Steve Buscemi fronts new Telstra campaign
Off the back of its Cannes Grand Prix win, Telstra has seemingly splashed out the big bucks for a new campaign starring Hollywood actor Steve Buscemi.
Buscemi fronts the new piece of work as an “evil intergalactic emperor” who is intent on taking over Australia through elaborate hi-tech scams. The campaign addresses the rise of cybercrime in the country, with Aussies losing thousands of dollars every minute to scammers, according to data quoted by the telco in a media release.
It positions Telstra as a protector, showcasing how the telco helps to block millions of threats and shelter its customers from dodgy cyber activity. Ultimately, Buscemi and his “Zalunians” are bested by Telstra’s network.
The campaign was created by Bear Meets Eagle on Fire, with +61 as its partner agency, and directed by Randy Krallman.
Managing director of +61, Blake Crosbie, said in order to capture people’s attention, the agency knew it needed to approach the serious topic with lightheartedness.
“The security of a network, and all that happens on it, has serious implications, but doubling down on ‘serious’ too easily follows the tropes of the category,” he said in the release. “Sometimes making light of a topic is the best way to get people to pay attention to it.”
Micah Walker, chief creative officer at Bear Meets Eagle on Fire, said that making comedic work “isn’t always fun”, but “this genuinely was”.
Telstra’s head of brand and marketing communications, Alita McMenamin, echoed Crosbie’s point about escaping category norms.
“This is essentially a product demo, a very entertaining one, that differentiates our network not just on size, but also on safety – created with the exceptional level of craft we always enjoy from Micah and team.”
The campaign comes following Telstra’s wins at Cannes Lions in June, where the “Better on a Better Network” campaign took home the Film Craft Grand Prix. Overall, Telstra brought home eight Lions.
It positioned the telco as the largest and most reliable in the country. It featured 26 stop-motion films — each of which focused on a specific location in Australia and the unique characters who live there.
To bring the series to life, Bear Meets Eagle on Fire (with support from Telstra’s bespoke agency +61) partnered with Revolver’s director Jeff Low. Low brought on animation director Tobias Fouracre, whose experience on Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs and Fantastic Mr. Fox brought the unique production to life.
Meanwhile, Telstra’s “Wherever We Go” is among the most memorable ads in market, according to two independent research agencies.
It placed second on TRA’s list of favourite ads from the past 12 months, and first on Cubery’s most unforgettable ads rank for Q2 2025. Cubery’s ranking, however, also declared it the most hated ad, with 49% of survey respondents agreeing.
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Lauren McNamara is a freelance journalist contributing to Mumbrella. She previously spent three years at the publication, most recently as the associate editor. She first joined in 2022 after completing a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) at UTS. She left her staff role at Mumbrella in August 2025.
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topics
+61
Alita McMenamin
Bear Meets Eagle on Fire
Blake Crosbie
Campaign
Cybersecurity
Micah Walker
Steve Buscemi
Telstra
must be nice to have massive budgets and no sales targets
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This won’t attract hackers at all.
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Too long, too confusing, too boring.
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More in the “looks nice but does it move the needle?” bucket.
Meanwhile my entire neighbourhood can’t even get a single bar of 4G. Wherever we go, indeed.
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Impressive ad ands great to see an Aussie brand being creatively brave. Seen it last night and was interested in what my wife (works in finance) thought of it. Initially confused as to what it was and what/who it was promoting. By the end she said she liked it and unprompted said it was certainly memorable.
Best Telstra EVER!!
Brilliant!!
Hilarious!!
Simple message and soooo effective!!
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