Marketing Association celebrates creativity with new conference in Wellington

This year, the Marketing Association introduced a brand-new half-day conference for marketers based in Te Whanganui a Tara. The sold-out event took place on July 1 and invited attendees to hear from local and international experts.

The Marketing Association’s new conference, Absolutely Positively Marketing, took its name from the capital city’s slogan and branding, Absolutely Positively Wellington, which has been in play since 1991.

And when arriving at the Cliftons event space, it was hard not to feel positive. Firstly, I was immediately greeted with the smell of popcorn, courtesy of the conference’s networking partner, Craft CXM, who had brought a popcorn machine with them and were distributing out boxes of the stuff.

Secondly, it was one of those ‘you can’t beat Wellington on a good day’ kinda days. The sunlight streamed in the windows all afternoon as people gathered up on level 28 for the conference.

Thirdly, the room was abuzz with marketers who were keen to connect and swap stories. Lunch served ahead of the proceedings provided ample time for chats before it was time to find seats for the first set of presentations.

Marketing Association CEO John Miles took to the lectern to set the scene, describing the conference as “a celebration of the ideas and campaigns and people shaping marketing in Wellington.”

Decades worth of innovation

First speaker of the day was from the event’s premier partner, Google New Zealand. In just 30 mins, Google Cloud field CTO Richard Busby ran through the latest changes in AI – of which there was a lot.

“I’ve worked in technology industries for 30 odd years and I find every year it gets harder and harder and harder to keep up with things,” Busby told the audience.

“We reckon if you look back a few years, we’ve shifted decades worth of innovation in the last 12 months and we’re not showing any signs of slowing down.”

His updates included:

• Gemini 3.5, which he described as the most advanced, fastest and capable model yet.
• Google Anti-gravity, which supports with coding and development “for the nerds and software developers,” says Busby.
• Gemini Spark, which Busby describes as “a 24-7 AI assistant to help you navigate your digital life”.
• Transformation of search into AI search: as well as AI overviews there is also AI Mode, which makes search interactive.

What does this mean for marketers? Well, at the end of the day, it comes back to trust, says Busby. AI search focuses on content like reviews, articles, commentary and feedback.

“Be unique, lead with your brand, put in the things that are most important and most helpful for your customer. Think beyond the text – people want to see videos, images, reviews.”

AI transformation

AI, of course, featured throughout the day (it wouldn’t be a conference in 2026 otherwise!) Later in the afternoon, Trade Me head of marketing and customer engagement Dean Napier spoke about how the marketing and customer teams have been utilising AI across the business, including campaigns, performance marketing and SEO/GEO.

It was a look into how Trade Me is keeping up with AI, adapting to new tech and all of the challenges and wins that come along with that.

“For us, it’s really important that we set our teams up for success and get in the training and the development to be able to be successful in two to five or ever 10 years.

“We’ve been here before, we’re going to continue growing, but it is the people and actually working through it all properly that is the most important thing at the end of the day,” says Napier.

Behind the scenes of winning campaigns

During a panel discussion, three marketers who won at the 2025 YouTube NZ Marketing Awards shared the insights behind their campaigns.

Three very different brands, but one shared idea: “spotting what was getting in the audience’s way and quietly removing it,” says emcee Jasmine Currie.

Sport New Zealand manager, group brand and marketing Kate Thirkell told the story of Go Unpro, a campaign that encouraged young women to be more active. It won Best Public Sector/Government Marketing Campaign last year.

Sharesies marketing lead Ben Stonyer talked about ‘More ways to wealth’, a campaign looking at Sharesies’ expansion beyond investing. It won Best In-house Marketing Campaign.

Finally, Brendan McLean, marketing manager at Summerset Retirement Villages, spoke about winning Excellence in Data Insights Strategy for the way the team created a “smarter marketing approach”.

The three speakers shared how they landed on these campaign and brand ideas, what the challenges were and ultimately, why they were successful.

Remain human

Adidas Pacific general manager Rachel Howard reprised her role as keynote speaker following last year’s Brand Summit, except this time she had her mum in attendance.

“This is probably the biggest presentation I’m going to have to give in my entire life because my mum is sitting here and she’s been wondering what I’ve been doing for the last 20 or so years,” Howard addressed the audience.

Howard talked about what she’s learned about marketing from working with Adidas across those two decades. She boiled it down to five quick lessons:

1. Consumer obsession: get close to the consumer and understand the shifts you’re seeing.
2. Brand first, always: when you are very clear about what you want to achieve, you get more out of what you’re investing, says Howard.
3. Creativity drives growth: “if you’re not creative, you’re not going to get cut through and build brands people feel like they belong to.”
4. Culture matters, both for consumers and teams. “The teams that feel safe, have trust and empowerment, they’re the teams that are going to go try things and push the boundaries,” she adds.
5. Adapt constantly: AI is changing how people work, shop and search, so its important that brands are able to adjust. “But there’s one key point: everything that we do still remains human,” says Howard.

Start acting like a brand

The conference programme was rounded out by NZ Police brand and marketing manager Jess Bovey and a panel discussion featuring EightyOne executive creative director Chris Bleackley, Wētā Workshop chief marketing officer Jessica Wallace and Special Wellington executive creative director Mark Forgan.

It was a bittersweet moment for Bovey, who leaves her role with the police in a little under a week to take up the head of social position at Special.

She spoke about her nearly nine year journey with the police and the work she and her team have done to grow their social media channels to 2.8 million followers.

“Nobody wakes up in the morning and goes, ‘I might follow the New Zealand police today. But the reality is a lot of people do follow us in huge numbers. That is because we started acting like a brand and stopped acting like an organisation,” says Bovey.

“The shift wasn’t about posting more, it was about posting differently and it was about asking what would make someone stop scrolling.”

The counterintuitive truth

Bovey has led the team through events like the March 15 mosque shootings in Ōtautahi Christchurch, Covid-19 and the Whakaari White Island eruption and says, having a genuinely human social presence has helped them achieve cut through.

“It’s made it a lot easier because people already trust us, they already know that we’re real people on the other side of the screen. That trust doesn’t disappear.

“It obviously isn’t fun and games, and so reading the room is a really key part of it. And here’s the counterintuitive truth: the fun stuff funds the serious stuff. When you’ve spent months, years showing up with warmth and humour and genuine personality, your audience extends enormous grace when you need to go dark,” says Bovey.

The final panel tackled the question of why Wellington as a city punches so far above its weight creatively. Forgan, Wallace and Bleackley discussed how to shape and then get people on board with a good idea, work that breaks the bounds of “safe” and the most successful and disruptive campaigns that they’ve seen or worked on.

For Wallace, it was the Cadbury gorilla ad, for Bleackley, it was crashing into the L&P bottle, whereas Forgan was coy, saying only that it will be his “next one’.