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Webinar: How to Use Playful AI to Build Your Brand and Culture

Free for NZ Marketing Association members - limited spots available!

Join Steve Ballantyne of Brand IQ, one of Australasia’s leading voices in AI-powered storytelling, for a fast-paced 60-minute webinar showing how brands can use playful AI to create sharper content, braver campaigns and more engaging internal culture.

Right now, too much AI-generated marketing sounds the same. Same cadence. Same tidy tone. Same polite little three-point posts with a reflective question at the end. That’s not AI’s fault. That’s what happens when people use AI purely for efficiency. The smartest brands are using the same AI tools differently. They are pointing them toward humour, surprise, mischief, weirdness and personality. The stuff that makes someone stop, screenshot, laugh, share, or say, “We should do something like this.”

In this engaging session, Steve will show what happens when AI gets handed to people who want to make something interesting, not just something correct.

Think brand mascots with actual personality, satirical ads that roast your own category, AI-generated jingles, strategy decks reimagined as children's books, staff newsletters as comic strips, brand values as movie posters, internal campaigns that look like magazine covers and personalised staff videos that don't make everyone cringe.

Steve will also show how businesses are pressure-testing ideas in minutes instead of months, building GPTs that argue back, plastering offices with future-success headline walls, turning spreadsheets into characters, lifting flat conferences off the ground, and producing the kind of big, weird, expensive-looking campaigns that used to require an agency, a six-figure budget, and a small miracle.

You'll leave with ideas you can ship this week, tools you can already access, and permission to stop being so bloody sensible with your marketing.

Who should come along:

  • Marketing managers who are sick of safe.

  • Businesses whose internal culture has gone a bit beige.

  • Lean teams expected to punch like an agency on a quarter of the budget.

  • Anyone who suspects marketing was supposed to be more fun than this.

If your brand is starting to feel a little too safe, a little too polished, a little too forgettable, come along. This one might ruin "best practice" for you in the best possible way.

 

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Pricing

Non-members: $15 + GST

Product Details

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11:00am - 12:00pm

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Online

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Steve Ballantyne (update Sep 2025)

Steve Ballantyne

Founder, BrandIQ

Steve Ballantyne stands at the forefront of AI image generation in New Zealand, recognised as one of the country's leading experts in this innovative field. 

MORE ABOUT STEVE

Steve Ballantyne stands at the forefront of AI image generation in New Zealand, recognised as one of the country's leading experts in this innovative field.

He is a brand storytelling and AI marketing consultant with over 30 years of experience in the creative industry. He’s worked with more than 200 brands across Australasia, including Canon Australia, Fletcher Building, Speedy Signs, Australian Marketing Institute, Icehouse, Kordia and Soul Origin.

Steve runs Brand IQ, a specialist AI creative agency helping medium-sized businesses use AI to tell better stories and scale their content without ballooning their budgets. Known for blending the art of narrative with the speed of AI, Steve is also a regular LinkedIn voice on AI-powered marketing and teaches AI-powered storytelling at the NZ Marketing Association.

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What Previous Attendees Say

 It was utterly engaging, highly useful and accessible/of value for both novices and experienced brand storytellers and marketers. A needed topic, presented by an expert who loves this stuff! 

Previous Attendee, October 2025

Steve was a very knowledgeable and engaging presenter. His webinar moved along at a perfect pace, and his insights were interesting and informative. In comparison to other AI webinars, Steve's was loads better!

Previous Attendee, April 2024

The AI webinar with Steve Ballantyne was breathtaking in so many ways - seriously beautiful images and frightening to point out what I don't know about AI! Steve's use of the tools was extraordinary and has certainly more than nudged me to look at it more closely. Thanks Steve!

Previous Attendee, April 2024

 Great presenter, very good content, well delivered. A must watch for my whole team 

Previous attendee, February 2026

 The best dive into AI for Marketing and Branding I have seen. Great work Steve and Brand IQ. 

Previous attendee, February 2026

 Thought you had AI down? Let Steve teach you the prompts to impress your team 

Previous Attendee, February 2026

 If you are looking for creative inspiration, this is a great resource. You don't know what you don't know until someone shows you what is possible and then you can start exploring it for yourself. 

Previous Attendee, October 2025
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Thanks to our friend Steve at Brand IQ for designing the MindFuel Webinar creative!

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