Campaign Brief Creative Circle: What’s hot in October?
Each month, Campaign Brief invites top creatives from across Aotearoa to spotlight one standout piece of local work created outside their own agency. It’s a space for celebrating the craft, fresh thinking and homegrown creativity that continues to raise the bar across the industry.
October 2025’s edition features Sarah Chernishov, Chemistry; Shane Bradnick, TBWA\New Zealand; Kim Pick, VML New Zealand and Brad Collett, FEDERATION.
Sarah Chernishov, Chemistry – Karangahape Road ‘Karangahape Returns’
Motion Sickness’s Karangahape Returns is a brilliant mash‑up of loyalty programme, pop‑up museum, and economic performance art. Turning K-Road’s paper receipts into real currency — whether for a mini “Vegas Girl” key ring; bespoke art, puzzles or even a lease — this campaign not only reanimates K‑Road’s past but literally rewards its present foot traffic. It’s playful without being gimmicky, artful without pretension, and serves a shot in the arm to a street begging for both nostalgia and new energy. Karangahape Returns doesn’t just ask you to spend, it asks you to belong — to own something of the street, literally, with every purchase. It’s cheeky; it’s local and it’s a love letter to K‑Road. Love.
Client: Karangahape Road Business Association, Agency: Motion Sickness
Shane Bradnick, TBWA\New Zealand – Karangahape Road ‘Karangahape Returns’
Motion Sickness flips the script on loyalty with this pop-up, making regulars feel like VIPs on K’ Road. The idea rewarding loyalty over cash is smart, and the execution is full of local flavour. It’s sharp, playful, and gets people talking. A simple concept done with style – no hype required. Nice one MS.
Kim Pick, VML New Zealand – Naveya & Sloane ‘Resonance: Soundscapes of Jewellery’
Jewellery stores, to me, are a glittering blur on Queen St. I don’t give them a second thought or glance. But then Naveya & Sloane’s ‘Resonance’ campaign caught my eye. Initially sceptical of its synesthesia approach, I quickly saw how I’d been looking at jewellery all wrong (and how much visual language we use, in evidence right here).
Because I just looked. How does jewellery sing to me? How does it touch me? I found myself reconnecting with my grandmother’s earrings, experiencing their points and curves and how they vividly evoked silk, tropical waters, and the scent of fleur-de-lis. Now I’m not just thinking about jewellery but wanting to feel the pieces, to know how they make me feel. Grace from All is for All says when you include disability, you include all. She’s so right. Resonance resonated.
Client: Naveya & Sloane, Accessibility consultancy: All is for All; Creative Agency: Freebird, Music Production: Liquid Studios
Brad Collett, FEDERATION – Karangahape Road ‘Karangahape Returns’
Let’s be real for a second . . . it’s tough out there for a lot of businesses, and for the communities they sit in. It’s also tough for agencies trying to make work that genuinely cuts through.
That’s why I love Karangahape Returns. It blurs the lines between advertising, art, and culture in a way that feels authentic to K Road’s DNA. Turning receipts into currency is such a simple, cheeky idea. It flips purchasing behaviour completely on its head. Bartering at its best.
It celebrates the grit, the glamour, and the spirit of the street, while driving economic energy back into the neighbourhood. More art project than ad campaign, it’s the kind of work that pushes our industry forward and shows what creativity can do when it’s rooted in place, culture, and meaning.
That’s what feels real to me.
View previous Creative Circles below: