Kate O’Connor

A former lawyer with 15 years experience in television and media, Kate has spent the past six years running the kids television unicorn, Bluey, as the Director of Brands and Commercial. She has been the decision maker on all Bluey commercial and brand activities- delivering unprecedented and transformative growth while maintaining a steadfast commitment to creating an evergreen, global brand that Australians can be proud of. She is the winner of a CEW Scholarship, many awards for her brand collaborations on things like Hammerbarn and Bluey’s World, and Highly Commended for B+T Marketing Woman of the Year. 

As the lead architect of the strategic brand plan that governs Bluey’s growth in market, key highlights of the last few years have included:

• Managing the marketing of over 1000 different Bluey products, including 9 million books sold and 12 million pieces of apparel.
• Co-producing a live theatre show in three different continents.
• Launching the biggest, most ambitious immersive experience to come to Australia, Bluey’s World.
• Filming a destination marketing campaign for an entire state – the biggest campaign Queensland had launched in a decade.
• Celebrating Christmas with the Heelers in the iconic Myer Windows with a bespoke retelling of Christmas Day that took 9 months of development, admired by a record 2.4 million people within a 6 week period.
• Debuting Bluey and Bingo public transport- the City Dogs of Brisbane
• And convincing Australia’s most trusted brand, Bunnings, valued at 6 billion dollars, to rebrand to become Bluey’s fictional hardware store, Hammerbarn, for an entire month, with no marketing spend or media budget. The Bunnings/Bluey collaboration, which involved confident code-play by removing both the Bunnings brand and the Bluey brand, was the brainchild of Kate. She developed the initial proposal, pitching it several times, before reaching out directly to Bunnings CEO, who shared her vision. This set the wheels in motion for Kate’s team, along with Bunnings to grow this vision into the ground-breaking commercial and brand activation it became.

Kate has recently left BBC Studios to follow her dreams of working for herself.