GIO takes its safety mat to Sydney streets

GIO has taken the red safety mat from its ‘Great Insurance, Obviously’ platform into the streets of Sydney, with Leo Australia creating three outdoor installations built around their locations.

The executions extend the brand device beyond conventional billboard creative, placing the safety mat, which replaces the ‘I’ in GIO, into scenarios involving a fallen power pole, a nose-to-tail collision and would-be thieves scaling an apartment building.

READ MORE: GIO’s ‘Great Insurance, Obviously’ via Leo Australia

READ MORE: WPP Media wins Suncorp account with new Open Era model

Taking the safety mat into the real world

The three bespoke builds are designed to make the surrounding environment part of the creative, using oversized mishaps to reinforce GIO’s positioning around protection when unexpected events occur.

Mim Haysom, EGM Brand & Customer Experience at Suncorp Group, said the installations were intended to extend the platform beyond its original advertising.

“We wanted to take our Great Insurance Obviously platform into the real world to have some fun with these installations, placing our red safety mat into everyday situations where things can unexpectedly go wrong and bringing our promise of protection to life in a way that's relevant, memorable and unmistakably GIO.”

The work builds on ‘Great Insurance, Obviously’, which launched in January 2026 and established the red safety mat as the platform’s central visual device. In the original campaign, the ‘I’ in GIO transformed into the mat as a symbol of protection across TV, out-of-home, digital and social creative.

Leo extends the brand platform

Tim Woolford, Executive Creative Director at Leo Australia, said the new outdoor work was designed as another expression of the longer-term platform.

“We launched ‘Great Insurance, Obviously’ with the intent to create a distinctive long-term brand platform, and position GIO as the safety mat for life’s mishaps. These billboards are a continuation of that mission, showing that storms, fender benders, and ladder-climbing thieves are no match for the service GIO offers.”

Media for the latest campaign is handled by WPP Media OpenEra. Suncorp appointed WPP Media to its media account in 2025 under the bespoke Open Era model, with the arrangement taking effect from 1 March 2026 and covering brands including GIO, AAMI, Apia and Shannons.

Publicis Production handled production on the new work. The three installations are rolling out across Sydney through the remainder of September.

Credits

Client: GIO / Suncorp Group
EGM Brand & Customer Experience: Mim Haysom
Head of Brand & Content: Rapthi Thanapalasingam
Brand Marketing Manager: Mark Condon
Brand Marketing Lead: Axel Leibovich

Creative agency: Leo Australia
Executive Creative Director: Tim Woolford
Art Director: Joey Phillips
Copywriter: Mae Phillips
Senior Art Director: Tim Yates
Group Business Director: Alex Barkworth
Business Director: Tash Tollo
Business Manager: Max Reiser

Production: Publicis Production
Senior Integrated Producer: Hananha Willers

Media agency: WPP Media OpenEra
Connections Planning Director: Aaron D’Ortona
Implementation & Activation Director: Hattie Woodward
Implementation & Activation Manager: Peter Nguyen