Australia’s favourite ads struggle with brand attribution, new TRA study reveals

Australia’s favourite ads are winning hearts and attention through emotional storytelling and humour, but brand attribution remains a critical challenge, according to new national research from insights agency TRA.

• Australia’s Top 10 Favourite Ads – June 2025
• Allianz: Care you can count on
• Telstra: Wherever we go
• Budget Direct: Sarge, Jacs and Chief
• Youi: Shop around
• RACQ: You with RACQ?
• Aldi: Good Different
• KFC: FLG
• HBF: Quokkas
• AAMI: Lucky You’re with AAMI
• Specsavers: Should have gone to Specsavers

The June 2025 edition of TRA’s bi-annual representative study asked over 1,000 Australians to name their favourite ad from the last 12 months. Topping the list is Allianz’s “Care You Can Count On” – an emotional story of care, resilience and protection. Interestingly, nearly half of respondents could vividly describe the ad, however, did not mention the brand behind it.

“This disconnect between emotional engagement and brand recognition presents an important and nuanced takeaway for brand marketers,” said Alex Forrester, Business Director at TRA. “It takes time to build connection and recall, but this campaign has overcome the biggest hurdle – it has captured attention. And we can already see the makings of distinctive assets with the eagle being cast as the ‘hero’ and bringing the logo to life. Providing Allianz commit to the creative idea, we can see this campaign only getting stronger with the benefit of time.”

Forrester continued: “The challenge of attribution wasn’t unique to Allianz. Despite having distinctive platforms, brands such as AAMI, Youi and Budget Direct were frequently misattributed – often to one another.

“The storytelling format of accidents, errors and insurance-type scenarios, featuring across the brands appears to confuse audiences. Allianz’s strategy to diverge from category norms may well work in their favour while building something unique over time.”

The top 10 list reflects a strong preference for humour, character-driven storytelling and long-running brand platforms. This is particularly apparent for the insurance category, which dominated the list with ads from Allianz, Budget Direct, Youi, RACQ, HBF and AAMI, despite only ranking 7^th in Nielson’s 2024 Advertising Spend Report.

“Media spend isn’t everything,” Forrester said. “Creating a favourite ad means tapping into emotion, while sustaining brand impact over time requires consistency and strategic use of brand assets. Brand marketers who balance these elements will drive long-term effectiveness.”

Rounding out the list we see ALDI return as the sole supermarket brand, alongside creative heavyweights – KFC, Specsavers and the new brand platform from Telstra, ‘Wherever you go’.

Access the full report here: https://www.theresearchagency.com/favourite-ads