What about those smaller Kiwi creative agencies, who may not have the headcount of a multinational, but who clearly have the skills (and the business nous) to compete alongside the big guns regardless? Does ‘independence’ change the work? What’s so good about being small? And is the clearer air in the regions really better for creativity? NZ Marketing decided to take a trip beyond Auckland’s big-player marketing milieu to discover just what makes New Zealand’s indies tick.
A short survey of the country’s small-to-medium creative and specialist agencies proved what we already knew: New Zealand has a thriving community of independent agencies producing outstanding work. And outside of the larger Auckland marketing factories, it turns out there are as many reasons to set up shop as there are shop founders – it’s not only about the mythical work-life balance.
“It just got to that point where I was working every hour God gave me and thinking to myself, ‘What am I going to do next?’” says Chris Williams, CEO of Hamilton- and Tauranga-based KingSt Advertising. It was 1999, and Williams had spent 15 years living the agency life, primarily at Colenso, DDB and Saatchis, plus a few others along the way. So when an opportunity to buy a small Hamilton agency came up for sale, he jumped at the chance.
“I was born in Hamilton and grew up in Te Awamutu, so, being a Waikato boy, I thought, ‘This is an excellent opportunity.
