Two-Year-Old Thinkerbell NZ Is Growing By Refusing to “Black Box” Creativity

Two years in, and marketers across New Zealand are starting to understand Thinkerbell’s model, and its commitment to not “black box” the creative process.

At the start of 2023, the indie’s Australian leadership team picked Amy Frengley, Regan Grafton, and Luke Farmer (who left seven months later) to launch and run its New Zealand office. Thinkerbell execs Margie Reid, Adam Ferrier, Jim Ingram, and Ben Couzens had been hunting for the right talent for a while when “we sort of reached out to Adam and Jim, knowing that they were wanting to come into the New Zealand market,” Regan explains in an interview with LBB.

“They snapped us up because we [Amy and I] were living the Thinkerbell model, which was a strategic type and a creative type working closely together.” 

The biggest challenge since then has been educating the market on that thinker-tinker model, in addition to its approach to moving work through the agency.

“We don't black box work. We want to share and share early, even if it's slightly more unresolved,” Amy, chief brand thinker, says.

“What are we feeling? What are we thinking? And [we] build out on that with a client. There's a lovely dynamic that emerges from that.”

Amy and chief tinker Regan believe sharing early and often de-risks big ideas, and increases the chance of clients buying creatively brave work, because “they have been an instrumental part of the build of that idea,” Amy says. “We're all on that journey together.”

Regan acknowledges it’s been a challenge to get “marketers to understand that's the way that we work” though.

“They might assume that we're just like another agency, but we don't operate like a traditional agency at all,” he says. “So it's about getting in front of the marketers and explaining that there is a better way of journeying work through an agency, and it's much more pleasant for everybody.”

The very first challenge, though, was an inability to bring clients into the office. The team found momentum early, pitching for and winning foundation client Lion Breweries and getting seven briefs within the first “two weeks to a month” of landing the account.

“We were still a small team at that point, and had a huge volume of work coming through,” Amy says. “We had to get up and running very, very quickly.”

But they were working out of a short-term space in Auckland’s Greys Avenue, which proved disruptive and unsuitable in more ways than one. The least of the issues: the boardroom housed the kitchen, so “if we were having meetings over the lunch break, the rest of the staff couldn’t get in to make their lunch.”

“We didn't realise that they were going to take the top of the building off pretty shortly after we started the tenancy,” Regan continues. 

“And so it was just constant drilling that would happen, and water leaks, and dust getting transferred by builders through the hallways, and sewerage leaking down one of the walls and the main foyer. It was just a bit of a comical disaster. So it was quite difficult to bring clients in.”

They upgraded as soon as they could, to a ground floor space on St Benedicts Street, but they didn’t ditch the architectural quirkiness; the building is an old masonic lodge and former dive bar. Last April, the business added Jessica Allison as general manager, after stints at agencies like Herd MSL, Mango Communications Melbourne, Dentsu, and CHEP Network.

“I've worked at big, integrated agencies on both sides of the ditch, and coming from an earned background, I've never worked anywhere where there's so much importance on an ideas-first philosophy,” Jessica says. 

“We have, on both sides of the ditch, very deliberately built teams that can bring the best ideas to life, and that doesn't matter whether they sit in earned or whether it's above the line, content, or social. We really prioritise that philosophy, and we do that to deliver maximum value for our clients.”

Amy agrees a good idea can come from anywhere. “It's definitely not script first or TVC first, and that's clear in all the work that we've done and do.” Thinkerbell is renowned for reactive work that taps into cultural conversations, and the Aotearoa outpost is determined to ensure its work for the likes of Lion, Jetstar, SquareOne, Avida, and Frucor feels distinctly Kiwi.

New Zealand has a reputation for punching above its weight globally, the birthplace of agencies like Special and work like Samsung’s iTest (DDB Group) and Pedigree’s Adoptable (Colenso). Some argue that smaller marketing budgets necessitate an appetite for creative risk. Regan observes fewer layers of red tape, and a direct line to the top marketer, helps the creative process.

“The bigger the market, the bigger the clients, the more layers you have within marketing teams and ideas tend to get watered down, the more hands it gets passed through,” he says. 

“So if you're talking to the ultimate decision maker in that first presentation, then you're more likely to get something more creative through without it getting little cuts taken off it, because it's usually the process of all those little cuts that end up affecting the overall quality of the idea.”

Amy reckons “you definitely know a New Zealand piece of work,” because “a New Zealand sensibility is a very specific kind of thing.”

“There is an understated, charming, humorous quality to New Zealand creativity,” she adds. 

“Not that you couldn't apply those terms to other nations, but there's something in the way that that comes together and the way it's stitched together that feels uniquely Kiwi.”

The country is the most isolated temperate land mass in the world, and often omitted from world maps. That geographical isolation breeds a cultural urge to understand New Zealand’s place in the world, Jessica thinks.

“New Zealanders also really love to hear about themselves and where they sit in the world,” she says, citing the Olympics as the “perfect example.” While the country trailed on the total medal tally, journalists broke down the tally by capita and in other creative ways to boost Aotearoa’s ranking.

New Zealand brands are looking for trans-Tasman capabilities, Jessica says, to boost influence in the region and tap into Australian audiences. Their budgets may be even strained than those in bigger markets, but clients are demanding ideas that deliver outsized impact.

“They want us to really help them solve their problems. A lot of our clients have big challenges that they need us to help them to address,” Jessica says. “They're under the pump, so whatever we can do to help them take the pain away.”

The agencies that stand to win, therefore, are those “that are able to get in there and really create those efficiencies in terms of the way that they journey a brief through the agency, and also come up with the biggest, most impactful ideas in tandem with that,” Jessica adds.

“That is so important, and it's somewhere where we've seen that we offer that real point of difference.”

Thinkerbell Aotearoa’s leaders argue the thinker-tinker model is its “secret sauce” that positions the agency to experience the same success in New Zealand that it has in Australia. Amy says the agency hopes to expand its brand design and identity capabilities over the next 12 months, while Regan articulates an ambition to make the most of tough market conditions.

“Marketing budgets have restricted and contracted,” he says, “but we see that as an opportunity, because we have an ideas-first way of solving problems, and they can be solved in lots of interesting ways. Thinkerbell is definitely set up for succeeding in that sort of market.”

The agency has carved out a niche connecting the industry too. Its Brand Mates initiative operates across AUNZ, which sees CMOs meet and brainstorm in a speed-dating style event to see if their brands could help each other.

“We actually just found out yesterday that two brands that attended our last Brand Mates have actually collaborated together on something,” Jessica reveals.

Ultimately, the trio has a shared hope for what Thinkerbell Aotearoa’s third year in business has in store: making work worth paying attention to, that makes the world more interesting, and drives impact for clients.

After all, Jessica says, “Everybody needs a bit more magic in their lives.”