The Top 16 Marketing Trends in Australia and New Zealand 2026 (+28 Campaign Examples)

The winning marketing campaigns in Australia and New Zealand this year have all been about taking big swings. Customers are expecting more than ever, and it takes bold, unfiltered and culturally fluent execution to stand out in the “blandscape” of ho-hum marketing campaigns.

Luckily, here in both Australia and New Zealand, we have a large pool of sharp marketing talent who are creating world-leading campaigns. With sharp humour, an authentic approach to brand building, and a direct approach to product storytelling, we have an exciting decade ahead of us.

In this article, we are going to cover the top 16 trends we are seeing across the board and explore how they connect to fresh data from our State of Marketing Report (10th Edition) . Plus, we will showcase some top-in-class marketing campaigns from Australia and New Zealand that all went live within the last year.

• Attention is earned through bold, culturally relevant creativity
• Campaigns work best when they stretch across multiple platforms
• Data and AI are enabling marketing teams to spend more time getting creative

1. Hyper-visual, problem-led messaging
2. “Buy local” messaging that taps into both emotion and economics
3. Cultural humour that feels specific and self-aware
4. Data is everything in the age of AI discoverability
5. Building a supporting ad ecosystem
6. Micro-creators feel more trusted than polished influencers
7. Employee-led content lends personality to brands
8. Brands reflecting cultural and social values in their work
9. Product education that leads with usefulness, not persuasion
10. Data-driven personalisation that speaks to the individual
11. Customer championing that puts real people at the centre of your brand
12. Clever visuals designed to grab attention and get people talking
13. Emotional storytelling that sparks conversation online
14. AI as a marketing partner, not the main character
15. Collaborating with other popular events or partners
16. World-building campaigns that connect across channels and time

Problem-led messaging isn’t new. Brands have always positioned themselves against a clear pain point. What we are seeing differently in 2026 is how these problems are being brought to life. As it’s becoming harder to get attention, it takes an over-the-top approach to actually cut through.

Now, instead of explaining the issue they solve, many brands are showing it in a way that’s impossible to ignore. This is what’s led to a surge of successful ads that exaggerate the problem in a visual, often absurd, way.

In February 2026, Airwallex , a Melbourne-founded fintech company, launched a campaign where outdated financial tools are literally fed into a shredder. This catches the attention of the right people, as anyone who’s found running their workplace finances frustrating will take subtle pleasure in watching an Excel spreadsheet being fed into the shredder.

Similarly, a new ALDI ad taps into the same idea by exaggerating a familiar frustration. It shows a shopper anxiously searching whether he’s getting a good price on cheese, only for a wise man to appear and reassure him that he doesn’t need to do that here, because they’re “ALDI prices”.

To use these examples to inspire your own work, try taking a common frustration and turning up the solution to absurdity. Obviously, be careful not to make light of serious issues, but this is a powerful way to highlight what your brand solves in a highly visual, often humorous way.

The concept of buying local has always had a positive connotation. It’s often tied to sustainability and making a positive impact in your community. What’s changing now is that more consumers are aware of how their purchases can make a direct economic impact.

Supply chain disruptions, rising costs, and ongoing uncertainty over the past few years have pushed consumers toward a stronger focus on self-reliance. Research shows that 87% of Australians believe it’s important to buy locally made products, and 79% are willing to pay more for them, which shows how strong this sentiment is right now.

The “Made Right Here ” campaign highlights this, as it shows the iconic Australian Made kangaroo moving through real industries and everyday products.

People increasingly expect brands to reflect their identity and values, including where they call home, which can be tricky, as 78% of marketers say they need more personalised content than they can currently produce.

Humour has always been a staple in Australian and New Zealand marketing. We still share cultural, collective memories of the legendary ads from years past, and even quote them now and then.

When a campaign really lands, it becomes a nationwide inside joke, which then turns into free word-of-mouth marketing. This is marketing gold. Eighty-three per cent of marketers say customers want two-way conversations, so creating concepts that feel participatory rather than a broadcasty will help you cut through the noise.

A great recent example of this can be seen from Australian Lamb , which ran an ad all about how to make Australians happy again. It taps into recognisable cultural references and national identity, using humour that feels distinctly Australian.

Similarly, Turners Cars in New Zealand leans into the same kind of reference-heavy humour that feels deeply local. The ad only makes sense within a Kiwi context, which is exactly why it resonated so well.

As AI-powered search becomes more prominent, the goal of content marketing has shifted from ranking on Google to being discoverable, quotable, and trusted. We found that 88% of marketers are optimising for AI-driven search, and 85% are reshaping their SEO strategies as a result.

One clear trend we’ve seen is the move toward more authoritative content, particularly industry reports. Brands are now investing more in original research and data-led insights that can be easily extracted and referenced by AI.

Here at Salesforce, we’ve always produced reports (see our latest State of Marketing Report ), but they’ve become more important in recent years for reaching new audiences. We’re also seeing other brands lean into this trend, like our customer Canva. The Perth-born company produces dynamic, insight-led reports that attract attention and build trust with potential customers.

Even if you don’t have the time or resources to put together a full report, you can take this insight and apply it in your other content. This might mean running a small survey to quantify how your product helps customers or to find small insights about the industry you serve. For example, you could ask how many of your customers are using AI, or how many hours they spend a week on admin tasks.

In the ad-heavy environment we all find ourselves in, customers need to see your brand a few times before you stick in their minds. We found that companies now market across an average of 10 channels . When you have so many channels on the go, it’s important to have a next step for potential customers. Building a hub/platform that’s connected to the vision of your ad can provide a logical next step for people.

A strong example of this is Suncorp’s Road to Resilience initiative. Rather than running a short-term campaign around extreme weather, this financial services company has identified the issue as ongoing and built an ecosystem designed to help customers prepare, protect, and recover from natural disasters.

The hub that’s both on desktop and an app includes videos, checklists, home assessments, insurance offers, an AI chatbot, and partnerships. They’ve basically built a one-stop shop for preparing for weather events, which builds trust between customers and their insurance product.

The takeaway from this trend is that, if you’re running campaigns across multiple platforms, consider where you want people to land next. Particularly in B2B, it’s a stretch to expect someone to go straight from seeing your ad to engaging your sales team, so think about how you’ll keep them interested and build brand trust over time.

2026 is the year of authenticity. Consumers don’t want to be sold to, and they also don’t want to be secretly advertised to. Micro-creators fill this gap perfectly. These creators can still disclose they are doing an ad, but because they are small and have built a trusting relationship with their audience, viewers assume that they genuinely believe in the product.

The best path forward for brands that want to reach the right audience without coming across as overly promotional is to work with smaller creators. In fact, 68% of marketers now prefer working with micro and niche creators over larger accounts. On top of this, micro-influencers (10,000 to 100,000 followers) reported an average engagement rate of 3.86% , while those with 100,000 to 1M followers had an average 1.21% engagement rate.

This means that, depending on your deal, you are far more likely to get an ROI from smaller creators. This also opens up huge opportunities for smaller businesses that never considered influencer marketing because it felt out of reach.

An example of micro influencer success can be seen from Tourism Australia . Their campaigns are driven by creators who feel relatable rather than aspirational, some of whom are micro-influencers.

Their influencer content has a fresh and relaxed feel, as they partner with solo travellers sharing detailed itineraries, families documenting road trips, or couples posting honest reviews.

Polished brand content is starting to lose its edge. In its place, we’re seeing a rise in employee-generated content . Perhaps this is partially a response to 51% of marketers saying they are struggling with their campaigns feeling generic.

A strong example of employee-generated content can be seen from Australian clothing brand Cotton On , which has employees making “day in a life” vlogs on TikTok. These videos often feel natural and interesting because they’re coming straight from store staff. They effectively work as ads, but they don’t feel like them.

While this isn’t new, brands like Lush have built entire content strategies around their employees. This kind of content performs particularly well now because it’s in line with the transparent, authentic campaigns people enjoy on social media.

As consumers become more suspicious of greenwashing, businesses need to more closely weave their values into their products and marketing. While people don’t appreciate empty words, they do still connect themselves with brands that are making a difference in the areas that matter to them. There are countless examples of this, but here are three from Australia and New Zealand that nail the execution.

Animates’ Pawprint Petition is a campaign that encourages pet owners to sign a fireworks ban petition using their pet’s paw print. It’s fun, clever and rooted in a real issue that matters to their audience.

Another example can be seen from our customers, R.M.Williams’ Made to Last positioning. It focuses on craftsmanship, showing how each boot is made from a single piece of leather. This reinforces durability and longevity, which ties directly into sustainability.

We’re also seeing this play out in more long-form, thought leadership-style content. Our customer Fisher & Paykel’s Global Speaker Series brings together voices from around the world to discuss design, sustainability, and the future of living. It’s less about selling a product and more about reinforcing what the brand stands for at a global level.

The lesson here is that marketers are in a unique position to set and drive forward company values by choosing carefully which campaigns they create and invest in.

Customers are doing more research before they buy, especially in complex categories. In fact, we found in our State of Sales report that 67% of customers now expect more education as part of the buying process. This move is also shifting how brands approach content as customers become more curious curators.

Here, we have to mention Fisher & Paykel again as they continually have some of the most beautiful marketing out there. Their fantastically shot series on how to store different foods educates while also being oh-so satisfying to watch.

You can take this trend and apply it to your content plan tomorrow. A great way to generate the topics for these educational pieces is to collaborate with your sales and service teams. What do customers often ask in the sales process? What trips them up after they are a customer? This allows you to create the content people genuinely need, and also saves your other teams some time. It’s a win-win.

Personalisation is getting more targeted with the support of AI. In fact, 75% of marketers are already using AI to support their personalisation efforts, with results like a 20% lift in ROI and a 19% increase in conversion rates.

AI allows you to take all the juicy data you’ve collected and actually use it to speak to each customer's desires, or simply provide them with a fun and unique experience. This is exactly what Mastercard did in Australia with their Transit Tales campaign .

Using AI, it created personalised audio stories for commuters based on their route, timing, and content preferences. Each story was tailored to match the length of the journey, turning a routine train trip into something more engaging. Rolled out across Sydney’s train and metro network, it had more than 1.2 million daily users.

Another fun example is Kitchen Warehouse’s “Mum-nipulate the Algorithm ” campaign, which took a playful approach to using data. It encouraged mums to interact with their billboards and online ads and select Mother's Day gifts they actually wanted. This data was then used to influence what products their families were served as ads online.

To pull off amazing, out-of-the-box campaigns with data, you need a connected view of your customer. Using Data 360, you can connect all your data in one place and use Agentforce Marketing to create personalised content at scale.

Both tools use Agentforce (our AI agent) to automate segmentation, trigger real-time interactions, and continuously optimise performance, so you can move from insight to execution before the moment passes.

One powerful way to show the value of your business without talking just about yourself is to put your customers’ success front and centre. This means handing the spotlight to your customers and letting their stories lead.

We see ads everywhere, but real success stories cut through. They give people something concrete to connect with, and often spark inspiration in those who want to achieve something similar.

A strong example of this in practice can be seen from Westpac, which features customers on its blog. Rather than positioning the bank as the hero, they post stories that focus on standout local entrepreneurs – for example, Julie Shaw, founder of MAARA Collective , who built her fashion brand by collaborating with Indigenous artists and communities.

What makes this marketing work is the framing. Westpac doesn’t interrupt the story with product messaging. Instead, it shows how its products exist in the background, supporting the positive outcomes for customers.

Another example can be seen from one of our customers, SEEK, who present awards each year. Rather than focusing on themselves, they spotlight high-performing talent teams and organisations across Australia and New Zealand, recognising their achievements.

You can apply this at your own business by looking at your customer data in Data 360 and identifying which of your customers are growing, then featuring them in a way that feels valuable to them. For example, making a customer story video focused on their success that they can also use for their marketing.

With 69% of marketers saying it’s harder than ever to acquire customers, the pressure to stand out has shifted toward immediate visual impact. If your campaign doesn’t catch attention in a split second, it’s likely being ignored.

As a result, we are seeing more brands take bigger creative swings, using bold, unexpected visuals to stop people mid-commute.

A viral example of this was Specsavers ’ cheeky airport campaign, which welcomed passengers to Sydney with a big “Welcome to Melbourne” sign. This plays on their “should’ve gone to Specsavers” positioning. It gets shock and attention, a laugh, and then people tell their friends and family about the outrageous sign they almost fell for.

Similarly, our customer Canva created billboards that deliberately broke the format in their latest global campaign. The designs extended beyond the constraints of portrait billboard spaces, which, for designers, acts as an in-joke while tapping into a real part of their work.

Lastly, but definitely not least, Australian adhesive (and DIY) company Selleys ran an out-of-the-box “If You Can Take It, It’s Yours” campaign. They stuck high-value items to their billboard with their adhesive and invited people to try to pull them off the wall. What resulted was a highly visual, interactive event that highlighted the quality of their product.

What we can learn from these campaigns is that you don’t need to settle for average OOH campaigns.

Campaigns that tap into people's emotions get them talking on social media. The most viral example of this in the past year was the heart-tugging ad from Allianz . Warning: if you haven’t seen it yet, many commenters say that this ad brought them to tears.

This campaign went viral, with people posting about the emotional reaction they had to it. It also ties neatly back to their product, life insurance, so it manages to be engaging while still reinforcing what they offer, which is a tricky balance to strike.

A completely different emotion was struck by the cosmetic brand Nude by Nature , who took a more provocative approach. They brought a car into populated areas of Sydney with the words “CHEATER” spraypainted on it. This caused a lot of buzz as people took photos and shared them online, believing that they had just witnessed part of a messy local cheating scandal.

After the chatter had already gone viral, it was revealed to be part of a campaign encouraging people to “cheat on their mascara” and try one from Nude by Nature. The reaction mirrored what we saw with Specsavers’ campaign above. A moment of shock, followed by the realisation they’d been pulled into a harmless prank.

If you're able to tap into people's emotions, you can get a whole lot of word-of-mouth marketing that couldn’t be secured by even the biggest budget.

Every marketer is currently working out how and where they can use AI. We all want to use AI in a way that is productive and optimises the work we already do, which is why many people are seeing success using AI agents as supportive tools.

Brands getting the best customer feedback are using AI to help customers get answers to their questions and give personalised offers, rather than replacing human creativity.

A great example of this can be seen from Bunnings and its “Buddy” tool. Using Buddy, customers can ask questions and get exact guidance based on their project. Bunnings has built their brand on being known for helpful, knowledgeable in-store staff, and this use of AI is allowing for a digital extension of that experience.

On a larger scale, Formula One has introduced “Your Tech Director ,” an AI agent built using Agentforce technology. With 2026’s major regulation changes, the challenge was to help fans understand complex technical updates. Instead of overwhelming people with dense content, the AI agent acts as an on-demand expert. Now, their 827 million fans can ask questions, get explanations, and explore the changes to the sport at their own pace.

The impact of marketing teams using AI to support their work can be quantified. We found in our double-blind study that high-performing teams using AI are seeing around a 20% lift in ROI and saving around eight hours each week on manual work.

Partnerships are becoming a key lever for growth, with 89% of sales professionals saying they’re increasingly important for hitting revenue targets. In 2026, tapping into an existing audience or cultural moment is a good tactic for quickly borrowing trust.

A strong example of this can be seen from our customer MECCA when they partnered with the Australian Open . This move placed the brand inside a premium, high-energy environment where people are already primed to explore products and share content. The result felt less like marketing and more like a natural part of the experience.

You don’t have to be as big as MECCA or the Australian Open to get the benefits of partnerships like this. Simply finding a brand that aligns with your mission or has a similar audience will allow you both to stretch your reach.

As content demands increase, brands are looking for ways to centre on a single idea and spread it across channels. With 63% of marketers saying they struggle to keep up with content production needs, building a narrative world gives you a way to scale without starting from scratch each time.

An example of serial narrative-based marketing can be seen from our customer, One New Zealand’s “Finding Jade ” campaign. The series has three chapters, which are played on TV.

However, what started on TV continued across social, where the story is extended in ways that felt native to each platform.

This entire campaign reinforces the brand’s core positioning, which is helping people stay connected anywhere by using its network.

This approach mirrors other successful campaigns like ANZ ’s Sharma family, where audiences return to familiar characters over time.

What makes this kind of marketing stick is familiarity. Once people recognise the world, each new piece lands faster and makes the brand feel increasingly trustworthy.

Across Australia and New Zealand, the marketing campaigns that are winning right now are doing a few things consistently well. They’re grabbing attention fast with bold, visual ideas, grounded in local context and are built around real value. This might be educating customers, championing them, or creating experiences people want to engage with.

At the same time, brands are thinking bigger, building ecosystems, partnering with existing audiences, and creating repeatable formats that scale across channels.

Keeping up with that level of output is the real challenge. With rising content demands, the most effective teams are using tools like Agentforce Marketing to handle the operational work behind the scenes. This gives teams the space to get creative and execute ambitious campaigns.

If you’d like a deeper look at the data shaping these trends, read our latest State of Marketing Report here.