Special: How a NZ agency is setting the standard for advertising excellence

Off the back of an extraordinary year growth and awards-wise for Special, StopPress sits down with Special’s Co-Founder, NZ CEO and CCO, Tony Bradbourne, to delve into the secrets behind the agency’s success, explore the true value of industry awards, and gain a deeper understanding of why Special has become one of the most respected agencies in the industry.

In the highly competitive world of marketing, there are a few agencies that stand out from the rest, delivering innovative and effective campaigns that capture the attention of audiences and win the hearts of clients. And fewer still, those who can claim to be Kiwi originals. One such agency is Special, which has blazed a unique path in the local industry, and in the process racked up countless awards for its effective work.

Co-Founded by Tony Bradbourne, who serves as CCO and CEO of New Zealand,  Heath Lowe and Rob Jack, “famously with one desk, three chairs and no clients” says Bradbourne, Special has since established a reputation for delivering standout campaigns that break through the clutter and leave a lasting impact.

The now global advertising group has established offices in several other locations including Sydney, Melbourne, Los Angeles, London and most recently, New York. Back in 2021, Special extended its capabilities launching Special PR, which has also seen significant achievements in the past 18 months of operation. 

With bold ambitions and an obvious passion for his trade, it’s easy to see why Special has gone from strength to strength under the leadership of Bradbourne. Soon after meeting Bradbourne for the first time it quickly became clear he believes deeply that advertising can change the world – and it’s turning heads.

In the last few months alone, the agency has been named Independent Agency of the Year at the One Asia Creative awards, ranked as ‘# 7 agency in the world’ by The One Club of Creativity Global Creative Rankings, and now Campaign Brief has named Special as New Zealand’s premier agency – for the third time in six years.

“These are the awards that you have to write robust entries for. It’s fair to say that Campaign Brief is the special one that I think most agency heads would want to win because it has been going the longest. It’s definitely the most known and hard to win. It’s much more focused on the creative work, but really interestingly on the volume of good creative work. You can’t just have one or two pieces. You have to have a huge body of world-class work,” says Bradbourne.

With an impressive list of creative outputs from the past 12 months he’s most proud of “the huge amount of world-class work we’ve done across just about every single client.” These include Kathmandu’s ‘Summer Never Sleeps’ campaign, Partners Life ‘Last Performance’, Contact Energy’s ‘Fourth Trimester’ and work out of the Auckland office for Australian telecommunications company Optus.

However, Bradbourne says out of all the accolades Special has received, the ones that hold the most weight are being named the ‘most effective independent agency in the world’ by Effies global rankings as well as being named the fourth most effective agency in the world by World Advertising Research Center (WARC).

In the world of advertising and marketing, creativity is considered as one of the most powerful tools that agencies have at their disposal. As Bradbourne puts it: “Creativity is the greatest weapon we’ve got.” However, he says, creativity alone is not enough to justify the existence of an agency or the work that it produces. In fact, the ultimate goal of any agency is to produce work that is effective and achieves the desired results for the client.

Winning creative awards is a way of demonstrating that an agency’s work is effective, he adds. While some may view awards as nothing more than shiny trinkets, they are actually “cold, hard proof of effectiveness”.

The reason for this is that creatively awarded campaigns have been shown to be significantly more effective than their non-creative counterparts. This has been proven by experts in the field, such as New Zealand’s James Hurman and renowned researcher Peter Field.

The effectiveness advantage that comes from creativity is not the only benefit of winning awards. Bradbourne notes that it also helps to attract the best talent to the agency. Attracting top talent is crucial for any agency that wants to produce the most effective work possible.

And, as Bradbourne points out, Special has some of the top talent in the industry and he takes great pride in the accomplishments of Special Wellington since its opening in late 2021.

Special Wellington has not only brought back talent from overseas but also “enriched and grown the creative community in Wellington” he says, as well as winning new clients such as Trade Me, University of Otago and completing a project for Wellington City Mission called Silent Night. 

Looking to the future, Special has plans to move to a larger flagship office in Ponsonby later this year to accommodate its growth plans. With the agency expanding rapidly, the move will enable it to increase its staff from 75 to 100. The larger space will also provide the agency with the necessary infrastructure to support its operations and ensure that it can continue to deliver the highest quality of work for its clients. 

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