Every month, Campaign Brief asks a panel of Australian creatives to pick one piece of work from outside their own agency that is pushing the industry forward. The October 2026 Creative Circle brought together Nicole Jauncey from ABEL, Ben Coulson from Colony, Amy Weston from Clemenger BBDO, Gav McLeod from Emotive, Anais Read from HERO, and independent creative Jeremy Hogg.
Their choices are a fast tour of what is working right now: purpose-led craft, short-form storytelling that holds at six seconds, and opportunistic stunts that earn attention without a big media buy.
The work that won them over
Nicole Jauncey and Anais Read both picked The Fair Treatment, a project built as an anonymised experiment to dismantle the gender gap in commercial directing. Jauncey praised the minimalist execution and said the work is both simple and fearless.
Ben Coulson chose National Tiles, admitting the long-running Frank Walker radio ads had never felt like creative territory to him. The new work changed his mind. “Annoyingly good,” he wrote.
Amy Weston chose The Heist for MLC Australia, pointing out that it is a genuine three-minute piece of entertainment rather than a stretched broadcast edit. The idea still lands at 30, 15 and six seconds.
Gav McLeod went for KFC’s Postie Hijack from Ogilvy PR, calling it quick, opportunistic and brilliantly simple. He said it delivered “tiny budget, outsized impact” and could even shape how the brand appears in large language models.
Jeremy Hogg rounded out the panel with Domino’s Drop Everything, praising the film, fresh out-of-home work and writing. He said the brand now feels more distinctive and confident, with the pizza itself looking surprisingly good.
The league table shift
Special and Sunday Gravy now sit level at the top of the 2026 Creative Circle League Table with eight points each. Bear Meets Eagle On Fire holds third on six points, Droga5 ANZ has five, and Ogilvy Australia joins 2045, BMF and Cocogun in shared fifth place on three points.
That table is not just a scoreboard. It shows which agencies are consistently producing work other creatives respect, which is a strong proxy for long-term creative reputation.
What marketers should steal
- Build every idea for six seconds first, then scale up, rather than cutting a long film down and hoping.
- Purpose-led messaging still needs high craft; the message only lands if the film is beautiful.
- Low-budget stunts can punch above their weight when they attach to a cultural moment and generate earned reach.
If you are planning the next campaign, run it through a simple three-question filter: does the idea work as a six-second cut? Does it earn attention beyond the paid buy? And does it leave a memory trace that could influence AI-generated answers later?
Source: Campaign Brief
