Cyber-security briefs usually end up as warnings, not worlds. Telstra and Bear Meets Eagle On Fire with +61 just flipped that.
The Australian telecom’s latest film, Villains – Supreme Leader, has been named Bestads Best TV of the Week by global advertising showcase Bestadsontv.com. The pick came from Diana Triana, former Chief Creative Officer of Dentsu Creative Colombia, who called it “one of those campaigns that leaves you wanting to see more.”
A returning space emperor, not a one-off spot
Steve Buscemi is back as an intergalactic space emperor. After his previous cyber attack ended in spectacular failure, he and his band of evil aliens have returned with a bigger plan. That plan runs straight into Telstra’s upgraded defences. It’s a sequel in the truest sense: the villains learn from the last plot, and so does the brand.
Directed by Randy Krallman of SMUGGLER, the film leans hard into craft: spaceship design, a robot-faced sidekick, and the kind of world-building that makes a telecom ad feel like a trailer for a series. The campaign isn’t a single cut either. It’s built as several individual narratives, rolling out across TV, digital, social, cinema and Telstra stores.
Why the $2 billion context matters
The entertainment isn’t decoration. Australians reported more than $2 billion in scam losses last year, which keeps cyber-crime top of mind for consumers and businesses. Telstra’s pitch is practical: the network blocks millions of scam calls and texts every month.
For performance marketers, that’s the strategic core. The campaign has a clear job—sell network security—but it wraps that job in a recurring franchise rather than a fear message. That changes how the audience receives it: the same people who skip a warning might watch the next villain chapter.
That’s why this isn’t just awards bait. It’s a funnel play. The top of the funnel gets spectacle and the bottom gets a specific safeguard. The middle gets format-specific edits that keep the same characters working across a feed, a cinema screen and a retail showroom.
What to steal from the franchise playbook
- Keep the antagonist coming back. A recurring villain turns a product update into a sequel, which builds recall without starting from zero.
- Let craft carry the message. Cinematic direction and character design make a utility story feel like entertainment, not an announcement.
- Cut one world for every channel. Multiple narratives in different formats let the idea travel from cinema to social to in-store without losing its spine.
If you’re running performance Google or Meta ads, the format strategy is the hidden lesson. A single master narrative can be cut into short social edits, cinema spots and retail-screen loops, so the idea doesn’t get lost in the channel plan. Bestadsontv.com runs the judging each week with a top creative voice, and entries are free to upload, which makes it a useful benchmark for local agencies and D2C brands.
The lesson is simple. If your category sounds like a public service warning, borrow the grammar of film and bring back a character people recognise.
Source: Campaign Brief
