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Welcome to the breakfast club for marketers. 

Brainy Breakfast, where New Zealand's marketing community connects, sharing ideas, swapping stories and sparking inspiration. 

Human First, Strategy Second - Building a Brand People Love

Marketing's most powerful growth strategies aren't always the ones that make sense on paper. This September, get ready to be challenged about everything you think you know about how brands win. 

International keynote Leif Stromnes, Chief Strategy Officer at Saatchi & Saatchi ANZ, reveals why human irrationality is your greatest untapped advantage, and why fame, familiarity and social fluency consistently outperform logic. 

Then Boring Oat Milk Founder Morgan Maw and brand strategist Kelvin Soh show what it looks like in practice, unpacking the playbook for building brands people genuinely want to talk about, follow, share, and belong to. 

Your ticket includes:

  • A delicious breakfast + barista coffee
  • Inspiring speakers and expert panels
  • Actionable insights and ideas
  • Plenty of time to connect, chat and network

 

Sponsored by

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Pricing

Members: $99 + GST

Non-members: $149 + GST

Product Details

Date:
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Time:
7:00am - 9:00am

Event Location:
Auckland

Venue Name:
The Maritime Room

Venue Address:
Princes Wharf, Auckland CBD, Auckland 1010

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Event
The NZ Marketing Association Charity Hackathon 2026 / Christchurch
Collaborate with fellow marketers to solve real challenges for NZ charities and create ideas that make a difference.

24/06/2026

5:30pm - 8:00pm

Christchurch

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Event
The NZ Marketing Association Charity Hackathon 2026 / Queenstown
Collaborate with fellow marketers to solve real challenges for NZ charities and create ideas that make a difference.

25/06/2026

12:30pm - 3:00pm

Queenstown

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Event
The NZ Marketing Association Charity Hackathon 2026 / Wellington
Collaborate with fellow marketers to solve real challenges for NZ charities and create ideas that make a difference.

25/06/2026

5:30pm - 8:00pm

Wellington

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Event
Marketing Meetup | July 2026
Pivot or Persevere: The Brand Investment Debate in Turbulent Times

7/07/2026

5:30pm - 7:30pm

Auckland

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Event
MindFuel Webinar with Milk
20 years in the aisle with Milk: How to Connect Emotionally with Customers through your Brand

15/07/2026

10:30am - 11:30am

Online

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Event
Andrew Tindall - Fresh From Cannes: The Creator Effectiveness Playbook
Fresh from Cannes, Andrew Tindall with Two Big Ideas That Change How You Think About Creativity.

30/07/2026

9:00am - 11:00am

Auckland

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International Keynote
Perfectly Unreasonable: Why Logic Fails Marketing

Much of marketing is built on a flawed assumption: that people are good, reasonable decision makers. The reality is far messier and far more interesting. In this 'Perfectly Unreasonable' presentation by Saatchi & Saatchi ANZ Chief Strategy Officer Leif Stromnes, he will draw on decades of observed 'anomalies' in human behaviour to reveal how choices are really made, and what that means for brands trying to grow.  Through sharp, provocative examples, he shows why fame, familiarity and social fluency consistently outweigh logic and novelty, and why many of marketing’s most crazy ideas don’t make sense, until they do. 

For marketers, the implications are both simple and enlightening:

  • People want familiarity first, novelty second. About 80/20
  • The unthinking good choice - why Fame is the emperor growth strategy in every category
  • Over-explaining weakens impact. The more we tell, the less we sell
  • Humans forgive humans, but not machines - so what are the implications for automation of customer service tasks

This is a reframing of marketing fundamentals. It challenges leaders to stop optimising for how people say they behave, and start designing for how they actually do – unlocking the kind of 'unreasonable' advantage that drives an unfair share of future growth.

Case Study
How Boring Oat Milk went from Cult following to Category Leader

In a world where attention is cheap and loyalty is rare, the strongest startup brands aren’t built through advertising alone - they’re built through community.  

Join Morgan Maw from Boring Oat Milk and Kelvin Soh from DayMonthYear for a conversation on how modern challenger brands create fandom from day one. A practical and candid session for founders, marketers, and anyone building a brand in crowded markets. 

Kelvin has helped shape iconic startup brands including 42 Below Vodka and Stolen Rum, building cultural relevance long before “community-led growth” became a buzzword. Together, they’ll unpack the playbook for building brands people genuinely want to talk about, follow, share, and belong to. 

Using Boring Oat Milk as a live case study, the session explores:

  • Building community before scale and turning customers into advocates
  • Creating social content people actually engage with
  • Defining a strong brand voice
  • Leveraging culture, identity and storytelling

  • Why startups win when they fell human

Speakers

Leif Stromnes

Leif Stromnes

Chief Strategy Officer - ANZ
Saatchi & Saatchi

International Keynote: Perfectly Unreasonable - Why Logic Fails Marketing

READ BIO
Adele Millin

Adele Millin

Client Strategy Director
TRA

Your Host & MC

READ BIO
Leif Stromnes

Leif Stromnes

Chief Strategy Officer - ANZ
Saatchi & Saatchi

International Keynote: Perfectly Unreasonable - Why Logic Fails Marketing

READ BIO
Adele Millin

Adele Millin

Client Strategy Director
TRA

Your Host & MC

READ BIO
Leif Stromnes

Leif Stromnes

Chief Strategy Officer - ANZ
Saatchi & Saatchi

International Keynote: Perfectly Unreasonable - Why Logic Fails Marketing

About Leif

Leif Stromnes is an award-winning strategy leader with more than 30 years’ experience across Africa, Asia, Australia and North America.

He has held senior local, regional and global leadership roles at Ogilvy, TBWA, DDB and Saatchi & Saatchi, leading integrated strategy teams and advising iconic brands including McDonald’s, Volkswagen, Westpac, Tourism Australia, Telstra, Coles, Kmart and Porsche.

A Cannes Gold Lion and Effectiveness Grand Prix winner, he was named Campaign Asia’s New Business Leader of the Year (2017) and Strategy Leader of the Year (2018). He is also a founding member of the Effie Awards and the Account Planning Group in Australia, and co-chaired DDB’s Global Strategic Council for many years.

Passionate about marketing and behavioural science, Leif has published more than 35 articles on the subject, and taught Advanced Strategy at the University of Technology Sydney for a decade.

Adele Millin

Adele Millin

Client Strategy Director
TRA

Your Host & MC

About Adele

Adele is an accomplished qualitative research specialist with over 20 years’ experience across South Africa and New Zealand. She’s partnered with clients across retail, media, finance, and social research - moving between commercial and public sector challenges. A strategic thinker and self-confessed lover of gnarly questions, her work is grounded, sharp, and built to be used. 

She translates complexity into clarity, insights that organisations can act on - not just admire.

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