the best brand moments are often the simplest: a familiar line, a famous partner and a live audience looking for a laugh.
Source: Campaign Brief
