Brand Summit 2026

Drawing on her experience leading Digital & Social at Lululemon and shaping social strategy for the Australian Open, Alessia Riccio will discuss how global brands build community, not just campaigns. She shares how Lululemon activated community-led storytelling and how the Australian Open turned tennis into a social-first cultural moment, and how she’s applying those lessons in her new role managing influencer partnerships for music festivals and concerts.

From ambassador ecosystems and creator partnerships to live-event war rooms and real-time amplification, she’ll unpack how to harness attention spikes without losing brand integrity - and how to design social systems that convert hype into long-term brand equity.

What you’ll learn:

• How do you build a brand that people don't just follow - but feel part of?
• Turning live cultural moments into always-on
• Riding cultural momentum without losing brand voice
• Converting short-term spikes into long-term loyalty
• Managing creator partnerships at scale

About Lessi

With nearly a decade of experience in social media for brands such as lululemon, Australian Open, QT Hotels, government & education, I live and breathe all things social media strategy, influencers and content creation. Especially the kind that tells a great story and actually makes people feel something. I’ve spent years crafting scroll-stopping, social-first content, designed to entertain and engage. In 2024, I launched Shadow Social, a wedding content creation business, capturing the magic behind the scenes on my couple’s most special day. When I’m not chasing love stories with my gimbal, I collaborate with creative and inspiring brands to produce bold, authentic content that stands out in a sea of sameness. I am also currently working with AE Creative Communications, looking after all things influencer relations and VIP talent management for exclusive opening nights for shows and musicals across Australia.

The launch of IKEA into New Zealand is far more than a retail expansion story - it’s one of the most significant brand launches the country has seen in years. It’s a masterclass in building brand trust, emotional resonance, customer experience and long-term cultural relevance. Building a brand, 

In this keynote, Erin Falconer, Head of Marketing for IKEA Australia & New Zealand, shares how one of the world’s most iconic brands approaches entering a new market where awareness is already high, expectations are even higher, and emotional connection matters as much as commercial success.

This session explores:

• What it takes to translate a globally loved brand into a locally meaningful experience
• IKEA approach to understand local life at home
• The role of culture and community in modern brand launches
• Balancing global brand consistency with local relevance
• Creating anticipation at scale

About Erin

Erin Falconer is the newly appointed Head of Marketing for IKEA Australia and New Zealand, leading data‑driven strategies that grow market share, strengthen brand presence and deepen customer connection.

She joined IKEA in 2017 as Marketing Communications Manager, where she shaped how the brand showed up in the market and led high-performing teams and agency partners to deliver impactful, integrated, multi-award-winning campaigns.

Erin brings senior experience across retail and global media, with previous roles at Disney, BBC Worldwide, Warner Bros., Turner Broadcasting and supported the launch of Netflix in Australia.

One of the most recognised purpose-led marketers of her generation, Firdaous El Honsali spent nearly a decade at Unilever shaping what it means to build a brand that stands for something real. As Global VP of the Dove Masterbrand, she led the evolution of Dove's purpose beyond advertising - embedding it into product experience, organisational culture, measurement frameworks, and long-term brand equity strategy across more than 30 markets.

She led the strategy and global rollout behind some of the most talked-about campaigns in recent memory - including #TurnYourBack, Dove's bold response to harmful beauty filters, and the Skinxiety platform, which brought clinical insight and cultural tension together at scale. Both are case studies not just in creative bravery, but in the commercial rigour behind purpose work: how to earn trust, shift culture, and move the needle on brand preference simultaneously. Now advising brands and speaking globally on the intersection of purpose, AI, and authentic connection, Firdaous brings both boardroom credibility and a practitioner's instinct for what actually works

What you'll learn:

• Spot the cultural tensions your brand is uniquely placed to own
• Activate purpose through community, not just media spend
• Connect purpose investment to measurable brand and business outcomes
• Use AI to personalise emotional connection - ethically and at scale

About Firdaous

Firdaous is a Brand Leader with 20 years’ experience in Marketing and Communications who worked in major global Beauty and Personal Care companies, Unilever, The Body Shop and L’Oreal. She is the former Vice President of Dove Masterbrand Global and North America where she worked almost 10 years until a few months ago.

Firdaous’ passion and dedication to purpose-driven brands is evident in her work. Her leadership has contributed to the success of award-winning campaigns from “Courage is Beautiful” and “Reverse Selfie,” to transformative projects for representation and diversity such as ‘Project Show Us’ and more recently initiated campaigns challenging harmful social media trends to girls like #TheFaceOfTen. In 2023, she led the Cannes Lions Grand Prix-winning “#TurnYourBack.”, a social first campaign tackling digital distortion. And more recently she launched the 20 years anniversary campaign for Campaign For Real Beauty, challenging representation in AI through ‘The Code’.

Firdaous believes in the investment in brand equity to build brands that stand the test of time while staying highly relevant to the consumer. For nearly a decade at Dove, Firdaous has also been instrumental in leading innovative marketing strategies, such as shifting the whole marketing model of Dove and other Unilever Beauty & Wellbeing brands to an Others Say one with communities and influencers taking the centre stage. This model amplifies the brand’s purposeful work and innovations by inviting others to become key contributors of the brands message and campaigns, including creating an industry leading approach to influencer & culture first marketing.

Beyond that, Firdaous is a Moroccan French who lives in London with her husband and 8 year old triplets.

Co-presenting with Andy Fergusson, Chief Creative Officer, Leo Australia

They didn't win advertising's biggest prize by writing a better ad - they rebuilt what insurance does. Beating 137 entries, Suncorp's "Haven" took Cannes' top honour, the 2026 Dan Wieden Titanium Grand Prix, by shifting the value exchange with customers from "we pay you after the disaster" into "we help you prevent it".

Mim Hayson (CMO & EGM Brand and Marketing, Suncorp) and Andy Fergusson (CCO, Leo Australia) unpack the strategy, the creative bet and the numbers. 

Key lessons for NZ marketers: 

• Data and personalisation are creative firepower, not backend plumbing

• What internal selling actually looks like when you're fighting for growth capital
• Purpose has to live in the product, not just the pitch
• How to build differentiation and emotional pull inside a commodity, price-driven category

About Mim

Mim Haysom is the Executive General Manager, Brand & Customer Experience at Suncorp Group, one of Australia's leading insurers. She leads the organisation's Brand & Marketing program across nine insurance brands, as well as Corporate Communications, Customer Experience and Strategic Partnerships. Her remit spans customer-led growth, brand reputation and commercial performance, leading a team of more than 150 specialists across Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne.

Widely recognised as one of Australia's leading marketing executives, Mim has built a career delivering work that drives both business growth and cultural impact. She is the only Australian CMO to have won three Cannes Lions Grand Prix across her agency and client-side career, most recently receiving the prestigious Dan Wieden Titanium Grand Prix in 2026. Under her leadership, Suncorp's ONE HOUSE campaign became one of Australia's most awarded marketing initiatives, earning a Cannes Lions Grand Prix for Innovation and helping redefine the role brands can play in addressing societal challenges.

Mim was named Australia's #1 CMO by CMO Magazine in 2022 and was the Grand Effie winner at the Australian Effie Awards in 2025. She has appeared on both the Campaign Asia and B&T Power Lists for four consecutive years (2023–2026). In 2025, she served as a Cannes Lions Creative Data juror and was a speaker at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

A Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD), Mim is passionate about governance, leadership and the contribution business can make to society. Alongside her executive role, she serves as a Board Director of the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Deputy Chair of the Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA), Trustee of the St Vincent's Clinic Foundation, and Director of Suncorp Partner Holdings, Platform Ventures and Platform Co-Ventures. She has also held advisory roles with Wheelchair Rugby Australia and ADMA.

Prior to joining Suncorp, Mim was a highly awarded agency leader with extensive global and local experience helping some of the world's leading brands achieve growth through creativity, customer insight and innovation. Her experience spans financial services, FMCG, automotive, retail and healthcare, and she remains a strong advocate for the role of creativity, customer experience and purpose-led leadership in driving sustainable business success.

How do you turn a men’s grooming start-up launched from an Auckland flat into one of Australasia’s fastest-growing community-led brands? In this punchy keynote, Two Dudes co-founder Tomas Tappin shares how the brand built cult-like fandom through purpose, humour and genuinely talkable campaigns. 

From breaking the Movember fundraising record in 2025 (generating $146,000+) and donating 10% of profits to men’s health, to a headline-grabbing collab with Budgy Smuggler supporting Testicular Cancer and celebrating the launch of Two Dudes into 2,000 Woolworths and Coles stores across Australia, Tomas unpacks the power of community-first growth.

He’ll reveal why the DUDE GREEN rebrand became an inflection point for the business - and how that momentum is now fuelling a major Australian retail expansion into thousands of stores.

Key Lessons for Brands

• Community creates momentum - building a loyal fanbase by making customers feel part of something bigger.

• Purpose drives earned media - campaigns supporting men's health generated conversation, PR and cultural relevance money can't buy.

•  Brand personality matters - humour, honesty and boldness helped Two Dudes stand out in a traditionally bland category. 

• Big moments change trajectories - the DUDE GREEN rebrand, Movember, and Budgy Smuggler campaigns became growth accelerators, not just marketing activity.

About Tomas

Tomas is a Co-Founder of Kiwi start-up, Two Dudes. They are changing men's health one bathroom at a time with natural grooming products for men. The purpose driven business started as a side hustle. It was built on a foundation of direct-to-consumer eCommerce, and has now expanded into over 3,000 retail shelves across New Zealand and Australia. 
 
Prior to launching Two Dudes, Tomas was an eCommerce Lead at HEINEKEN Asia Pacific, rolling out digital sales platforms across Singapore, Vietnam, and New Zealand.

Co-presenting with Daniel Talbot, Group Business Director & Innovation Lead, TRA

Solo living is becoming a more deliberate and visible life choice. As more people delay relationships, start families later, or choose to stay single, traditional assumptions about “the household”, “the
family” and “the carer” no longer hold. Yet many brands still design products and services around these outdated models.

This creates a clear opportunity for brands to better serve people who are financially and emotionally independent, without treating them as incomplete or waiting for a future family structure. The opportunity is twofold: empower solo lives by recognising independence, choice and autonomy, while helping people create meaningful relationships, rituals and support networks on their own terms.

In this session, The Research Agency’s Daniel Talbot and Laura Mulcahy will present the findings from TRA’s latest research, exploring what this cultural shift means for brands. Discover how brands
can better reflect modern lives and leave with practical insights into one of the fastest -growing consumer segments, and the opportunities it presents for innovation, relevance and growth.

About Laura

Laura Mulcahy is Head of Culture Practice at TRA, with well over a decade of experience across cultural foresight, consumer insight, and strategy. Across nearly a decade in the US, Laura worked in
global insights and senior trend forecasting roles for Nike, shaping brand, design, and business decisions worldwide. She is passionate about decoding cultural and societal shifts to uncover the deeper motivations behind behaviour, identity, and expression. Laura brings a breadth of experience across sport, fashion, retail, youth, and lifestyle categories, with particular strength in cultural analysis, foresight, and brand relevance.

Jeremy Wells and Mike Lane are two of New Zealand’s most recognisable media disruptors and masters of turning sport, chaos and comedy into cult fandom. 

In this fast, funny fireside chat, the Alternative Commentary Collective founders unpack how they built one of NZ’s most engaged audiences by speaking to younger men in a way mainstream media never could. 

From the early Beige Brigade days to today’s full ACC ecosystem spanning podcasts, live events, social, commentary and community, this session explores the power of humour, authenticity and belonging in modern media. 

Expect war stories, laughs, sharp insights and practical lessons for brands trying to build relevance, loyalty and cultural cut-through.

Lessons for marketers:

• Build communities, not audiences

• Humour creates memorability and shareability
  
  

• Meet people across an ecosystem, not one channel 

• Authentic storytelling beats polished corporate messaging

About Jeremy

Jeremy Wells is one of New Zealand’s most recognisable broadcasters.  A founding member of The Alternative Commentary Collective, he's an  accomplished ball-by-ball cricket commentator and fan favourite. He's also the co-host of Radio Hauraki Breakfast, and TV personality currently fronting TVNZ's Seven Sharp and Taskmaster.

Wells first broke into television in 1997 on MTV, before rising to national fame as “Newsboy” on Mikey Havoc’s cult radio and TV shows.  His satirical credentials were cemented through hosting the long‑running TVNZ series Eating Media Lunch, as well as The Unauthorised History of New Zealand and the wildlife parody Birdland.   Across his career, Wells has become known for blending cultural critique with a uniquely Kiwi comedic sensibility.

Co-presenting with Kelvin Soh, Founder & Creative Director, DayMonthYear

Anew® founder Jayden Klinac partnered with brand designer Kelvin Soh (DayMonthYear) to solve problems within the bottled water brand. They created a product people wanted to photograph, gift, wear and talk about, earning cultural momentum far beyond its marketing budget.

Their guiding principle was simple: the most effective marketing starts long before the first campaign. From its purpose and name to its visual identity, iconic blue bottle, packaging and partnerships, every decision reinforced the same brand premise.

The category's biggest players spend loads on advertising. Anew® couldn't compete on spend, so the product became the marketing. The bottle became the billboard, designed to be instantly recognisable wherever it appeared. Rather than treating product, brand and marketing as separate disciplines, every decision worked together to create advocacy and cultural momentum by design, not by chance.

• Why the biggest marketing decisions happen before marketing begins.
• How a compelling brand premise aligns product, design and marketing. 
• Why distinctive products can become media in their own right, earning attention beyond paid campaigns.
• The reason customers buy may differ from why you created it - spotting that gap can be your edge.

About Jayden

Jayden Klinac is the Founder and CEO of Anew®, modern bottled water built for the next generation of consumers —packaged in a bottle made entirely from plants, independently proven to have zero microplastics, BPA, and PFAS and filled with natural mineral water. Drawing on 15 years in biomaterials, he is dedicated to redefining how the world drinks and rethinks packaging, helping businesses and consumers choose better without compromise.

Jeremy Wells and Mike Lane are two of New Zealand’s most recognisable media disruptors and masters of turning sport, chaos and comedy into cult fandom. 

In this fast, funny fireside chat, the Alternative Commentary Collective founders unpack how they built one of NZ’s most engaged audiences by speaking to younger men in a way mainstream media never could. 

From the early Beige Brigade days to today’s full ACC ecosystem spanning podcasts, live events, social, commentary and community, this session explores the power of humour, authenticity and belonging in modern media. 

Expect war stories, laughs, sharp insights and practical lessons for brands trying to build relevance, loyalty and cultural cut-through.

Lessons for marketers:

• Build communities, not audiences

• Humour creates memorability and shareability
  
  

• Meet people across an ecosystem, not one channel 

• Authentic storytelling beats polished corporate messaging

About Mike

Mike Lane is the General Manager, founding member and driving creative force behind The Alternative Commentary Collective (ACC), New Zealand’s leading sports‑entertainment brand. Known for its irreverent humour, fan‑first energy, and uniquely Kiwi take on sport, The ACC has grown into a multi‑platform powerhouse.  For those old enough to remember, Mike was also the creator of the cult cricket-fan movement The Beige Brigade, a cultural phenomenon that helped redefine the modern NZ cricket supporter (and wider sports) identity.  At any sports match around the world, you can still see a beige shirt or an ACC Steady the Ship captain's hat, a testament to his prowess into tapping into a fan psyche. He's been at the forefront of cultural movements for two and a half decades.

Co-presenting with Jayden Klinac, Founder & CEO, Anew

Anew® founder Jayden Klinac partnered with brand designer Kelvin Soh (DayMonthYear) to solve problems within the bottled water brand. They created a product people wanted to photograph, gift, wear and talk about, earning cultural momentum far beyond its marketing budget.

Their guiding principle was simple: the most effective marketing starts long before the first campaign. From its purpose and name to its visual identity, iconic blue bottle, packaging and partnerships, every decision reinforced the same brand premise.

The category's biggest players spend loads on advertising. Anew® couldn't compete on spend, so the product became the marketing. The bottle became the billboard, designed to be instantly recognisable wherever it appeared. Rather than treating product, brand and marketing as separate disciplines, every decision worked together to create advocacy and cultural momentum by design, not by chance.

• Why the biggest marketing decisions happen before marketing begins.
• How a compelling brand premise aligns product, design and marketing.
• Why distinctive products can become media in their own right, earning attention beyond paid campaigns.
• The reason customers buy may differ from why you created it - spotting that gap can be your edge.

About Kelvin

Kelvin Soh is the founder and Creative Director of DayMonthYear, an Auckland-based brand and design studio working at the intersection of strategy, creativity and commercial growth. Over a two-decade career, he has built a reputation for helping companies create brands that not only stand out, but build lasting loyalty and commercial value. 

His work spans some of New Zealand’s most recognisable consumer brands, including Boring oat milk, Stolen Rum, Triumph & Disaster, 42Below vodka, Burly Gin, The Gospel Whiskey and Anew® Water. Several of these ventures have gone on to major international exits, including 42Below (Bacardi) and Charlie’s (Asahi), shaping his belief that brand growth is less about reaching more people, and more about creating the kind of products and experiences people genuinely care about, return to, and share. 

This “fan-first” philosophy underpins his approach to brand strategy — focusing on creating products and experiences people come back to, talk about, and build identity around. Rather than optimising for broad appeal, his work centres on depth of resonance, designing brands that a smaller group of people genuinely care about before they scale. 

His work increasingly focuses on translating this thinking into real-world commercial outcomes — shaping not just how brands look or speak, but what they are, how they’re used, and why they matter enough for customers to return and bring others with them. 

Beyond consumer products, he has worked with emerging technology companies such as Hedera Hashgraph and Nillion, and partnered with cultural institutions including Artspace, Govett-Brewster and the Venice Biennale. A former publisher of Le Roy, stocked at MoMA and Tate Modern, Soh is a regular speaker on branding, creativity and business. He is also an itinerant creative and strategic advisor for STILL, and serves on the board of the Paererewā project.

About Susannah

Susannah was instrumental in guiding Vodafone’s evolution into One New Zealand, leading the team at the heart of one of the country’s most significant brand transformations. With over two decades of experience in brand and marketing—half of that immersed in the fast-moving world of telecommunications and digital services—she brings a sharp strategic lens and deep industry expertise. Susannah is known for building high-performing teams and cultivating a values-led culture where people thrive. She’s a firm believer that long-term success starts with a relentless focus on the customer.

Co-presenting with Laura Mulcahy, Head of Cultural Practice, TRA

Solo living is becoming a more deliberate and visible life choice. As more people delay relationships, start families later, or choose to stay single, traditional assumptions about “the household”, “the
family” and “the carer” no longer hold. Yet many brands still design products and services around these outdated models.

This creates a clear opportunity for brands to better serve people who are financially and emotionally independent, without treating them as incomplete or waiting for a future family structure. The opportunity is twofold: empower solo lives by recognising independence, choice and autonomy, while helping people create meaningful relationships, rituals and support networks on their own terms.

In this session, The Research Agency’s Daniel Talbot and Laura Mulcahy will present the findings from TRA’s latest research, exploring what this cultural shift means for brands. Discover how brands
can better reflect modern lives and leave with practical insights into one of the fastest -growing consumer segments, and the opportunities it presents for innovation, relevance and growth.

About Daniel

As Group Business Director & Innovation Lead at TRA, Daniel draws on a diverse background in market research, human-centred design, and strategy to surface the uncommon truths that shape people and culture. He has helped local and global brands turn insight into meaningful audience connection and purposeful growth.

About Tiffany

Tiffany Kong is a senior brand and marketing leader with more than a decade of experience building and evolving leading New Zealand brands across the energy, banking, tourism and public sectors. As Senior Brand and Partnerships Manager at Genesis, she leads brand strategy, integrated campaigns, creative development and partnerships that strengthen customer connection and deliver commercial impact. Her work has been recognised through multiple industry awards, and she is known for combining sharp strategic thinking with creative energy, collaborative leadership and a focus on long-term brand and business growth.

Jeremy Wells and Mike Lane are two of New Zealand’s most recognisable media disruptors and masters of turning sport, chaos and comedy into cult fandom. 

In this fast, funny fireside chat, the Alternative Commentary Collective founders unpack how they built one of NZ’s most engaged audiences by speaking to younger men in a way mainstream media never could. 

From the early Beige Brigade days to today’s full ACC ecosystem spanning podcasts, live events, social, commentary and community, this session explores the power of humour, authenticity and belonging in modern media. 

Expect war stories, laughs, sharp insights and practical lessons for brands trying to build relevance, loyalty and cultural cut-through.

Lessons for marketers:

• Build communities, not audiences

• Humour creates memorability and shareability
  
  

• Meet people across an ecosystem, not one channel 

• Authentic storytelling beats polished corporate messaging

About Shayne

NZ Herald and NZME editor-at-large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand's most experienced senior journalists and media leaders.

He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME including managing editor, NZ Herald editor and Herald on Sunday editor, as well as other senior news industry roles in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.

He has studied at Cambridge University in the UK and helped lead many of NZME's most successful editorial projects including the establishment of an integrated, multimedia newsroom operation.

In 2023, Currie returned to his first love, journalism – he is now back writing on a range of topics, including the weekly NZ Herald Media Insider column, and he assists the newsroom on a range of public events and strategic projects.

Co-presenting with Mim Haysom, Executive General Manager, Brand & Customer Experience, Suncorp Group Australia

They didn't win advertising's biggest prize by writing a better ad - they rebuilt what insurance does. Beating 137 entries, Suncorp's "Haven" took Cannes' top honour, the 2026 Dan Wieden Titanium Grand Prix, by shifting the value exchange with customers from "we pay you after the disaster" into "we help you prevent it".

Mim Hayson (CMO & EGM Brand and Marketing, Suncorp) and Andy Fergusson (CCO, Leo Australia) unpack the strategy, the creative bet and the numbers. 

Key lessons for NZ marketers: 

• Data and personalisation are creative firepower, not backend plumbing

• What internal selling actually looks like when you're fighting for growth capital
• Purpose has to live in the product, not just the pitch
• How to build differentiation and emotional pull inside a commodity, price-driven category

About Andy

Andrew Fergusson leads the national creative team at Leo Australia. Since joining Leo’s, he has helped reignite its creative reputation on both the national and world stage, leading to significant business growth and creative accolades. Leo has won multiple Australian Agency of the Year titles from the likes of Cannes Lions, LIA, Adfest, One Show, Campaign Asia and WARC. Prior to Leo he spent 10 years at Droga5, which was serendipitously named ‘Agency of the Decade’ by both Adweek and Adage the year he left.

His work has won countless awards for creativity and effectiveness on major brands, including the converted Cannes Lions Titanium Grand Prix, the Cannes Lions Innovation Grand Prix, the Super Clio for best superbowl ad, 3x Grand Clios, 4x Spikes Grand Prix, Adweek's Ad of the Year, a Grand Effie and the prestigious Rigg Design Prize. And some of his early work has even been immortalised in Rob Ford’s 'History of Web Design'.

Andrew specialises in creating non-traditional ideas for big brands. Throughout his career, he has influenced changes to US law. Given every home in Australia a voice. Developed a mixed-gender fantasy football competition. Built a climate-change-proof house. Turned road safety into a national sport. Crafted a music video with Beyoncé. Made a Snapchat talk show with DJ Khaled. Killed a beer brand’s mascot at the Super Bowl. Recreated the internet using plasticine. Turned blood into currency. Created an anger-powered scooter. Bottled music-flavoured fruit juice. Sold words for charity. Slapped George W Bush in the face. And put nudists on trampolines... But despite his best efforts, he’s also made a ton of regular ads.

When Andrew’s not making ads and stuff, he’s trying to squeeze in drawing and playing drums, but he usually ends up playing video games with his kids… which is probably far more important.