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Event
Tauranga Networking Event
Meet Jo Mitchell – Former NZ Marketer of the Year and Brand Trailblazer
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Event
Brainy Breakfast 2025 / Auckland
Campaigns That Got Us Talking: From Vanilla Ice to Pawprints
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Event
Wellington Networking Event
Free Event: Join us for an exclusive presentation celebrating 50 years of iconic Kiwi advertising campaigns
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Event
Marketing Disrupted 2025
Vaseline Verified: Co-Creating Disruptive Creativity for Global Impact
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Event
Monthly Marketing Meetup | September
Join us at the MA for an evening of networking and discussion!
Learn moreSpeakers
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Nathalie Moolenschot
General Manager - Marketing
Animates
Gutsy and Purpose-Driven: How Animates’ Pawprint Petition Captured Hearts and Minds
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Kate Baars
Senior Marketing Manager- Export & Craft
DB Breweries
How Ultra Export and Vanilla Ice Saved Summer (and Our Beers)
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Jonathan McMahon
Chief Creative Officer
Special New Zealand
How Ultra Export and Vanilla Ice Saved Summer (and Our Beers)
Nina Richardson
Strategist
Special New Zealand
How Ultra Export and Vanilla Ice Saved Summer (and Our Beers)
Nathalie Moolenschot
General Manager - Marketing
Animates
Gutsy and Purpose-Driven: How Animates’ Pawprint Petition Captured Hearts and Minds
Kate Baars
Senior Marketing Manager- Export & Craft
DB Breweries
How Ultra Export and Vanilla Ice Saved Summer (and Our Beers)
Jonathan McMahon
Chief Creative Officer
Special New Zealand
How Ultra Export and Vanilla Ice Saved Summer (and Our Beers)
Nina Richardson
Strategist
Special New Zealand
How Ultra Export and Vanilla Ice Saved Summer (and Our Beers)
Nathalie Moolenschot
General Manager - Marketing
Animates
Gutsy and Purpose-Driven: How Animates’ Pawprint Petition Captured Hearts and Minds
In a category obsessed with price, Animates took a bold leap, shifting from transactional to transformational marketing. By launching The Pawprint Petition, Animates ignited a national conversation, won over hearts and headlines, and proved that purpose-led work can drive commercial outcomes.
Discover how they turned a simple idea into a world-first platform giving pets a voice - and got Kiwis talking, sharing, and signing in droves.
What you’ll learn:
- How to harness creative tech and AI to bring emotional storytelling to life
- Why cultural relevance is critical for breakthrough campaigns
- The power of omni-channel momentum: from digital to street-level tactics
- How to engage execs, frontline teams, and media to spark a movement
- The measurable business impact of going all-in on purpose
Walk away inspired—and ready to launch your own gutsy, game-changing campaign.
About Nathalie
Nathalie Moolenschot is the General Manager of Marketing, eCommerce and Customer Experience at Animates Vetcare NZ, New Zealand’s largest pet specialty retailer, encompassing 47 retail stores and 18 veterinary clinics. A passionate pet parent to Cara and Leo, she is focused on developing customer-centric strategies that deepen pet loyalty and bring Animates’ purpose to life — making the world a happier place through the love of pets. Nathalie has over 20 years’ experience across marketing leadership roles in both service and retail sectors, including at The Warehouse Group, Air New Zealand, Westpac, ASB and BNZ.
Nathalie is an accomplished strategic leader with expertise in customer-centred transformation. She is committed to driving commercial growth by unlocking the full potential of marketing, developing high-performing teams, and championing marketing as a critical engine for business success. She also proudly serves as a board member of the Marketing Association.
Kate Baars
Senior Marketing Manager- Export & Craft
DB Breweries
How Ultra Export and Vanilla Ice Saved Summer (and Our Beers)
Co-presenting with Nina Richardson, Strategist, Special New Zealand & Jonathan McMahon, Chief Creative Officer, Special New Zealand
What do frozen beers, cold calls, and a '90s rap icon have in common? A genius and cheeky summer campaign from Export Ultra.
With budgets dwarfed by global competitors, an incredibly crowded category experiencing declining sales, the proudly Kiwi beer brand tapped into a universal summer frustration - accidentally freezing your beers - and turned it into the Cold Call Back Service. Text “ICE ICE” and Vanilla Ice would ring to remind you to save your beer before it exploded. Seriously.
What Marketers Will Learn:
- How to turn everyday consumer pain points into unforgettable campaigns that shift consumer perceptions
- Why insight-driven humour trumps big budgets
- The power of blending nostalgia, mobile, and media timing
- How to make your brand part of a seasonal ritual and the national conversation
- The results (Spoiler: Sometimes the coldest idea is the hottest win)
About Kate
A passionate marketer with over 15 years experience across both agency and client side. Kate’s career at DB Breweries spans over a decade, there is not a brand in the portfolio she hasn’t worked on. Kate has worked on multiple international award-winning campaigns that have shaped our domestic beer history, including Tui's catch a million and now Export's Cannes winning Cold Calls campaign. Kate's also honed her skills working on international brands such as Heineken and DB's cider portfolio, giving her a unique insight on how to get the best out of brands in the New Zealand landscape.
Jonathan McMahon
Chief Creative Officer
Special New Zealand
How Ultra Export and Vanilla Ice Saved Summer (and Our Beers)
Co-presenting with Kate Baars, Senior Marketing Manager - Export & Craft, DB Breweries & Nina Richardson, Strategist, Special New Zealand
What do frozen beers, cold calls, and a '90s rap icon have in common? A genius and cheeky summer campaign from Export Ultra.
With budgets dwarfed by global competitors, an incredibly crowded category experiencing declining sales, the proudly Kiwi beer brand tapped into a universal summer frustration - accidentally freezing your beers - and turned it into the Cold Call Back Service. Text “ICE ICE” and Vanilla Ice would ring to remind you to save your beer before it exploded. Seriously.
What Marketers Will Learn:
- How to turn everyday consumer pain points into unforgettable campaigns that shift consumer perceptions
- Why insight-driven humour trumps big budgets
- The power of blending nostalgia, mobile, and media timing
- How to make your brand part of a seasonal ritual and the national conversation
- The results (Spoiler: Sometimes the coldest idea is the hottest win)
About Jonathan
Jonathan McMahon is regarded as one of Australasia’s most successful CCOs, having been named Campaign UK Global Creative Leader of the Year (along with his CCO partner, Lisa) in 2024. It probably had something to do with him helping Special win back-to-back Campaign UK ‘Global Creative Agency of the Year’ titles, during this time.
Known for his impactful work, Jonathan has resurrected dead TV characters for life insurance brand Partners Life, assisted a man living with Motor Neurone Disease by selling his belongings through a digital timeline reflective of his deterioration, and more recently, saved a crap ton beers from exploding in Kiwi freezers with the help of rapper Vanilla Ice, for Export Ultra.
Jonathan has also created the ‘Most entertaining recruit film’ for the New Zealand Police, resulting in a significant increase in female and diverse recruits. He has encouraged New Zealanders abroad to “meddle” in the NZ election, leading to a parliamentary shift for the first time since 1938, and he has helped rebrand Kathmandu to appeal to younger audiences through the “Summer Never Sleeps” campaign.
Along the way, Jonathan has received multiple prestigious awards, including Cannes Grand Prix, and multiple Gold Lions, a Best in Discipline and Gold Pencils at One Show, Yellow Pencils at D&AD, Gold Effies, Webbys, 3 Best in Shows at Axis, and a WARC Grand Prix for Effectiveness.
That’s not all – when he was young, Jonathan was named in Young Guns Top 10 Creatives of the Decade. Ah, those were the days. He thinks. He can’t quite remember, it was a long time ago.
Nina Richardson
Strategist
Special New Zealand
How Ultra Export and Vanilla Ice Saved Summer (and Our Beers)
Co-presenting with Kate Baars, Senior Marketing Manager - Export & Craft, DB Breweries & Jonathan McMahon, Chief Creative Officer, Special New Zealand
What do frozen beers, cold calls, and a '90s rap icon have in common? A genius and cheeky summer campaign from Export Ultra.
With budgets dwarfed by global competitors, an incredibly crowded category experiencing declining sales, the proudly Kiwi beer brand tapped into a universal summer frustration - accidentally freezing your beers - and turned it into the Cold Call Back Service. Text “ICE ICE” and Vanilla Ice would ring to remind you to save your beer before it exploded. Seriously.
What Marketers Will Learn:
- How to turn everyday consumer pain points into unforgettable campaigns that shift consumer perceptions
- Why insight-driven humour trumps big budgets
- The power of blending nostalgia, mobile, and media timing
- How to make your brand part of a seasonal ritual and the national conversation
- The results (Spoiler: Sometimes the coldest idea is the hottest win)
About Nina
Nina Richardson is a strategist at Special, working at the intersection of communications, design, and PR. In just three years she has built experience across categories from FMCG to finance, helping shape work recognised both locally and internationally - including the Cannes-winning Export Ultra Cold Call Back Service.
Nina sees her relative newness to the industry as a strength, bringing curiosity, cultural fluency, and a fresh perspective to every brief. She’s driven by a fascination with the constant exchange between the work we make and the people it’s made for, seeing strategy as an ongoing dialogue that shapes both. With a knack for uncovering sharp human insights and turning them into ideas that spark conversation, Nina creates strategies that connect in the moment and have impact long after.
Shaun Fitzgibbon
Managing Partner
TRA
Your Host & MC
About Shaun
Shaun is passionate about helping organisations achieve dramatic and lasting improvements in performance through understanding people. Shaun has worked with companies around the world and across industries drawing on his skill set in marketing, business strategy, and data analytics with a common goal of using human insight to solve complex business problems.
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