Australians and Kiwis pick their top 10 favourite TV ads

SYDNEY/AUCKLAND, Yesterday: Australians and New Zealanders shared their favourite TV ads, revealing cultural insights in the AU/NZ Top 10 Favourite Ads Survey by TRA.

In New Zealand, ASB’s Ben & Amy topped the list for the fourth year, followed by ANZ’s We Do How and Turners’ Tina from Turners. Australia’s favourites were KFC’s Look on the Fried Side of Life, Telstra’s This is Footy Country, and ALDI’s Good Different.

The survey asked over 1,250 Kiwis and Aussies aged 18 to 60 about their favourite TV ads, why they liked them, and how they felt about them.

The NZ survey saw consistent top ads, with new entries and position changes. This is Australia’s first survey by TRA, so all ads are newcomers.

TRA’s Carl Sarney and Alex Forrester used the Creative Edge framework to evaluate ad performance based on how attention-grabbing (Remarkable), entertaining (Rewarding), and brand-linked (Remembered) the ads were.

Two key differences emerged: NZ ads often use familiar characters like ASB’s Ben and Amy, while Aussie ads focus on branded storytelling and situational humour, like Toyota’s ads.

Regarding national identity, NZ ads embrace ‘Kiwi-ness,’ while Australian ads approach ‘Aussie-ness’ indirectly through themes like sport and weather.

Carl Sarney commented, “One story, spread as big as you can afford to spread it, is creating highly effective, enduring icons that are loved by the public. It’s good news for everybody – campaigns loved by the public tend to drive results that are loved by the C-suite too.

“Two key differences emerged: NZ ads often use familiar characters like ASB’s ‘Ben and Amy’, while Aussie ads focus on branded storytelling and situational humour, like Toyota’s ads.”

“Ben & Amy are a case in point, the ASB brand characters have resonated with Kiwis for years, consistently earning them top spot since the characters were launched back in 2020.”

Alex Forrester added, “The common theme across the Aussie ad winners was the ads were remembered and resonated because the brands strongly linked their brand to the creative idea. KFC’s Look on the Fried Side of Life is a textbook example, a perfect combination of great human insight and brand truth.

“The human insight is so familiar, that sometimes we do feel defeated by life, and the brand truth works perfectly – KFC is good because it’s bad. It’s also a great example of category disruption, food can be unhealthy sometimes! This combination of novel and surprising elements makes the execution of the ad more remarkable and rewarding.”

Forrester also noted, “Telstra’s Footy Country ad is remembered because the brand is not obvious throughout the ad. That’s a bold decision which demonstrates that attribution – being ‘remembered’ – is more complicated than just repetition of a brand’s logo. When executed expertly, the use of deliberate subtlety can work.”

Giselle Bleakley, Head of Marketing and CX at New World, expressed delight at their new entry in NZ’s list. She said, “Rather than invent something new to talk about, we listened to our customers and used advertising to amplify what they already loved about us.

“Our campaign tracking shows that the find your wonderful TVC achieves some of the strongest attention and bonding scores for any ad we’ve measured. Matching brand promise with CX is important to us. We measure how well people think we live up to the promises we make with customer surveys, and since launching ‘find your wonderful’ these scores have been at record highs.”

NZ’s top 10 ads

ASB: Ben and Amy (No change in rankings)
ANZ: We Do How (No change in rankings)
Turners: Tina from Turners (No change in rankings)
PAK’nSAVE: Stickman (No change in rankings)
Genesis: George and her family (+3 places)
New World: Find Your Wonderful (New to list)
McDonalds: It’s Good to be the Driver (-2 places)
KFC: General retail (-1 places)
Vogels: Neighbours (new to list)
Lotto: House Hunt (returns to list)

Australia’s top 10 ads

KFC: Look on Fried Side of Life (and related ads)
Telstra: This is Footy Country
ALDI: Good Different
Cadbury: There’s a glass & a half in everyone (garage)
Woolworths: Packed with Pride
Toyota: HiLux ‘In the Middle’
AAMI: When Australia Happens
HBF: Quokka Series (example)
McDonalds: The Original Mouthful
Kia: Kia’s Getting a Ute