Page 60 - AdNews Magazine Nov-Dec 2020
P. 60
Feature
Tonight I’ll Be Eating...
It’s the Aussie idea breaking the internet and taking the world
by storm. AdNews spoke with Special Group Australia on how the Uber Eats brand platform Tonight I’ll
Be Eating came to be a global phenomenon.
Adecades-long battle of the franchises, Star Wars and Star Trek have left fans divided over the years. Yet never had the two worlds collided until 2020.
Debuting Uber Eats’ brand platform Tonight I’ll Be Eating (TIBE) in the United States and Canada earlier this year, local independent agency Special Group Australia brought together two of pop culture’s most iconic heroes.
No-one expected to see Luke Skywalker and Captain Jean-Luc Picard – actors Mark Hamill and Patrick Stewart – “battle” it out in-person. Let alone in an Uber Eats ad.
It was the first ad created for the North American market under the TIBE platform following several years of success in Australia. Born in Surry Hills in 2017, the idea has since made its way across seas to New Zealand, Taiwan and Japan as well and won numerous international accolades including Best Use of Content and Innovative Use of Media at the AdNews Agency of the Year Awards.
Special Group Australia chief creative officers and partners Tom Martin and Julian Schreiber told AdNews that it all began with the clients asking them to come up with something that “wasn’t just an ad campaign” but could also have a cultural impact.
“It originated as a collaboration between Special Group and the Glue Society,” Schreiber says.
“We were tasked with coming up with something that they knew could keep going forever, but at the same time, not have a conventional adver- tising structure.”
The result? A TIBE ad looks more like a comedy skit than ad. Instantly recognisable but also never the same, each ad introduces unlikely cultural icons placed in a situation together sharing what they ordered from Uber Eats.
Everyone from Ryan Moloney (a.k.a. Toadie from Neighbours) to for- mer SBS news presenter Lee Lin Chin and Kim Kardashian have made appearances in the ads.
