Mission Australia's new 'butterfly' ad showing during Antiques Roadshow

A new ad depicting how Mission Australia transforms lives has hit the airwaves during Channel Nine’s popular Antiques Roadshow, which is screened at 5pm from Monday to Saturday.

Tune in to Antiques Roadshow at 5pm on Channel Nine, Monday to Saturday, to see the new ad.



In the commercial, a young man in well-worn jeans, sneakers and an army jacket wades across an urban creek, holding a boxy old PC monitor above the water. Next, he’s kicking in a heavily graffitied warehouse door. Once inside, he rummages through a mound of garbage formed over decades of neglect and picks up a twisted metal pipe.

It’s now night and the young man is foraging through an inner-city bin. He picks up a crushed green softdrink can and inspects, then stows it in his pocket. Back in the warehouse we see the young man perched on a ledge many metres above the littered floor. Gathering all his strength, the young man hurls the monitor, smashing it to the ground.

A voice-over announces that over 44,000 young Australians under 25 are homeless.

Up to this point, the viewer may assume that the young man is a vandal or a vagrant – that’s until we see him welding a metal scrap and using the crushed can to complete a design. The final shot reveals the real reason for his frenzied wandering – gleaming green butterfly wings he has created from the copper wiring, aluminium cans and PC circuit board collected at night.

As the young man walks away from his artwork, the suspended wings angelically frame his body as if a part of him. These brilliant wings made from discarded objects represent the potential that this young man – and thousands like him – has, and the fact he can transform his life with Mission Australia’s help.

The voice-over then announces: “We help people to transform their lives”. Finally, Mission Australia’s website appears on the screen.

This visually arresting TV ad was created by Leo Burnett Sydney, the agency responsible for Mission Australia’s previous two ‘transform’ print campaigns that also feature lovingly crafted butterfly wings.