Synergy for Gruen Nation!

Synergy is proud to be invited back to ABC’S Gruen for a fifth time to sell the unsellable!

This year we are excited to be one of only four agencies to appear on its unique spin-off Gruen Nation, exploring the topical issue of what unites (or sometimes divides) us as Aussies… Like Milo then milk, or milk then Milo? Jam then cream on your scones, or cream then jam? How about a Jellyfish sting or nasty sunburn? Or even, how much is too much Vegemite?

The special edition focuses on political campaigning and features a shortlist of hand-picked Australian agencies tasked with creating compelling pitch videos. The last edition of Gruen Nation went to air over a decade ago during the 2010 Federal Election – and it’s fair to say a lot has changed since then.

Appearing on Gruen Nation is a particularly special opportunity for Synergy’s creativeXpeople, as we are the only creative team from Canberra to represent the Capital on one of Australia’s most watched television programs.

To see us flex our creative muscles for this year’s Gruen Nation, make sure you tune in to the first episode on 18 May.  
  

Gruen: Our history

creativeXpeople has won the coveted Gruen Pitch trophy three out of the four times we have featured on the show.

We proudly take a collaborative, team-based approach to tackling all briefs – especially Gruen’s ‘impossible pitches’. Our team of nearly 60 people live and breathe collaboration. Importantly, we don't just collaborate amongst ourselves, we harness to collective effort of the entire firm, using different platforms and techniques to ideate and draw our inspirations - after all two heads are better than one, or in this case, over 500.  

Our team is an innovative agency/consultancy hybrid within the Synergy consulting firm – combining the best of both areas to tackle campaigns, graphic design, advertising and video production, alongside research, culture and behavioural change. We think our team is pretty special – our unique variety of skills combined makes us a market leader when it comes to creative campaigns.

We were first invited to Gruen in 2018 to convince Australians that cheating is in our DNA, we returned in 2019 where we took out our first trophy for our pitch to convince Australians to embrace Halloween in our Bloody Ripper . Our third time appearing on the show in 2020 won us a trophy for convincing Australia to never go back to the office with our ‘Why would you work anywhere else?’ pitch.

And in 2021, amidst a hard Canberra lockdown, we took home our third Gruen trophy for our We’re all better when they’re boarding pitch, convincing Australians to send all kids to boarding school. What made this pitch so special was that it was developed and created completely remotely, drawing on our firm’s collaborative efforts and platforms to draw ideas together, ideate and refine, and produce a high-quality campaign. Chief Strategy Officer at BMF Australia, Christina Aventi, remarked that the pitch was “absolutely resonant”, and freelance creative Karen Ferry added she “really loved the craft”. Our three winning pitches can be seen below. 

Our history and experience with creative campaigns varies across the team from Cricket Australia, ANU, Engineers, UNSW, Continental Tyres, to Red Energy, Deliveroo, and across Australian Government.
 

A bit about ABC’s Gruen

ABC’s Gruen is a long-running Australian television program featuring a panel of advertising industry experts, who analyse and dissect Australian advertising. The show is hosted by Wil Anderson and accompanied by Russel Howcroft (originally of George Patterson Y&R) and Todd Sampson (previously of Leo Burnett).

The Gruen Pitch explores the thinking behind advertising and challenges creative agencies around Australia to solve the ‘impossible pitch’, vying for the coveted Gruen trophy. Each episode sees two creative agencies competing for the approval of the expert panel – a win seen as even more valuable as it is awarded by peers.

Tune in and keep an eye on this page and our social media channels for updates!