“The more control you keep, the less culture you create.”

Vegemite doesn’t try to sound like a brand - it sounds like Australia. Instead of chasing trends or overproduced campaigns, the focus has been on cultural truth, real people and participation over perfection. Because on social, people don’t want marketing - they want to feel part of something.
Join Mary Stafford, the marketing leader behind Vegemite at Bega Group, as she shares how one of Australia’s most iconic brands has transformed how it shows up online and how it stays culturally relevant in a social-first world. 

What you’ll learn:

• Build ideas people want to join, not just watch

• Use UGC to drive relevance and scale

• Balance brand consistency with cultural flexibility

• Create content that feels human, not corporate

• Turn social into a two-way conversation, not a channel

• Learning in real time from social to drive brand objectives
  

About Mary

With a Master’s in Psychology and a lifelong fascination with human behaviour, Mary Stafford has built her marketing career on understanding what drives people. She began in FMCG at Fonterra and Coca-Cola Amatil nearly two decades ago gaining early experience on brands including Australian staples like Perfect Italiano cheese and SPC’s Baked Beans and Spaghetti.

Mary’s career-defining work came at Lion (now Bega) where she led marketing for White Milk before taking charge of Spreads and Water Ice in her current role as head of marketing. In these roles, she was instrumental in driving growth back into two of Australia’s most iconic legacy brands, Dairy Farmers and now Vegemite. Repositioning them with bold strategies that sets them up to sustainable, long-term growth. Combining consumer insight with strategic vision, Mary has transformed brands at scale while remaining deeply connected to the people they serve. Mary is an experienced digital storyteller, she believes the best social media marketing succeeds by understanding people first—and letting platforms follow.

Frankie Coulter, The Warehouse's CMO and 2024 NZ Marketer of the Year, is steering one of New Zealand's most-watched retail turnarounds.

First: their beloved Kiwi mascot is back after 20 years - winning hearts across the motu with a series of entertaining and culturally spot-on short films. Then: This Is Warehouse Country - a bigger brand platform built on one insight, that almost every New Zealander has a story involving The Warehouse.

Coulter's rule: get the strategy right, then make the big call – and he joins us at Marketing South 2026 to share why disruptive marketing beats safe, predictable advertising.

Key Lessons for South Island Marketers

• Bold leadership beats waiting for certainty

• Test fast, learn what resonates

• Earn attention first, then buy it

• One moment can become a lasting platform

• Same rules apply on a smaller budget.

About Frankie

With over 25 years of international marketing and retail experience at Kellogg’s, Scholl, Boot’s, Kraft Heinz Wattie’s, Goodman Fielder, and now New Zealand's largest retailer, The Warehouse Group, Frankie is a C-Suite executive who has held global roles in category leading marketing-led organisations.

Frankie learned his craft at Kellogg’s Europe, and was then part of the global marketing team at SSL International that sold then integrated Durex/Scholl into RB after acquisition. He then led the health department for own label at Boots Pharmaceuticals before moving to NZ in 2016.

After leading teams with strategic partners, Leo Burnett and JWT on global brands, and DDB in NZ, Frankie believes in the power of true agency partnerships with long-term joint brand guardianship.

Frankie is passionate about developing local marketing capability, nurturing agency talent, and increasing the level of effective creative marketing results to give marketers more opportunities to be considered for the CMO role.

Frankie was named New Zealand Marketer of the year at the end of 2024 and actively promotes and champions NZ marketing, media and local companies within the industry.

In a world obsessed with short-term metrics and instant visibility, the most powerful brands are built through sustained presence, emotional connection, and strategic patience. This talk explores what it really takes to build a brand that lasts - and why the brands that endure don't just show up in market, they become part of the places and communities where people actually live.

The launch of One New Zealand Stadium shows that venues like stadiums are far more than event spaces. From the energy of a crowd to the memory of a moment, stadiums create the kind of cultural imprint that no digital campaign can replicate.

This is a talk for brand leaders thinking beyond the campaign cycle and asking bigger questions about where their brand stands in five, ten, twenty years.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

• How to think in brand time horizons - shifting your strategy from campaign thinking to long-term equity

• Why the brands winning in ten years are making decisions today that won't pay off until tomorrow - and how to build that discipline into your strategy

• Why your next big national opportunity might start in the regions

• How live shared moments can create emotional memory- and why that matters for how people feel about your brand long after they've left the stands.

About Georgia

Before One NZ Georgia worked for a decade at VCCP helping the likes of T-Mobile, O2, easyJet, Google, Sonos, and Transport for London challenge the category or themselves.

She is a passionate and proud kiwi, who feels incredibly lucky to work with an awesome team every single day.

In the last 12 months, Christchurch has transformed with a revitalised central city and a renewed sense of identity. This session unpacks how ChristchurchNZ's marketing, brand and comms team leveraged this moment for measurable growth and shares key lessons for other marketers.

Hear how the ‘Winter Different’ campaign beat targets in the Australian low season and is now scaling into Discover Different for 2026, and ‘Made for It’, which shifted the city's positioning from gateway to leading destination. 

Behind both sits a bigger story: equipping stakeholders with practical tools to move from fragmented storytelling to one cohesive city-wide voice, and marketing's case for itself as a driver of growth, not a downstream function.

What you’ll learn: 

• Ride the moment, don't just report on it - real city or brand transformation creates a window; marketing's job is to convert it into measurable growth.
• Co-designed beats top-down - cross-team and regional collaboration was what let Winter Different exceed expectations. 
• Consistency scales - arming stakeholders with practical tools and assets turns one team's story into a whole city's voice, without needing everyone to be a marketer. 
• Position marketing as growth infrastructure, not support - the strongest argument for budget and influence is proof that marketing drove visitor growth, brand strength, and resident pride, not just awareness.

About Dan

Dan Terris is Head of Marketing & Brand at ChristchurchNZ and a marketing leader with more than 20 years’ experience across the public and private sectors. He leads the implementation of Christchurch’s city narrative and place brand, helping shape how the city is positioned to residents, visitors, investors and talent.

Dan has led the marketing and branding of major civic assets including He Puna Taimoana and Tūranga Central Library, and delivered marketing activity for international events such as Rugby World Cup 2011 and ICC Cricket World Cup 2015.

He is passionate about place branding, collaboration and creating positive community impact.

How are Kiwi brands with modest budgets pulling in millions of views, shares and headlines, while bigger brands with bigger budgets get scrolled past?

This panel brings together brands winning attention by making content people want to watch, screenshot and send to the group chat. From a fast-growing men’s care brand started by two University of Canterbury graduates, to one of Canterbury’s best-known automotive groups, our panellists will share what worked, what flopped and what they’d never pay for again.

Expect practical, honest insights into spotting moments instead of over-scripting them, using humour and cultural timing to punch above your weight, and building reach through collabs and community.

You’ll leave with ideas you can use on Monday, whatever your budget.

• How to lead with creativity when the budget is tight
• Why unscripted moments outperform polished campaigns
• How to have a big impact where it matters for your audience
• What travels fast on NZ social, and what quietly dies
• How humour and cultural timing create outsized reach

Watch this space – more panellists to be confirmed!

About Alesha

Alesha is Content Lead at Two Dudes,  where she runs social from organic content to creator partnerships and paid ads. Her approach is simple: make stuff people actually want to watch.

In just over a year, that's meant holding a fake funeral for the brand's original packaging, getting Paddy Gower into a Lamborghini to unveil the rebrand, and launching into Coles in Australia with camels. The goal is always the same: be the most shared brand in the group chat.

How are Kiwi brands with modest budgets pulling in millions of views, shares and headlines, while bigger brands with bigger budgets get scrolled past?

This panel brings together brands winning attention by making content people want to watch, screenshot and send to the group chat. From a fast-growing men’s care brand started by two University of Canterbury graduates, to one of Canterbury’s best-known automotive groups, our panellists will share what worked, what flopped and what they’d never pay for again.

Expect practical, honest insights into spotting moments instead of over-scripting them, using humour and cultural timing to punch above your weight, and building reach through collabs and community.

You’ll leave with ideas you can use on Monday, whatever your budget.

• How to lead with creativity when the budget is tight
• Why unscripted moments outperform polished campaigns
• How to have a big impact where it matters for your audience
• What travels fast on NZ social, and what quietly dies
• How humour and cultural timing create outsized reach

Watch this space – more panellists to be confirmed!

About Cameron

Having been told for years he had the perfect face for radio, Cameron turned a very short journalism stint into a 15+ year marketing career.

A storyteller and a problem solver, Cameron’s agency experience offered him access to award-winning campaigns for a host of local and internationally recognised brands.

As the Group Marketing Manager at the McDermid Auto Collective, Cameron represents car dealerships across rural South Island; mainly Toyota, but also Kia, Volkswagen and Nissan. Shaping the way locals interact with a sliver of New Zealand’s most trusted brand (three years running) is a privilege, and a lot of fun.

In a world obsessed with short-term metrics and instant visibility, the most powerful brands are built through sustained presence, emotional connection, and strategic patience. This talk explores what it really takes to build a brand that lasts - and why the brands that endure don't just show up in market, they become part of the places and communities where people actually live.

The launch of One New Zealand Stadium shows that venues like stadiums are far more than event spaces. From the energy of a crowd to the memory of a moment, stadiums create the kind of cultural imprint that no digital campaign can replicate.

This is a talk for brand leaders thinking beyond the campaign cycle and asking bigger questions about where their brand stands in five, ten, twenty years.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

• How to think in brand time horizons - shifting your strategy from campaign thinking to long-term equity

• Why the brands winning in ten years are making decisions today that won't pay off until tomorrow - and how to build that discipline into your strategy

• Why your next big national opportunity might start in the regions

• How live shared moments can create emotional memory- and why that matters for how people feel about your brand long after they've left the stands.

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. 

Every June 1, thousands of dairy farmers simultaneously relocate herds, families and businesses - and somewhere in that chaos, they also need to switch power providers. Known as "Moving Day," this date represents Meridian’s most significant commercial risk – but in 2025, the team turned this into a commercial reset.

Hear how Meridian Energy used disruptive creativity, precision targeting and behavioural insight to turn an overlooked admin task into a standout customer experience.

From the “Trojan Cow” creative platform to digitally led onboarding and high-attention media strategy, this session explores how marketers can cut through when audiences are overwhelmed, distracted and short on time - without relying on heavy discounting.

• Use creativity to interrupt stress and become the easiest brand to choose

• Replace mass reach with high-attention placements in trusted environments

• Build digital journeys around real customer behaviour, not assumptions

• Align marketing, sales and CX teams around one commercial growth goal.

About Shaun

Shaun is a senior marketer with a strong orientation toward strategic planning and creativity. A believer in marketing as a competitive advantage, he brings more than 12 years of experience delivering award-winning marketing projects across a mix of locally loved and internationally recognised brands.

Currently serving as Senior Go-To-Market Manager at Meridian Energy, Shaun previously worked with the Energy Innovation team to deliver new propositions to market. Prior to moving client-side, he built a successful track record in agency client services, guiding clients and internal teams through strategy, brand development, creative campaigns, media, and website projects.

In the last 12 months, Christchurch has transformed with a revitalised central city and a renewed sense of identity. This session unpacks how ChristchurchNZ's marketing, brand and comms team leveraged this moment for measurable growth and shares key lessons for other marketers.

Hear how the ‘Winter Different’ campaign beat targets in the Australian low season and is now scaling into Discover Different for 2026, and ‘Made for It’, which shifted the city's positioning from gateway to leading destination. 

Behind both sits a bigger story: equipping stakeholders with practical tools to move from fragmented storytelling to one cohesive city-wide voice, and marketing's case for itself as a driver of growth, not a downstream function.

What you’ll learn: 

• Ride the moment, don't just report on it - real city or brand transformation creates a window; marketing's job is to convert it into measurable growth.
• Co-designed beats top-down - cross-team and regional collaboration was what let Winter Different exceed expectations. 
• Consistency scales - arming stakeholders with practical tools and assets turns one team's story into a whole city's voice, without needing everyone to be a marketer. 
• Position marketing as growth infrastructure, not support - the strongest argument for budget and influence is proof that marketing drove visitor growth, brand strength, and resident pride, not just awareness.

About Steve

Steve Backe-Hansen is ChristchurchNZ’s General Manager of Marketing, Brand and Communications. He leads a team of communication, marketing and digital professionals to curate, promote and market the city’s story. Together with his team, he strives to solidify the brand of both ChristchurchNZ and Christchurch City, ensures stakeholders are well informed, and sells the dream of Ōtautahi Christchurch through marketing campaigns and activity.

“It is an absolute privilege to be in a role that plays a part in changing perceptions of our beautiful city. My goal is to get others across New Zealand and abroad to see just how amazing Ōtautahi Christchurch really is!"

Steve has worked across a number of sectors ranging from private to tertiary and local government. He has held various positions including strategic and tactical marketing, digital and e-commerce and customer experience.

Your CE forwards you a LinkedIn post: "SEO is dead. It's all GEO now." But an agency article says GEO is nothing but SEO dressed up while a new software tool promises 'AI visibility' and AEO recommendations at a premium. 

AI acronyms have multiplied faster than the answers. SEO, GEO, AEO, AI SEO: some of it overlaps, some of it is genuinely a different beast, and almost nobody will tell you which is which. Still, as the marketing manager, everyone expects you to know and decide. It’s your name on the tin. 

In plain human-speak, but without oversimplifying - because this is complicated – this practical, myth-busting session will untangle where these disciplines overlap, where they split, which deserve your time and budget right now, and which you can ignore without losing (too much) sleep. 

There are no big-budget case studies here, but rather real examples and learnings from South Island B2C and B2B businesses that have seen significant AI search traction. 

You'll leave with:

• A plain-English 'workable' map of SEO, GEO and AEO in 2026 (and beyond): what each one actually does, and where the overlap ends
• A 'reasonably' straight answer on which deserve budget for a medium sized business, and what you can ignore for now
• Real South Island examples at realistic budgets: the challenge, the fix, what changed
• The ability to explain the difference to your CE or exec team without blinking

About Santosh

Santosh is the CEO of Ridiculous Digital, Ōtautahi's beloved and 'ridiculously' technically advanced digital agency building rocket ships for Aoteroa's businesses and organisations. A strategist, entrepreneur, and aircraft design engineer turned digital strategist, Santosh has been in marketing, tech, digital, and advertising for over 16 years. His agency, Ridiculous, was one of the fastest in New Zealand to achieve Google Partner status and manages digital and AI strategy and execution for some of New Zealand’s most respected organisations, businesses, and institutions.

A sought-after speaker who's presented at the Marketing Association's Brainy Breakfasts and Digital Day Out Conference, and other international conferences in the past, Santosh tackles marketing's tough questions in his LinkedIn posts. He has a knack for explaining complicated concepts to people in a way that they come out of the 'too-hard' basket.

When he is not in front of a screen, or knee deep in strategy, he is either paragliding, motorcycling, or serving his two Burmese feline masters!

About Ashleigh

Ashleigh Rushton is the founder of Rushton Marketing, a data-driven digital marketing agency that's been helping New Zealand businesses grow for over a decade.

With her team of wonderfully talented renegades, Ashleigh has built a reputation for straight-talking advice, campaigns that actually move the sales needle, and a refreshing allergy to marketing fluff. She promises to keep the day running on time, mostly.

About Vanessa

Vanessa Bottomley has worked in brand and marketing for more than 15 years. Working across professional services, education, hospitality and retail (with a stint at the Marketing Association not so long ago!), Vanessa has always been driven by curiosity.

Now at Publica as a Marketing Strategist, Vanessa works with a variety of clients putting her curiosity to best use; helping businesses uncover who they are, how they show up and how they can best compete in their space.