What you need to know:

• SBS has gone all out – or all-unclothed as the case may be – in its new brand campaign, utilising the narrative of a nude streaker traversing through the types of bold, risqué and culturally broad content available on the platform to cement its tagline, ‘We Go there’.
• The campaign is timed to celebrate SBS’s 50-year anniversary, and includes both the M-rated hero film, available only on SBS channels, as well as a raft of OOH, digital and social executions all designed to emphasise its bold, provocative, informative, multicultural content.
• With an eye on the incremental prize, chief commercial and marketing officer, Jane Palfreyman, says SBS has never had more clarity on what it stands for, its distinctive brand assets and its unique audience positioning,  even in the highly cluttered broadcasting landscape. Per Palfreyman: “In a competitive landscape, you get greater clarity about who you are and where you need to compete. I think that’s what has afforded us this clarity and ability to be really distinctive.”
• The campaign rolls out as SBS celebrates a record month for SBS On Demand viewership off the back of returning iconic programs such as Handmaid’s tale, Alone Australia and Rogue Heroes.

Six months ago, Jane Palfreyman was telling hundreds of marketing and agency representatives at the SBS Upfronts that the team is proud of its bold approach to content and brand – even if it means being affectionately known as “sex before soccer”. Her presentation oozed confidence in the distinctive, incremental, premium opportunity available to advertisers off the back of SBS’s provocative, challenging and ultimately human-driven content mix – all while acknowledging its tendency to be a little bit rude, too.

“We have not been afraid to push the envelope, be provocative, to challenge the status quo – be that in how we show up for audiences or for our partners. We go where other channels don’t, or won’t. We always have,” Palfreyman told attendees.

This week, SBS put these credentials explicitly in the spotlight, launching a new brand campaign under the moniker ‘We Go There’. The key creative asset? A nude, middle-aged streaker who physically moves through examples of the content available through the part-public, part-commercial broadcaster, a set of tableaus including a threesome, stadium soccer match, Eurovision Song Contest and the New Zealand wilderness.

Campaign flighting is led by the new 60-second, M-rated film, available only on SBS channels. But it’s also supported by a raft of outdoor, digital and social executions including dozens of phrase-based creative billboards reflecting SBS’s multicultural audience and perspective, content, legacy and thought-provoking approach to cultural, political and geographic topics. Palfreyman admits her favourites are the statements ‘News that recognises the other 192 countries on the planet’ and ‘TV that puts first nations voices first’.

“I just think they’re beautiful, provocative lines. At their heart, the meaning is just so on point from a brand perspective, that it’s hard not to fall in love them,” she comments.

Getting to nude streakers

Palfreyman insists the bare-cheeked campaign doesn’t operate in isolation, saying it tiers into work that recognises SBS’s 50^th and its brand strategy refresh commencing well over a year ago.

“We’ve been working on our brand strategy, refreshing it and making sure it represents who we are, the role we play and the ambitions we have,” she says.

“What this ad does beautifully is it really looks at SBS today, and our role. When we talk about our brand strategy, we talk about redefining entertainment and telling bold, human stories that connect people and define us all. That’s here in the brand creative territory of ‘We Go There’. We tell stories others don’t, we encourage people to challenge their perceptions, or their thinking or assumptions. We endeavour to provoke debate and spark conversation, and ultimately, to find that connection. I think this campaign sees us do it with a bit of personality – it’s a wink and smile, and a playful provocation to stand above the noise and really stand out in a way that’s truly SBS and anchored in that legacy of SBS.”

Palfreyman insists it wasn’t a hard sell internally either. Sex, world movies, soccer – it’s all in the brand associations. “It’s leaning into this in the right way, not in a shocking way, but in a way that has the right meaning attached to it,” she continues.

“When this territory was presented to us, and when we in turn, showed it internally, it was so beautifully anchored in insight, with an incredible understanding of who we were, who we are and where we are going that when people saw the creative… it was love at first sight.”

But could SBS – and this CMO – have been this brave and done this kind of campaign five years ago?

“I love that question,” responds Palfreyman. “As I said, we started this brand strategy work over a year ago. What we found is even though the market has become more challenging for all, we have never before had such clarity about our role to audiences on the value we offer. This line you’ve heard us say about being Australia’s contemporary broadcaster and really holding up a mirror in a way that others don’t – that’s partly due to our legacy. And in a competitive landscape, you get greater clarity about who you are and where you need to compete. I think that’s what has afforded us this clarity and ability to be really distinctive.”

The brand work was produced in partnership with Droga5 ANZ, part of Accenture Song, with the film directed by Damien Shatford from The Sweetshop. Media strategy and planning has been led by Hearts & Science.

“The partnership with Droga5 has absolutely brought that to life. And in our 50^th year, it feels like the right moment to have this type of conversation with audiences,” says Palfreyman.

SBS is dialling up owned assets first and foremost to land the message. “The fact I have a full network of linear channels and SBS On Demand behind me to put up my films is incredibly important, and we always see that as one of the lead success stories whenever we’re analysing campaigns,” says Palfreyman. “The TV component always does well, and SBS On Demand promos.”

But the campaign is necessarily multi-faceted. Palfreyman cites outdoor as a strong mechanism for providing “that big brand status”, while social and digital provide a more targeted means of snaring audiences to engage.

A basket of metrics will be employed to gauge success, including improvements to viewership, promo reach, and net new audiences.

“But where I spend a lot of time understanding is what we’re seeing from a business perspective,” says Palfreyman. “We have internal brand trackers and yes, we will be looking at SBS On Demand and consumption. We have had our biggest month in April with Handmaid’s Tale, Alone, Rogue Heroes, Giro d’Ítalia and Tour de France is coming. So we’ll be looking at the brand halo from a consumption perspective across all those pieces of content.

“And we won’t be looking at this in two months and going ‘did it do well, or less well than we thought’, and job done. This will be an ongoing conversation about how we continue this conversation with our audience, what’s the feedback been, alongside those metrics and how we take it forward.”

Record results

SBS’s new brand campaign makes its debut as SBS On Demand celebrated its highest month on record for total users thanks to the successful launch of Season 3 of Alone Australia, the final series of The Handmaid’s Tale, and a solid showing for Rogue Heroes Season 2. The broadcaster is citing an 18 per cent increase in consumption on SBS On Demand in FY25, with more than 2.24m active accounts logging into the platform in April.

To date, Alone Australia has had a Total TV National Reach of 2.68m, The Handmaid’s Tale hit 2.31m, and Rogue Heroes chalked up 2.24m. Notably, about 40 per cent of the Alone audience is coming in via SBS On Demand, rising to about 50 per cent in the key demographic of 25-54s. SBS says the audience success of all three shows has flowed through to commercial dividends, although it hasn’t specified the extent of such wins.

The latest viewing figures contrast with a reported 2024 active monthly viewer figure of 13.2m across linear and digital, plus 1.6 million active video users on SBS On Demand and 1.8 million monthly active accounts (across 13 million total digital registrations). 

To press the point home about the incremental audience opportunity available on SBS, figures cited at the recent Upfronts reported 73 per cent of SBS’s main channel audience on an average day isn’t watching 7, nor is 59 per cent of its On Demand audience over a month-long period. It’s not just linear TV comparisons SBS wants advertisers to make either: This number increases to 92 per cent compared with Foxtel in terms of average daily viewer (89 per cent for on-demand audiences), and 87 per cent against Paramount / Ten audiences on a daily basis (68 per cent for on-demand).

In addition, 35 per cent of SBS’s On Demand audience over 25 years of age didn’t watch Netflix, 62 per cent didn’t watch Prime Video, 81 per cent aren’t on Binge and 90 per cent don’t watch Foxtel Now. It’s part of the reason SBS is supporting both VOZ and the breakaway Video Futures Collective measurement scheme.

“We have been very public with our understanding that the media landscape has changed and that the traditional free-to-air competitors are no longer our only competitors,” Palfreyman tells Mi3. “We’ve got the streamers to contend with and our strategy around SBS On Demand is making sure we always have the content where audiences want it, rather than thinking about SBS On Demand as being a catch-up service. That has served us really well.

“I think navigating that change and thinking about it from an audience perspective is always front of mind and in how we take our brand and content to market.”

Commercially sound

Palfreyman’s remit expanded 18 months ago to take in the commercial team alongside marketing, and she has been making changes. Recently, SBS announced it will not be replacing its director of sales, favouring instead to highlight team members such as Keiran Beasley (national TV and digital sales manager), Kate Young (national manager, SBS CulturalConnect), Lee Callagher (national manager, operations and product), Sam Zadgan (national manager commercial trading and intelligence), and Julie Newton-Werro (national media culture and language sales).

For Palfreyman, wearing both hats is highly complementary. “With my marketing lens I’m looking at how we deeply understand audience behaviour, their hopes, dreams and wants, and how that relates to SBS. Then it’s about how we pull that through and think about how we commercialise audiences.”

The task at hand now is to better support agencies and clients to continue to understand the role of SBS and its unique audiences as a critical incremental reach play.

“When you think about adding SBS to your mix – whether it’s SBS On Demand or linear TV, or audio – it’s about the audience uplift you get. That has been well proven through the premium effect research we did and which we showed at Upfronts, that we’ve been rolling out to clients. That’s been a really useful tool to help clients understand,” says Palfreyman.

“I think the other thing clients are grateful for is that we truly understand the media landscape – our progression and focus on SBS On Demand is following the audience need for being on the platforms of their choice.”

What has been an education piece is getting more clients to embrace SBS’s First Nations NITV platform, championed under SBS’s ‘beyond 3%’ initiative.

“We all known when there are challenging economic times, it’s more and more important to make sure people understand who you are and the value you offer. That continues to be the job we have to do,” adds Palfreyman.