Sparks fly at Thinkerbell Aotearoa’s inaugural speed-dating event for New Zealand’s top CMOs   

May 8, or ‘Mate Day’, was taken seriously by Thinkerbell Aotearoa as it rolled out its first ‘Brand Mates’ at Space On Crummer in Grey Lynn, bringing together a one-of-a-kind speed-dating event for marketing buffs.

Brand Mates, is an event constructed purely to create ‘Shared Value’ ideas – an increasingly common weapon in the modern marketers armoury.  The event was held for New Zealand’s  top brands and marketing wizards, with the aim of meeting, ideating, and shaping ideas that bring benefits to brand partnerships.

Steve Dunstan (above right), the co-founder of Huffer, shared his take on brand hook-ups, drawing from his years in the game to drop some serious knowledge. Attendees got the lowdown on making partnerships that demand attention.

Says Amy Frengley, co-founder of Thinkerbell: “We all know how to do paid media, owned media and earned media. It’s the Shared Media that leaves people scratching their heads a bit.  We have created an event and a process that makes shared ideas possible by creating the space and framework to bring brands with separate strategies and objectives together, to find common ground, and create interesting shared value ideas.  Chuck some creativity into that and you have something special.”

Reflecting on the event, Adam Ferrier (above left), co-founder of Thinkerbell Australia emphasised how Brand Mates is all about shaking things up and leveraging shared media for brand growth: “I’ll die if you call Brand Mates a networking event –it’s not.   It’s where CMOs convene to craft shared value ideas, which can immediately unlock new audiences, revenue streams, and heightened attention.  Only a select few brands excel at this, consistently rolling them out mate after mate. We want to share that magic, and help other brands develop muscle memory for collaboration  within New Zealand’s marketing community.”