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Queenstown Marketers Event
Join us for networking drinks to reconnect after the festive season!
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Monthly Marketing Meetup | February
Join us at the MA for an evening of networking and discussion!
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Monthly Marketing Meetup | February | LIVE
Join us ONLINE for our Monthly Marketing Meetup
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Brainy Breakfast 2025 / Auckland
We pack a lot into the Brainy Breakfasts with New Zealand’s best presenters, expert panels, groundbreaking case studies, and a focus on the hottest topics in marketing!
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Think Again Auckland
Think Again events bring together senior marketers and agency leaders for networking & drinks, a beautiful sit-down lunch at an exclusive venue, and the chance to hear from leading CMOs, CEOs and other thought leaders.
Learn moreSpeakers
Josh Munn
Lead Experience Designer
AKQA
Serena Never Done Evolving: Using AI to Craft an Immersive Visual Narrative for Nike
Simon Vicars
Chief Creative Officer
ColensoBBDO
Adoptable: How Pedigree Is Using AI to End Dog Homelessness
Heath Waugh
Founder & Producer
MatterStudio.ai
Supercharging Your Visual Assets with AI: The Latest on AI Content Generation Tools
Nyssa Waters
Chief Executive Officer
Being AI Group
Panel: Test and Learn - Where Marketers Are At With GenAI Right Now
Panellist
Matty Burton
Group CCO
DDB Group
Panel: Test and Learn - Where Marketers Are At With GenAI Right Now
Panellist
Josh Munn
Lead Experience Designer
AKQA
Serena Never Done Evolving: Using AI to Craft an Immersive Visual Narrative for Nike
Simon Vicars
Chief Creative Officer
ColensoBBDO
Adoptable: How Pedigree Is Using AI to End Dog Homelessness
Heath Waugh
Founder & Producer
MatterStudio.ai
Supercharging Your Visual Assets with AI: The Latest on AI Content Generation Tools
Nyssa Waters
Chief Executive Officer
Being AI Group
Panel: Test and Learn - Where Marketers Are At With GenAI Right Now
Panellist
Matty Burton
Group CCO
DDB Group
Panel: Test and Learn - Where Marketers Are At With GenAI Right Now
Panellist
Joanna O'Connor
Marketing Director
Auckland Theatre Company
Panel: Test and Learn - Where Marketers Are At With GenAI Right Now
Panellist
Libby Lavrova
Data / AI Partner Technical Specialist
IBM NZ
Panel: Test and Learn - Where Marketers Are At With GenAI Right Now
Panellist
Josh Munn
Lead Experience Designer
AKQA
Serena Never Done Evolving: Using AI to Craft an Immersive Visual Narrative for Nike
Join us for an insightful exploration of "Never Done Evolving," a groundbreaking project developed by AKQA to commemorate Nike's 50th anniversary and the stellar career of Serena Williams. This innovative AI-powered initiative, which drew over 1.69 million viewers on YouTube, leveraged advanced machine learning and the vid2player technique to analyse two decades of Serena's gameplay. The result? A virtual match that traced her remarkable journey from her first Grand Slam victory in 1999 to her Australian Open triumph in 2017.
This session will delve into the fascinating design process behind this transformative project, from data visualization to crafting an immersive visual narrative. "Never Done Evolving" not only pays tribute to Serena's legacy but also underscores the revolutionary potential of technology in redefining athletic performance and storytelling in sports. Discover how AKQA pushed the boundaries of sports analytics with this captivating live-streamed event.
- Beyond the brief: Exploring & dissecting what could be possible
- People as the essence of ground-breaking digital design
- Constraints & challenges as the stepping stones to greatness
- Digital design: storytelling brought to life
About Josh
Josh Munn is an Aotearoa-based creative with unique skills across industrial and user experience design, passionate about inclusivity and sustainability.
Currently working as Experience Design Lead at AKQA Tāmaki Makaurau, recent collaborations include organisations such as IBM, NBA, Fonterra, EECA, Fixmas, and the Superpower Institute.
Simon Vicars
Chief Creative Officer
ColensoBBDO
Adoptable: How Pedigree Is Using AI to End Dog Homelessness
ColensoBBDO New Zealand stole the spotlight at Cannes 2024 with its Adoptable campaign, setting a new benchmark for creative AI innovation in marketing.
Worldwide, 12 million dogs are in shelters waiting for their forever home. Pedigree has been supporting dog adoption for nearly two decades. Now, thanks to AI and machine learning, that support can reach a scale that was previously unfeasible.
The Cannes Lions Grand Prix winning ‘Adoptable’ campaign used a first-of-its-kind machine-learning model to create personalised ads featuring real dogs from local shelters. Using geotargeting and first-party data from social media profiles, it matches potential pet owners with adoptable dogs and turns every Pedigree ad into an ad for a shelter dog.
ColensoBBDO Chief Creative Officer, Simon Vicars, will share the campaign and show how AI can amplify the reach, effectiveness and social impact of creative ideas.
About Simon
Simon is New Zealand’s most globally awarded Creative. His 16 year career started in Aotearoa and then took him to London, where he led Virgin Media, Mars petcare, and adidas football at the global hotshop adam & eve DDB.
His work has won Grand Prixs in effectiveness and creativity and has resulted in two people getting tattoos. He is currently the Chief Creative Officer at Colenso BBDO.
Heath Waugh
Founder & Producer
MatterStudio.ai
Supercharging Your Visual Assets with AI: The Latest on AI Content Generation Tools
AI-driven tools are becoming essential for creating engaging, personalised, and cost-effective creative content. But even with a proactive approach, AI is transforming marketing faster than many of us can keep up and new AI tools come out every day.
To keep us abreast of the latest tech, we have invited leading New Zealand expert Heath Waugh from MatterStudio.ai to show what’s now available and how we as marketers can utilise these tools to create high-quality stills and video content from text inputs, images, and minimal user guidance.
Based on examples from MatterStudio.ai, Heath gives us practical tips on crafting prompts, AI use cases, and the do’s and don’ts to spark our creative thinking and inspire us to give the latest AI tools a try.
About Heath
Heath is a creative producer and has been involved in the photography industry in New Zealand for more than 20 years. After leaving the advertising industry he opened his first studio in 2010 and has been working with many of New Zealand's top brands and agencies since.
Heath is deeply passionate about generative image AI and recognises the potential for it to greatly benefit brands in their image creation. He opened Matter Studio in 2023, New Zealand's first AI-focused content studio.
Matter leverages emerging AI technology alongside decades of experience in production, photography, and post-production; providing clients with unprecedented access to world-class imagery, without much of the time, money, and labour traditionally associated with highly stylised photography.
Travena Addenbrooke
AI Marketing Lead
Spark New Zealand
Your Host & MC /
Panel Moderator
About Travena
Travena is a senior marketing professional who has had over 15+ years of experience. She has been involved in a range of MarTech implementations that have been complex within large enterprises. She has worked directly on solution builds as well as implementing strategies that are centred around the three P’s - People/ Platform/ Process.
Nyssa Waters
Chief Executive Officer
Being AI Group
Panel: Test and Learn - Where Marketers Are At With GenAI Right Now
Panellist
Most organisations are still in the ‘test and learn’ stage of their AI implementation. Marketers are trying different tools and using AI for various marketing activities, so there’s a great opportunity to learn from each other as a marketing community. We have invited a panel of marketers and AI practitioners to share where they are at and what they have learned so far. This will allow you to benchmark your own GenAI use, pick up practical tips from others in the same situation as you, and figure out where you should focus your efforts.
About Nyssa
Nyssa Waters is a dynamic and experienced technology leader with a remarkable 20 year career across the tech sector, culminating in her role as Co-Founder and CEO of Being AI - Customer Solutions.
Nyssa is responsible for setting the strategic direction of Being AI - Customer Solutions, ensuring operational efficiency, and leading the overall management of the company,overseeing financial planning, risk management, and stakeholder engagement relations, while promoting innovation and growth.
Prior to co-founding Being AI - Customer Solutions, Nyssa held several high-impact roles. At Google, she notably served as Head of Financial Services for Google Cloud NZ, where she was instrumental in devising strategies that leverage Cloud, Data and AI to improve operational efficiency and drive business transformation for clients.
She has led the strategic development of cloud solutions for the financial sector and achieved a significant increase in market penetration. As Google Workspace Executive for Australia and New Zealand, she drove product and sales initiatives across the region and led significant revenue growth.
Nyssa is known for her innovative and engaged approach which is deeply rooted in understanding client needs, developing comprehensive business solutions, and ensuring impactful, client-centric outcomes across a number of technology solutions, with a deep understanding of various technologies such as AI/ML, Cloud, SaaS, and Infrastructure. Her leadership style is characterised by authenticity, emphasising mentorship, team development, and a truly customer centric focus.
Her educational foundation includes studying a Bachelor of Social Sciences from Waikato University and a Business Management Certificate from Waikato Institute of Technology, alongside certifications in technology leadership and sales methodology from Google, Telstra, and Spark NZ.
Nyssa takes pride in her personal life, particularly in her role as a mother and animal rescue volunteer, which has taught her invaluable lessons in leadership and compassion. Her approach to both her professional and personal life reflects her commitment to excellence, innovation, and meaningful relationships.
Matty Burton
Group CCO
DDB Group
Panel: Test and Learn - Where Marketers Are At With GenAI Right Now
Panellist
Most organisations are still in the ‘test and learn’ stage of their AI implementation. Marketers are trying different tools and using AI for various marketing activities, so there’s a great opportunity to learn from each other as a marketing community. We have invited a panel of marketers and AI practitioners to share where they are at and what they have learned so far. This will allow you to benchmark your own GenAI use, pick up practical tips from others in the same situation as you, and figure out where you should focus your efforts.
About Matty
Hello, I’m Matty, Chief Creative Officer for DDB Group Aotearoa, which is a bunch of best in class agencies helping brands live in the world, wherever they happen to live in the world.
Previously I ran an innovation team at Google across APAC called GooglePI. We focussed on landing first use case technologies in market for Google’s most valuable or strategic partners, working across engineering teams, products and markets.
Before this I co-founded Special Group in Australia, winning agency of the year accolades and accounts like Qantas, Uber and Red Bull. And before that, I worked at some of the world’s most renowned creative agencies, like The Glue Society and Droga5 New York.
I’ve been lucky enough to be awarded at the highest levels in advertising, in content with an Emmy for transmedia storytelling and in innovation exhibiting and launching new products at Google I/O, SXSW, Berlin Tech Open Air, Mobile World Congress and The World AI Conference in Shanghai.
Joanna O'Connor
Marketing Director
Auckland Theatre Company
Panel: Test and Learn - Where Marketers Are At With GenAI Right Now
Panellist
Most organisations are still in the ‘test and learn’ stage of their AI implementation. Marketers are trying different tools and using AI for various marketing activities, so there’s a great opportunity to learn from each other as a marketing community. We have invited a panel of marketers and AI practitioners to share where they are at and what they have learned so far. This will allow you to benchmark your own GenAI use, pick up practical tips from others in the same situation as you, and figure out where you should focus your efforts.
About Joanna
Joanna O'Connor is an awarded marketing professional with over 15 years of experience in driving brand growth and sales within the loyalty and entertainment industries.
She is the Marketing Director for Auckland Theatre Company, one of New Zealand’s largest performing arts brands, transforming their use of digital technology to improve customer experience, ticketing and marketing efficiencies. She is also on the board of sporting organisations Tennis Auckland (ASB Classic) and Baseball Victoria supporting the use of data-centric decision making and customer-led brand growth and fandom.
Before moving back to New Zealand in 2021, she was the Digital Marketing Manager at Coles, and Head of Digital at The Australian Ballet. In this role in 2018 she won Australian Social Media Marketer of the year.
Libby Lavrova
Data / AI Partner Technical Specialist
IBM NZ
Panel: Test and Learn - Where Marketers Are At With GenAI Right Now
Panellist
Most organisations are still in the ‘test and learn’ stage of their AI implementation. Marketers are trying different tools and using AI for various marketing activities, so there’s a great opportunity to learn from each other as a marketing community. We have invited a panel of marketers and AI practitioners to share where they are at and what they have learned so far. This will allow you to benchmark your own GenAI use, pick up practical tips from others in the same situation as you, and figure out where you should focus your efforts.
About Libby
Libby is passionate about co-creating magical and intelligent experiences to all ranges of enterprises in New Zealand through the IBM Ecosystem.
Currently Libby is a Data & AI Partner Technical Specialist in IBM New Zealand and prior to this role, she spent 4 years designing, developing and leading virtual assistant teams in the Telco industry as a Business Transformation Consultant / Cognitive Engineer at IBM.
Libby dedicates her time to being essential to her business partners, listening and ideating on the problem their customers have and dreaming up together the best solution with Data & AI at the centre of it all.
In the background, Libby is the co-chair of Women@IBM and does gardening and sewing in her spare time. Libby is always looking to build up her network of people that challenge her in different aspects of her personal and professional life and enjoys learning new things and expanding her mind.
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