Uber Eats makes it weird with 'choose your own' Australian Open campaign

Special Group and Uber Eats have set a pretty high bar for themselves with their work for the Australian Open in the last few years, particularly with the TV-hacking (and Cannes Lions-winning) 'Ambush' campaign of 2019.

This year, the duo has developed a trio of choose-your-own-adventure stories starring players Ash Barty and Nick Kyrgios, as well as commentator Todd Woodbridge. Each star appears in a 30-second ad (running online and broadcast) that sets up a situation: Barty experiences a blackout, Kyrgios starts to lose his temper at the umpire, and Woodbridge loses his voice. The spots end with QR codes that lead to three different online films, each exploring what happens when the star chooses to receive a different item via Uber Eats. In one, Barty asks for batteries. In another, Kyrgios decides to relax with an on-court bubble bath. 

While all this might be less impressive to jaded adland folk than the 'Ambush', it's a lot of fun. Kudos to Special Group and the participants for pushing the spots into delightfully bizarre territory. The Woodbridge series is particularly absurd (one might even say it's 'Todding awesome').

Ad Nut has enjoyed all of this so much that Ad Nut wants you to as well, so Ad Nut has gone to the trouble of providing all 12 videos for you here (each player below will automatically show you all four spots). Enjoy.

Ash Barty:

Nick Kyrgios:

Todd Woodbridge:

The campaign began with the Open on January 17 and runs for three weeks. It include TV, social, online and OOH, as well as reactive social content (created by Hello Social) during the tennis.

CREDITS

CLIENT: Uber Eats
SENIOR DIRECTOR, HEAD OF APAC MARKETING: Lucinda Barlow
MARKETING DIRECTOR ANZ: Andy Morley
HEAD OF MARKETING UBER EATS ANZ: David Griffiths
CULTURE LEAD: Josh Pickstone
BRAND LEAD: Channa Goonasekara
COMMUNICATIONS LEAD: Nick Vindin
ANZ MEDIA LEAD: Louisa Chu
APAC STRATEGY LEAD: Ally Doube
APAC SOCIAL LEAD: Isaac Lai
GLOBAL CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Viktor Jacobsson

AGENCY: SPECIAL
CCO/PARTNERS: Tom Martin & Julian Schreiber
APAC CREATIVE DIRECTORS: Max McKeon & Sarah Parris
CREATIVE TEAM / CREATIVE DIRECTORS: Jade Manning & Vince Osmond
CREATIVE TEAM: Cat Williams & Jessica Roberts
CREATIVE TECHNOLOGIST: Laurent Marcus
CEO/PARTNERS: Lindsey Evans & Cade Heyde
HEAD OF BUSINESS MANAGEMENT: Tori Lopez
BUSINESS DIRECTOR: Liam Walker
BUSINESS MANAGER: Maddie Armstrong
GROUP STRATEGY DIRECTOR: Celia Garforth
SENIOR STRATEGIST : Kellie Box

HEAD OF FILM PRODUCTION: Sevda Cemo
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Wendy Gillies
INTEGRATED PRODUCER: Stephanie Wilkinson
STILLS PRODUCERS: Sonia Ebrington & Emily Willis
DIGITAL PRODUCER: Stacey Szabo
CASTING DIRECTOR: Emily Stewart
SOCIAL LEAD: Lachlan Stewart
SOCIAL SPECIALIST: Sarah Mckie

PRODUCTION COMPANY: SCOUNDREL
DIRECTOR: James Dive
PRODUCER: Jules Shelton
DOP: Danny Ruhlman

CASTING:
Sydney - Leon @ i4casting
Brisbane - Michelle @ Ben Parkinson Casting

POST PRODUCTION: The Editors
EDITORS: Stu Morley / Mark Burnett
COLOURIST: Andy Clarkson
HEAD OF PRODUCTION: Liv Reddy

SOUND: Rumble Studios
SOUND ENGINEER: Tone Aston / Cam Milne
MUSIC SUPERVISOR: Adam Moses
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Michael Gie

PHOTOGRAPHY: The Pool Collective
PHOTOGRAPHER: Sean Izzard
MANAGING DIRECTORr: Cameron Gray
PRODUCTION COORDINATOR: Zoe Izzard

REACTIVE CONTENT AND COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT: Hello Social
MANAGING DIRECTOR: Sam Kelly
DIRECTOR OF CX / CLIENT LEAD: Maddie Marovino

MEDIA AGENCY: Mediacom
GROUP CLIENT DIRECTOR: Lynsey Mogridge
ASSOCIATE INVESTMENT DIRECTOR: Patrick Fakiye

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