Backing You

After endless COVID campaigns, Victorians were exhausted. After two years of rolling lockdowns and endless government messaging, the last thing anyone wanted was another campaign telling them what to do. But the need was real; unemployment had spiked, industries had been gutted, and hundreds of thousands of people were facing an uncertain future.

Research told us something important: people didn't want pity, and they didn't want a handout. They wanted genuine help. There's a world of difference between those two things, and we built the entire campaign around that truth. 'Backing You' showed real support in action, from the softly spoken word, the well-timed helping hand. Not grand gestures. Not government promises. Just one person seeing another person's value, even when they were struggling to see it themselves.

We followed interconnected stories of Victorians getting back to work and back to business, set to 'Here' by Briggs. The track gave the campaign its heartbeat, forward-moving, optimistic, unmistakably Australian. It wasn't a soundtrack laid over the top; it was the emotional thread that held everything together. Warm, human and hopeful. Because when someone's backing you, you start to believe you're worth backing.

The result? Website traffic to doubled in the first month. On YouTube, the TVC passed 2.5 million views with a completion rate of 81.46%, and Facebook delivered a 0.51% click-through rate, well above platform benchmarks for awareness campaigns.

The campaign earned Gold at the Summit International Creative Awards in 2022, recognised for both the integrated campaign and the TVC. This is the kind of work I now deliver through Pitch Collective, the same strategic and creative thinking, without the traditional agency overhead.

I've written about why best practice is often the enemy of work that actually works and why Backing You succeeded by ignoring it.