Side B: And the winner is...

It's your monthly Bolster Group update

Nov 13, 2024

Things are certainly heating up at Bolster HQ as we hurtle towards the festive closure period. We've been winning awards, hitting the greens, doubling down on gaming, taking our insights on the road, and we're gearing up for Brat (and Luke!) summer in Australia.

Here’s a small snapshot of what went down last month.

🏆 Going North FTW

Mumbrella Travel Marketing Awards

We often say we’re not in this for awards, but it’s nice to actually win one! The Going North team took home Best Brand Partnership at the 2024 Mumbrella Travel Marketing Awards for its work with Bonds and Tourism NT.

Queens On Tour showcased the jaw dropping beauty of the Red Centre through the eyes of Northern Territory drag queen personalities Miss Ellaneous and Marzi Panne and the LBTQIA+ community of Alice Springs.

This coming together of two iconic Australian brands, was not only a labour of love, but a celebration of it, in all its forms. And we certainly celebrated at the Travel Marketing Awards 🥂

Netflix's Ring-In Ringer

To promote the launch of Netflix's neo-western drama, Territory, Going North worked with the Netflix team in Sydney to develop the creative campaign, Ring-In Ringer, starring Nick "Honey Badger" Cummins in the titular role.

We took our Ring-In down to a real cattle station outside Darwin and put him to work mustering. Nick valiantly put his best foot forward, with varying levels of success, leading to many hilarious moments throughout the day. Epic stills from the shoot were splashed across the front page of The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and The NT News on series launch day.

The video content — released as a collab between Netflix & Honey Badger's channels — took off, receiving millions of views across Facebook and Instagram. This sentiment carried over to Territory itself, with the show sitting on the #1 spot locally for the week following its release. Bring on season 2!

🎤 Front Row Centre IRL

Bolster Group’s collaborative report with Tixel, Front Row Centre, came to life at panel events in Melbourne at Bolster Group HQ and Sydney at Harry’s in Surry Hills. At both events, we presented insights from our joint report into the ticketing landscape (did you know 56% of eventgoers consider live music as a priority expense?) followed by a panel discussion hosted by Media Director Paige X. Cho.

Thanks to our panellists: Stefanos Makroyiannis from Novel, Carina Shearn from RISING Festival, Guven Yilmaz from Mushroom Group, Mat Buck from Warner Music Australia, Joe Muller from Music NSW and Sylvie Maclean from Tixel.

If you haven’t downloaded Front Row Centre yet – well, what are you waiting for? Click the link below.

DOWNLOAD THE FULL REPORT

💚 🤠 Charli x Luke Summer

Laneway is firing on all cylinders (again) this year with a stellar lineup and a killer strategy helping to propel it to a record breaking year. Bolster Group works on two key facets of the festival – media planning and buying, as well as partnerships through our team at Aeroplane.

By focusing on a specific audience and tailoring the marketing and media strategy to the audience insights, Laneway has managed to buck the festival trend and continue to grow. They’ve sold out Melbourne and Sydney dates and are seeing significant growth in the Gen Z category, which bodes well for the festival’s future.

Meanwhile country star Luke Combs is a living example of our Front Row Centre report, highlighting how much Aussies are loving the big stadium shows at the moment. Our Media team has helped Luke and our clients at Frontier Touring sell out massive stadium shows around the country in near record timing. We’d say “yeehaw” if that wasn’t so naff.

🌏 Superstate goes global

Following last month’s exciting launch of Superstate – Common State’s new full-service communications agency devoted to gaming and digital culture – the team has been busy meeting and connecting with gamers, developers, and industry players both locally and globally.

Team Superstate joined in the action at Melbourne International Games Week, attending PAX, Freeplay Parallels, and Big Games Night Out, while also managing press for VicScreen at Play Now Melbourne — Australia’s premier games market connecting local developers with major publishers and investors from around the world.

Co-Managing Partner Jadan Carroll also jetted off to Singapore to attend GamesCom Asia, for a whirlwind weekend of talks, meetings, and showcases. Highlights included:

Insights from global industry leaders, especially from Southeast Asia (the world’s largest gaming market); and
Seeing inspiring projects from indie developers worldwide, including standout contributions from Australian teams making waves on the international stage.

LEARN MORE ABOUT SUPERSTATE

🎮 Speaking of PAX…

The Aeroplane team had a blast bringing The Sims world to life, featuring a plumbob photo op, iconic characters, tarot readings and plenty of merch giveaways.

LEARN MORE ABOUT AEROPLANE

⛳ Hitting the greens for Halloween

While everyone was out trick or treating, Bolster Group spent Halloween putting our hearts out at the first annual BGGA (Bolster Group Golf Association) Mini Golf Invitational, otherwise known as the BGGAMGI (what a mouthful!). With an extra day of annual leave, bragging rights and a trophy on the line, you best believe things got competitive. Ultimately it was Team Rory (Stanway – not McIlroy) who took out the inaugural trophy.