The Anti Agency launches: Here to make advertising fun again

Grab yourself some popcorn and sit back for the comments feed – it’s another agency press release peddling shameless self-promotion propaganda. But this time, it’s not a new hire it has snared, poached, and lured, or a new campaign about unleashing the power of amazing together as oneness – it’s the arrival of a whole new agency.

Nico Ainsworth, Jane Langley, and Amanda Chambers have founded The Anti Agency – a creative and production shop that offers a hybrid alternative for clients who can’t (or don’t want to) work with traditional ad agencies.

Says Nico Ainsworth, business partner, Anti: “Many of our clients already have impressive in-house capabilities. We see no reason to compete with that. We realised a more powerful offering would be a plug-in agency model that extends and amplifies the skills and talents our clients already have in house.”

That means working from clients’ offices and becoming a seamless part of the team, while bringing that all-important outsider perspective to an organisation.

Having a business director, creative director, and executive producer as founding partners means Anti is uniquely set up to enable efficiencies. Production partner Amanda Chambers is excited to leverage her significant experience and longstanding relationships to tap into the best creative and production talent in New Zealand: “I fully intend to harness my amazing network to build a company which challenges traditional production models and responds to market realities. We hope to be the anti-dote to our clients’ pain points.”

The three partners of Anti are respected ad veterans, with deep experience from some of the most creative and effective agencies and production companies in the world.

Says Jane Langley, creative partner, Anti: “People can be a bit surprised by the name Anti – until we tell them what we’re anti. We’re anti big egos, big overheads, and layers of hierarchy. We want to spend less time finessing pitch decks and more time making the work audiences actually see.”

The three are proud to join the ranks of NZ’s independently owned agencies and have several exciting projects and partnerships in the works.

“It’s definitely scary starting our own agency, but then we remind ourselves: how hard can it be? Boys do it,” says Langley, in a nod to her favourite TikToker, Mads Mitch.

Ainsworth playfully refers to her partners as the lady gang: “Anti might actually be the only fully female-owned ad agency in Auckland. So it’d be rude not to put us on your pitch list, really.”