At the Nine Upfront 2021, the company announced a million-dollar challenge to marketers to take the NRL’s State of Origin from a sporting blockbuster to Australia’s Super Bowl.
The State of Originality is an open challenge to brands, marketers and creative agencies to create unmissable big-brand moments during the commercial breaks.
The State of Originality will award $1 million in advertising inventory across Nine’s television, radio, digital and print assets to the commercial judged as best on ground in the live telecast by an esteemed panel. To be deemed eligible to enter, advertising must be booked within the three-game period of State of Origin in 2021.
Liana Dubois, director of powered said: “State of Origin has long been Australia’s Super Bowl when it comes to the audience it garners. Now is the time for the same to be true of the advertising contained within it.”
“The State of Originality is a call to arms for marketers and their creative teams to elevate the power and importance of creativity in delivering results.
“We know that creative, meaning the actual ad itself, is responsible for up to fifty per cent of the total effect of an advertising campaign. Reach is responsible for the other half. Utopia is to crack both. The State of Origin reaches up to four million people, that’s the reach covered. We invite you to crack the creative as part of Nine’s State of Originality.”
“We want to challenge brands to come up with Australia’s version of Budweiser’s ‘Wassup’, or Apple’s Ridley Scott-directed ‘1984’ which introduced the Macintosh computer to the world. We want to see brands have fun and create magical moments for viewers, like when Darth Vader struggled with his powers before managing to lock his dad’s VW with just the power of The Force,” said Dubois.
“Australia is a creative nation and we want more ads that make advertising famous. We want the ads to be talked about the next day just as much as who scores the winning try.”