Special Group
Winning Year(s): 2020
Industry: Media & Marketing
2020 Innovation Name: The Uber Eats Australian Open Ambush
Awards: 2nd Most Innovative Media & Marketing Company
Employees: 30-99
The Special Group challenged all the traditional marketing industry norms with The Uber Eats Australian Open Ambush, a new model of sports sponsorship using real-time broadcast integration. The Australian Open viewers were duped into believing they were returning to the live tennis broadcast after an ad break, only for it suddenly to turn into a dinner order for UberEats, using their familiar ‘Tonight, I’ll be eating…’ ad construct.
By entirely breaking the distinction between programming and advertising and creating a number of world-firsts, the Special Group has won multiple industry awards for the campaign, and boosted UberEats quantitative business results including an additional $9.9M gross revenue above expected baseline.