Awarded through a competitive tender process, the remit will see the agency develop and deliver national engagement activities encouraging Australians aged 45 to 74 to complete and return free bowel cancer screening kits.

The work includes experiential activations, partnership campaigns, community events, communications assets and social content, supported by paid, owned and earned media activity.

A key focus of the campaign will target communities with lower screening participation rates, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander audiences, culturally and linguistically diverse communities, and people living in regional and remote areas.

In addition to the engagement remit, Think HQ has also been appointed creative agency for the broader NBCSP promotion campaign. 

Its multicultural division, CultureVerse, will serve as a multicultural specialist agency as part of a wider agency village led by Cancer Council Australia in partnership with the Australian Government.

The national campaign launched on 1 June under the tagline “Bowel Cancer Waits for No One” across television, BVOD, YouTube, social, press and out-of-home channels.

The multicultural extension includes in-language video, press and social assets in Arabic, Mandarin and Vietnamese, alongside stakeholder outreach and community partnerships targeting priority audiences.

Jen Sharpe, Founder and Managing Director at Think HQ, said the appointment reflects the agency’s growing capabilities in behaviour change and culturally informed communications.

“We’re incredibly proud to be partnering with the Australian Government on such an important national initiative,” she said.

The partnership is now underway, with activations set to roll out nationally across Australia.

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Last week, the Australian Government released an Issues Paper outlining plans to legislate a Digital Duty of Care that would require online services to take “reasonable steps” to prevent foreseeable harms experienced by Australians online.

The proposal follows recommendations from the statutory review of the Online Safety Act 2021 and reflects growing global pressure on governments to hold digital platforms more accountable for the societal impacts of algorithmic systems, content distribution, and online engagement models.

Rather than focusing solely on reactive moderation of harmful content, the proposed framework signals a broader move toward systemic platform accountability, examining how platforms are designed, operated, and monetised.

Under the proposal, online services could be expected to proactively identify and mitigate risks tied to the design and operation of their systems, including algorithmic amplification, harmful recommendation patterns, discrimination, exclusion, and barriers to accessing trustworthy information.

Researchers from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (ADM+S), alongside academics from The University of Melbourne, The University of Sydney, Queensland University of Technology, and The University of Queensland, said the framework represents an opportunity to move beyond narrow content-based regulation toward a more holistic approach to digital governance.

In response to the Government’s Issues Paper, researchers from ADM+S and the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Ethics released a policy brief outlining key recommendations for the framework’s design.

Among the recommendations is the creation of a national platform observatory tasked with monitoring how algorithmic systems target, recommend, and curate content for Australian users.

Researchers argue that current transparency systems remain insufficient, particularly as AI-driven recommendation engines and automated decision-making systems become increasingly central to how people consume information online.

The proposed observatory would help regulators, researchers, and civil society organisations better assess whether platforms are complying with future Digital Duty of Care obligations.

The policy brief also outlines two possible implementation models: a risk-based framework requiring platforms to identify and mitigate harms arising from their systems, and an outcomes-based model focused on ensuring platforms actively contribute to safer, healthier, and more inclusive digital environments.

The proposal arrives as governments worldwide intensify scrutiny of major technology platforms and AI systems amid growing concerns around misinformation, online harms, algorithmic bias, and the broader societal impact of digital platforms.

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Developed by Ogilvy for the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, the “Could This Be Perimenopause?” campaign highlights common but often misunderstood symptoms associated with the transitional life stage for women, including sleep disruption, brain fog, sudden sweats, anxiety and fatigue. 

The campaign also encourages women to recognise potential signs of perimenopause and address common misconceptions while seeking evidence-based information, support, and treatment.

“The silence around perimenopause and menopause has carried a real cost. We’ve had decades of confusion, misdiagnosis, and suffering that women simply didn’t need to face alone,” said Fran Clayton, Chief Strategy Officer of Ogilvy.

“Our goal wasn’t simply to raise awareness, but to reframe the experience. This campaign finds women in that 3am moment, wide awake, wondering if they’re losing their mind, and says: we see you, this is a thing. Not to wrap it in a bow. Just to say it has a name, and there’s support if you know where to look,” she added. 

Running through the end of 2026, the campaign will be rolled out nationwide across television, BVOD, out-of-home, social, audio and digital channels, while targeting women aged 35 to 55 and broader audiences including younger women, healthcare professionals and support networks through a dedicated online information hub.

The Ogilvy-developed creative platform forms part of a wider communications program led by the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing in collaboration with agency partners including Fiftyfive5, Universal McCann, Fenton, Cultural Perspectives, Carbon, and Hall & Partners. 

The initiative is also supported by a dedicated campaign website at health.gov.au/perimenopause, providing evidence-based information, treatment guidance and access to support services for women navigating perimenopause and menopause.

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Through the three-year extension, UM will continue to provide media strategy, planning, and buying services to the Australian Government, after initially being awarded the contract in July 2018. UM also previously held the Australian government media contract from 2002 to 2014.

“It is a privilege to continue working with the many Government entities covered by the Master Media Agency contract,” said Brett Elliott, general manager of UM Canberra. 

“Certainly since the beginning of 2020, there have been complex communications challenges that, from a media perspective, have required creativity and speed-to-market. Our partnership with the Australian Government has been strong and successful,” Elliott added.

Meanwhile, Anathea Ruys, CEO at UM Australia has expressed her congratulations to Elliott and the rest of the team in regards to the contract extension.

“With the review period now finalized the Team is focused on growing their partnerships with their Government counterparts to create brilliant work and communications outcomes into the future,” Ruys stated.

UM’s mother agency Mediabrands has been recently expanding its growth in Australia with the appointment of a new CEO for its digitally-led service agency Reprise. 

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In a report by the Associated Press, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg stated that the so-called News Media Bargaining Code will pass through a parliamentary hearing before official voting by next year.

“This is a huge reform. This is a world first. And the world is watching what happens here in Australia. This is comprehensive legislation that has gone further than any comparable jurisdiction in the world,” Frydenberg stated.

The News Media Bargaining Code, according to an official press release by the Office of the Treasurer, aims to support and sustain public interest journalism in the country, with strategies including “enabling digital platforms to publish standard offers, which provides smaller news media businesses with an efficient pathway to finalizing agreements with digital platform.”

Under the new reform, Facebook and Google will need to compensate local media companies, including state-owned media groups Australian Broadcasting Corp. (ABC) and the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS)-which were originally excluded from the initial law proposal.

Both Facebook and Google have released their statements in the past, opposing the new referendum. Facebook had stated that they will start blocking Australian users and publishers in publishing local and international news on their platform and on Instagram, while Google had clarified that they are not ‘stealing’ content from other people, but rather redirecting users to what they searched.

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