Plato

This is a must-read piece for anyone wanting to know how to make their marketing spend work harder. Plato Strategy Lead, Morgan Coombes reviews a recent study on the real cost of boring marketing, and shares some insights into how we can help brands avoid this trap. Read it here: https://hubs.li/Q02J5NKC0

Recently we were lucky enough to get an inside peek at One New Zealand Stadium, taking photos for Southbase Construction as they took the Minister for Construction Chris Penk on a tour.

How exciting that Te Kaha now has a naming sponsor announced today! Check out the new website for One New Zealand Stadium that we launched today with venue managers, Venues Ōtautahi. https://hubs.li/Q02FksT30

We’ve been eagerly watching the stadium build enhance the cityscape out the windows of our office on Manchester Street. It’s looking superb and we can’t wait for the first event!

Let’s hear it for Lana Wigley! 👏 🙌 🏆 🥂

Lana celebrated an epic 15-year anniversary with Plato last month. The whole team celebrated this huge milestone with her, as she has become such an integral and highly valued leader within our agency. Her knowledge and innate sense of doing what is right has earned her the respect of our whole team. And it is by her dedication, passion, and commitment to our team and our clients that we would regard her as one of the legends of Plato.

This one is for all the mums and mother figures in our lives and yours - Happy Mother’s Day, you wonderful women.

The Plato Social Club exploring their artistic side with an in-house paint and sip – hosted by the one and only Bob Ross! Ok sure, it wasn’t actually Bob Ross, but we had a great time and everyone went home with a beautiful work of art, featuring a few happy little trees 🌲

We couldn’t take off for the long weekend without Easter treats. Don’t worry, we’ll be back in the office, raring to go on a sugar high first thing Tuesday morning. Enjoy the extra-long weekend!

In honour of International Women’s Day, we asked our very own, incredibly inspiring Lisa Plato what excites her the most about the next generation of women coming through the agency.

She said “I’m so proud of the talented and capable women we have within our business. They each have so much potential - and I find it so rewarding to work alongside them.”

The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day is Inspiring Inclusion, so we asked a few women around the office what that means to them. Here’s some of their answers:

“It’s all about creating a safe space where women are comfortable sharing their thoughts, feelings and experiences and know that they will be met with empathy and understanding.”

“Inclusion is a powerful thing. When you feel like there is space for you to be heard and understood, it creates an empowering sense of belonging.”

“Inclusion brings together diverse perspectives and experiences, and that diversity only makes us stronger.”

The inaugural Plato Social Club Lawn Bowl Championship was a sight to behold. We stirred up some seriously hilarious competition in the pursuit of the coveted first-place trophy. 🏆

We might be biased, but we think we’ve got the best social club around. ✨

A massive ‘cheers’ to our friends at McCashin's Brewery for filling the fridge with cold ones from across their ranges! It’s always great to see packaging projects we’ve collaborated on come to life.

In case you’ve never heard that name, the McCashins pioneered independent brewing in New Zealand. Since that first beer back in the 1980s, they’ve added heaps of flavours, products and brands to their lineup. So – what are you thirsty for?

Strike an X on the calendar, it’s the last day of the work year! Before we go, we want to wish you all the best for the festive season; have a safe and happy holiday. Oh – and of course, here’s the annual Plato family photo. Everybody say “Cheese and cheers!”

We had a great night last Friday at Best Awards, taking home a Silver for Large Brand Identity/Cultural with our work for Te Kaha; and our Self Promotion work for Henry’s got a Bronze! Congratulations to all the other winners and finalists. It’s an honour to see our name right up there with the best.

So good to see another great release from Strange Nature Gin - gin aged in French and German wine barrels. Our team had the pleasure of helping with the product design development of this beauty. One more must-have addition to any shelf.

Timber Unlimited is an industry-neutral, non-commercial non-profit, founded to encourage and facilitate the use of more timber in design and construction. With an ambition to be the country’s go-to timber resource, they came to us wanting an integrated agency partner to develop a strategically sound, creatively brilliant and integrated response to ‘launch’ themselves to market. We’ve set them up with a bold new name and brand; website strategy, design, and development; social content strategy and content production; and a launch campaign strategy including media buying, PR, and creative development.

These deliverables are world-class because they’re informed by a deep understanding of Timber Unlimited’s long-term ambition and an intimate understanding of the customer groups we were looking to influence. Our initial research and discovery with key representatives of these groups, as well as deep qualitative research of asset owners, has allowed us to develop communications and a website that connects and addresses their pain points. Check it out here - https://bit.ly/44JR6eg

Pink Ribbon Breakfast is Breast Cancer Foundation NZ’s biggest fundraising campaign and the Plato crew got fully involved this year!

We hosted a morning tea to raise as much as we could to contribute to the important education and support that Breast Cancer Foundation NZ provides to those diagnosed with breast cancer.

Did you attend a Pink Ribbon event this year?

If you missed out, you can still donate here: https://bit.ly/3MBUqBl

AI is rapidly changing the way we approach design - we welcomed Design Assembly last week to hear about the latest trends, tools, and techniques in this area. It was a fantastic evening with our own Strategy Director Lee Parkinson as the MC, James Mumby-Croft one of our Creative Leads, Giselle Scott, and Laura Kerrison from Rush Digital on the panel discussing the implications of this fast-growing technology.

Thanks to everyone who came along, we can't wait to continue exploring the exciting opportunities and possible threats of design and AI!

Since 1995, 298 Youth Health has been providing valuable health services and social support for youth in Ōtautahi, but they wanted a new name and brand identity to more clearly communicate how they help in an upfront, bold, and approachable way. We embraced the idea of a one-stop shop in their new name (Te Tahi Youth) and developed an eccentric, yet honest, colour palette alongside a range of changing shapes to represent the individuality of youth. Combined with bold, blocky layouts, it feels energetic, positive, and real.

This one was truly a team effort with multiple people across the business adding their expertise to the mix, from striking creative work to website development to SEO analysis and marketing support.

See more at https://bit.ly/43G7MUJ

Winter can be a bit meh, but not when we get involved.

Venues Ōtautahi thought winter would be a great time to showcase some of the best of our local beers, wines, spirits, food, and more with a new event this July but they needed it to be a bit different.

And so, The Midwinter Session was born—a street style-inspired look with charming characters that are a touch off the rails.

It’s going to be a vibe. See you there?

Tickets are available here: https://bit.ly/3UHpnaY

Yesterday the team chucked on their gumboots and ventured out to Kirwee for South Island Field Days! It was awesome to catch up with some of our clients PGG Wrightson Seeds, OMC Power Equipment, Catalyst Performance Agronomy, TDX Ltd, Fern NZ, RX Plastics NZ, Allied Petroleum, and Tarbotton Land & Civil and see their sites in action.

More than just learning about business skills, the University of Canterbury student club, Entre Canterbury, pushes its members to develop their creativity and innovative thinking. So they needed a brand to match.

Enter (or shall we say, entre?) a new tagline: Ideas with impact. Follow this up with a bold colour palette, some punchy headlines and a handful of abstract shapes and bam—an attention-grabbing brand that gets students thinking and talking about their impactful ideas.

We can't wait to see where this new direction takes them!