Jacob's Creek, Welcome to the Creek

The standout Australian campaign of August came from the world-renowned wine brand Jacob's Creek, with “Welcome to the Creek” forming part of an entirely new campaign platform for the brand.

Created by the team at Special London, the global campaign was a standout performer among its home audience, scoring a strong Cubery Rating of 6.5 – a metric that predicts an ad's long-term brand-building potential. The ad’s performance was underpinned by a fresh and distinctive creative direction for the iconic brand.

To maintain the brand’s social and cultural relevance, the ad set out to move beyond traditional wine advertising, which typically emphasizes refinement and sophistication.

Instead, Jacob’s Creek created a vibrant world filled with memorable characters, striking landscapes, and an energetic soundtrack, blending iconic Australian imagery with a contemporary style.

‍

Moment-by-Moment Emotional Activation

‍

These executional elements effectively captured viewers’ attention and created a lasting positive impression – helping the campaign generate an emotional response that placed it among Australia's best-performing ads. But beneath this vibrant cinematic world the campaign remained highly focused in its messaging, communicating that Jacob’s Creek is a fun and modern brand.

Of course, key to ensuring that messaging translates into commercial impact is making it unequivocally clear who’s doing the welcoming – which is especially important here because this new creative world feels very different to the one people have typically come to expect from Jacob’s Creek.

After a steady buildup of anticipation as the story unfolded, the product reveal arrived at the ad's emotional high point, connecting all the vibrancy and fun established through the narrative firmly back to the brand. Given the campaign’s departure from typical expectations, this was crucial in ensuring the creative remained unmistakably linked to Jacob’s Creek.

And that’s what made the ad so effective. Remaining top of mind doesn’t mean brands need to play it safe and align themselves overly closely with category conventions. Breaking from these can make campaigns far more effective over the long-term, provided the creative world that’s built remains unmistakably linked to the brand. By creating a distinctive and memorable brand world, Jacob's Creek has given consumers a reason to keep coming back.

‍