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We regularly survey a nationally representative sample of Australians and New Zealanders to discover which ads are resonating.
To find out, we ask them a simple, unprompted question; “What is your favourite ad on TV at the moment?”.
The most frequently mentioned favourites make up our top ten list. Explore the rankings below.
The ‘stay one step ahead of scammers’ ad has been a hit with its humour and relevant message for all New Zealanders, beyond just ASB customers.
However, in December, following the introduction of Sunny the dog in ASB’s home lending campaign, we have seen a number of mentions of the Christmas extension with Sunny wearing reindeer antlers giving Ben a stick as a present.
ANZ have retained their spot as no.2. They’re another brand exemplifying strong creative commitment with the Sharma family's story.
In December 2024, it’s their “Fans since forever” ad about summer cricket. In New Zealand, celebrating summer outdoorsiness can be just as good as a Christmas ad at this time of year.
This ad is another example of kiwi playfulness entertaining audiences. We admire people who live life in their own unique way, and here we see a range of quirky characters on an entertaining quest to find belonging and connection. It’s also a great example of a campaign that, at its core, is a very entertaining service demonstration.
Since launch, we have seen these highly recognisable TV characters used across multiple media channels and brand touchpoints talking about the full range of One NZ products and services.
This is a great example of squeezing freshness from long-standing brand assets. Tux are celebrating the brand’s 70th anniversary by bringing back their famous jingle “Tux keeps ‘em full of life” and reimagined the brand idea for a contemporary context. The TVC tells the story of ‘Bjorn’, a city dog suddenly thrown into a rural world. Bjorn finds the respect of the farm dogs by finding his inner kiwi dog. Lots of playfulness, humour and other Kiwi Codes like connection to nature and earned success are woven into the story.
The KFC brand ad launched earlier this year is full of Kiwi Codes and serves to defend KFC’s leadership positioning and relatability in the New Zealand market as global competitors like Popeyes bring new competition.
The brand ad also compliments the 15-second promo spots which follow a consistent structure that packs a punch. Pair the entertainment with red and white striped buckets, familiar music and the colonel, and it’s unmistakably KFC. It’s what keeps love for the brand front and centre.
Tina from Turners is fast becoming a loved personality in her own right. Tina’s name is humorously linked to the brand, she wears a staff uniform and the stories focus on her love of buying cars.
The results speak for themselves – the campaign has helped to deliver record profits year after year for Turners, winning the campaign gold for sustained success at the 2024 Effies.
Stickman has been the face of PAK’nSAVE for 15 years and is still making Kiwis laugh. This campaign is a masterclass in long-term brand building, a consistent reminder of the PAK’nSAVE brand positioning – everything they do, including its no-frills advertising style, is to save customers money.
Where some favourite ads come and go, Genesis are another brand adopting a long-term creative commitment strategy. New Zealanders are getting to know more about George and her family, and with every execution, the brand talks to multiple proof points.
Launched in 2019, NZ Post’s Christmas ad is the gift that keeps on giving. Back in the December Favourite Ads list for the 5th Christmas in a row.
That’s the thing with a favourite ad, they can remain a favourite year after year with continued air time. We’ve seen this throughout advertising history from the Crunchie train robbery, to Nestle Scorched Almonds, Mitre 10's Sandpit, and now this NZ Post campaign looks set to continue the trend.
Like ANZ, rather than a Christmas ad, McDonalds has gone for a Summer ad. And like NZ Post, with a hit on their hands, they’re re-running the Summer Driver ad again in 2024 after it first hit the favourite ads list in December 2023. The classic kiwi road trip is widely familiar, and so is the customer truth of the driver earning a few extra bites from a McDonalds drive through order on a roadie together. If kiwiness is a common ingredient in favourite ads, it’s no surprise that it applies to favourite products too.
This is 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.
It’s a bold decision for Telstra to hero a story about footy without making themselves more visible. The success of this approach demonstrates that attribution (the brand being ‘remembered’) is more complicated than just constant repetition of the logo – deliberate subtlety can work. And it’s working exactly as planned for Telstra.
ALDI’s creative teams have an uncanny gift for translating solid strategy into rewarding advertising with an acute awareness of customer experience. They are great at finding those ‘so true’ moments with their customers and reflecting them in advertising. It’s what’s made them more memorable than other, more predictable, ads.
In this ad, Cadbury has captured the very specific, yet somehow universal, I’m-not-crying-you're-crying emotional story about generosity. It’s the same feeling they generate across their ads – an unmistakably Cadbury feeling. Pair this with the iconic ‘glass and a half’ brand asset, and you have an ad that ascends faster and more directly than many can do.
This is an old ad. But it’s nostalgic. This is a window into the kind of shopping experience we want to have. We’re all that mum proud of our son at his first job, or that kid trying hard at our first job. It’s got nothing to do with rorting, inflation or CEO interview walk-outs. It’s an ad made in a time before COVID, before ALDI, when Woollies was just a supermarket selling stuff in competition with Coles. Take us back there.
There are some social scenarios which over-perform in grabbing people’s attention – an aeroplane altercation, someone wearing white at a wedding etc. In this case, a messy divorce.
While the humorous twist on this familiar scenario is massively rewarding for the consumer, putting the brand and the product in the centre of the story is what’s made the brand highly memorable.
This ad makes a strong play for Australian association through a combination of iconic Australian symbolism (Dorothea Mackellar's 'My Country' and a brief reference to the ‘Lucky Country’ book by Donald Horne).
Since The Voice Referendum, we have seen fewer brands communicating explicitly about Australian-ness – reflecting confusion about what it should look and feel like. The ads works because, in a vacuum of confident Australian-ness, people are still looking for ways to feel like an Australian and buying insurance may be as good as any.
I like these Quokka ads because they prove advertising doesn’t always need to be ‘clever’. It works often by developing and repeating something which creates a positive association with the brand. It’s remarkable because quokkas are cute. It’s rewarding because quokkas are cute. It’s remembered because of the creative commitment to characters – and quokkas are cute.
Macca's creative strategy extracts more value out of existing brand equity. Being remembered often seems like the most challenging and expensive part of the advertising we measure however, it’s a huge advantage your brand already holds space in the heads of your consumers.
Similar it our friends at AAMI – this is a brand attempting to develop Australian brand credibility. However, the approach here develops Australian-ness via sport – specifically iconic Australian sports-people. Celebrities are remarkable and rewarding, but this ad may show that the multiplication of celebratory spots could have an amplifying effect on its remarkable-ness.
