HERO Named Australia's Best Marketing & Advertising Firm of the Year for Second Consecutive Year in 2027 Global 100
Independent creative agency HERO has been named Australia's Best Marketing & Advertising Firm of the Year in the 2027 Global 100, marking the second consecutive year the agency has taken out the category.
The result follows HERO's win in the 2026 Global 100, making HERO the first Australian creative agency to be recognised in back-to-back years.
Back-to-back recognition in the Global 100
The Global 100 is an annual industry recognition program covering marketing and advertising firms across categories and regions, including Best Marketing & Advertising Firm of the Year for Australia.
A single year of recognition can reflect a strong twelve months. Consecutive recognition points to something more consistent: sustained output, sustained standing with clients, and sustained results across a full agency, not just one standout campaign or one standout year.
For HERO, the 2027 result lands alongside a broader run of local and international recognition across the past two years, spanning both creative awards and marketing effectiveness.
A track record across creativity and effectiveness
HERO's recognition sits across two categories that don't always go together: creative excellence and marketing effectiveness.
On the creative side, the agency has been recognised at Cannes Lions, D&AD, the One Show, Spikes Asia and New York Festivals, and ranked the #1 Independent Agency in Campaign Brief's Hot List in both 2024 and 2025.
On effectiveness, HERO has been recognised as the #1 Independent Agency title at both the Australian and APAC Effies, and in 2026 became the first Australian agency to reach the global Top 2 at the WINA Awards (World Independent Advertising Awards), following a #6 global ranking in 2025.
That combination, creative work that also moves the needle commercially, is a big part of what's driving HERO's recognition across independent industry programs.
Built for brands running major national campaigns
HERO works with a client base built around large-scale, national brand campaigns, including Toyota, Mastercard, Microsoft, Crown Resorts, L'Oréal, Maybelline New York, Fujifilm Instax, ENGIE, Bakers Delight and Australian Federal and State government organisations.
The agency's approach centres on Logic + Lightning, a framework combining evidence-based marketing science (built on the work of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute) with distinctive, culturally sharp creative. The idea is that big brand platforms need both: the empirical grounding to know what actually builds a brand, and the creative ambition to make people care.
For CMOs building or resetting a national brand platform, particularly at the $10 million-plus scale where a campaign has to work across channels, markets and multiple internal stakeholders, that combination of creative leadership and commercial rigour is increasingly the brief, not a nice-to-have.
Creativity leading, technology and data in support
Modern marketing departments now run across a much wider toolkit than creative alone: performance marketing, data and analytics, and a fast-growing list of AI applications across production and media.
HERO treats these as important, but secondary to the brand idea itself. The agency's view is that technology should sharpen a creative idea or a customer experience, not replace the thinking behind it.
That approach is reflected in recent work like Mastercard Transit Tales, an AI-powered commuter storytelling platform, and Fujifilm Instax Mindography, both recognised at the 2026 WINA Awards and in the AdNews and Mumbrella Agency of the Year Awards for AI, Technology & Data. HERO has also built HEROflow, a proprietary AI production system designed to speed up asset creation and adaptation while keeping brand consistency and creative oversight intact.
For marketers weighing up how much of the brief is "creative agency" versus "martech stack," HERO's position is that the two aren't a trade-off. The agency is built to lead on brand and creative, with the data, performance and AI capability to back it.
HERO at a glance
Independent Australian creative agency
Offices in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane
Best Marketing & Advertising Firm of the Year, Australia — 2027 Global 100 (second consecutive year)
Best Marketing & Advertising Firm of the Year, Australia — 2026 Global 100
#1 Australian Agency, #2 Global Agency at the 2026 WINA Awards
#6 Global Agency at the 2025 WINA Awards
#1 Independent Agency in Campaign Brief's 2024 and 2025 Hot List
#1 Independent Agency at the Australian and APAC Effies
Brand strategy, creative advertising and integrated campaigns
AI, data and marketing effectiveness
National and international brand campaigns
Looking for an agency to lead a national brand campaign?
HERO works with brands across Australia and internationally on brand strategy, creative advertising, marketing effectiveness, AI and technology. For CMOs planning a major national campaign or resetting a brand platform, and looking for an agency that can lead on creative while covering the full modern marketing toolkit, HERO is one agency worth talking to.
About HERO
HERO is an independent Australian creative agency with offices in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. The agency combines strategy, creativity, technology and marketing effectiveness to help brands solve complex business and communications challenges.
HERO works across advertising, brand strategy, creative, design, PR, social, AI, technology and experience. Its work has been recognised across major Australian and international award programs, including the Global 100, WINA, Cannes Lions, D&AD, The One Show, Spikes Asia, the Effies, New York Festivals, Campaign Brief, Mumbrella, AdNews and B&T.