Surry Hills, New South Wales, Australia
Tom Martin is Partner and Chief Creative Officer at Special Australia, one of the country’s leading independent agencies. Known for pushing the boundaries of commercial creativity, he’s won ‘Best of Show’ at AWARD a record five times, a Cannes Lions Grand Prix, a D&AD Black Pencil, and Campaign UK's ‘Global Creative Leader of the Year’. With over 25 years of experience across Australia and the U.S., Tom’s standout projects include NAB’s ‘Break Up’ (the first bank campaign in 30 years to win a Cannes Grand Prix), Four’N Twenty’s ‘Magic Salad Plate’, Cricket Australia’s ‘Big Warnie’, Guide Dogs Australia’s ‘Support Scent’, Pedigree’s ‘K9FM’, Tourism Victoria’s ‘The Remote Control Tourist’, and Go Gentle’s ‘Stop the Horror’, which helped shape Australia’s euthanasia laws. At Special, he’s helped lead the agency to over 50 ‘Agency of the Year’ titles, with high-profile campaigns like Uber Eats’ ‘Tonight I’ll Be Eating…’, ‘Uber Don’t Eats’, ‘Get Almost Almost Anything’, and most recently ‘Football is for Food’, which won seven Cannes Lions including a Gold. He also worked on Virgin Australia’s ‘Middle Seat Lottery’ and Tourism New Zealand’s ‘Good Morning World’ - one of only three Global Effie winners that year. Tom’s leadership is also driving cultural change, with Special Australia spearheading initiatives like Shift20: an industry-wide push for greater disability inclusion in advertising. Some of Tom’s awards: Campaign UK: ‘Global Creative Leader of the Year' Campaign UK: ‘Global Creative Agency of the Year' Campaign Asia-Pacific: 'Creative Leader of the Year' WARC: ‘Most Effective Independent Network in the World’ SXSW: Award for Technical Achievement Cannes Lions: Grand Prix - 1 Gold - 9 Silver - 14 Bronze - 22 D&AD: Black Pencil - 1 Yellow Pencil - 6 One Show: Gold - 2 Silver - 7 Bronze - 8 AWARD: Best of Show - 5 Spikes ASIA: Independent Agency of the Year - 3 Asian Marketing Effectiveness Awards: Grand Prix - 1 Gold - 4 Global Effie - Multi Region: Silver (The highest Effie in 2020): Good Morning World Global Grand Effie Winners 2021 - Transportation, Travel & Tourism: Good Morning World