Market Spotlight NZ: The Kiwi creative Catch 22

New Zealand has long been regarded as a creative powerhouse, a breeding ground for great creativity, but it also been a huge exporter of talent around the globe. For this month’s Market Spotlight, John Davidson looks at the Shakey Isles to see how New Zealand continues to produce great creative talent, and deciphers what affect its ‘brain drain’ is having on the local ad industry.

For a country of just 4.2 million people, New Zealand has always punched above its weight. In advertising circles it is known across the globe as a place of innovation and cutting-edge creativity that always seem to grab more than its fair share of awards and accolades. The land of Sir Edmund Hillary, Peter Jackson and Middle Earth, Flight of the Concords and Russell Crowe, despite sitting near what the former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating once described as “the arse end of the world”, continues to make a name for itself.

But for a long time NZ has suffered what some term a ‘brain drain’, a constant stream of talented individuals who have left the country for greener pastures. Advertising is no different, with Kiwis flooding the Australian and British ad industries, and many now are popping up in Asia as well. Think of Proximity Asia’s managing director Richard Fraser, Leo Burnett Greater China CEO Michael Wood and Bates141 Singapore creative pair Mikey Batt and Jay Tamati, to name just a few.

For many years the Kiwi Government has tried to entice expats home to end the skills shortage, using a variety of schemes including many ad campaigns. However, now the government is targeting highly-skilled migrants from other countries to move to the Land of the Long White Cloud. In advertising Kiwis have always been among the world’s best – in 2006 NZ picked up 16 awards at Cannes, in 2007 it was 21 gongs plus two Grand Prix, and this year it claimed 22 awards in total. No mean feat for such a tiny nation.

But can NZ continue to fight so strongly on the world stage when the exodus is growing? Has it reached a tipping point, and will it start to suffer?

Not according to Kiwi Todd McCracken, Ogilvy Singapore’s group executive creative director, who moved to Singapore at the end of 2007 after two years with Grey based in Malaysia. McCracken believes the exodus has more helped than hurt the NZ advertising industry, because it has allowed many talented overseas creatives in.

“Initially it helped raise the bar,” he says. “All the ones (non-Kiwis) that are there now are really good. If someone really good leaves NZ, someone really good comes in.”

It’s true that NZ has a myriad of top non-Kiwi CDs. From TBWA NZ’s Andy Blood and Saatchi & Saatchi NZ’s Mike O’Sullivan, to Publicis Mojo’s Nick Worthington and Paul Catmur from Barnes, Catmur & Friends. More recently, BBH Asia Pacific’s Todd Waldron made the move south to join M&C Saatchi NZ.

New Zealander Bob Mackintosh, interactive director of Sydney hotshop Host, is another who believes the overseas talent moving into NZ has helped the industry there.

“I know of some top Aussie talent going to NZ specifically to work with some of those guys,” he says. “An influx of good international talent to plug the holes of those who have left has got to be a good thing. Kiwis are a pretty open minded bunch - we like, and are interested in new people with new ideas.”

Mackintosh moved to Sydney in 2000 after a three-year stint working and traveling in Europe. He says it’s a rite of passage for New Zealander’s to travel overseas as there is a “certain eagerness and curiosity which comes from being stuck at the arse end of the earth all your life”. “Combine this with that 'give it a go' attitude, opportunities aren't taken for granted and made the most of,” Mackintosh says. “That's why Kiwis do well internationally - whether it be in advertising, film, design, food or almost anything for that matter.”

Mackintosh agrees that NZ’s ‘brain drain’ is a problem, but it has a positive side as well. ”When you have young, bright and keen talent leaving the country in droves - it's got to hurt all aspects of NZ business,” he says. “Eventually, those who do return bring their knowledge and learnings back home – which has to be a benefit – and I think this is particularly evident in the ad industry. There aren't many industries in I can think of  NZ which attract the best international talent (aside from say, rugby and sailing) but advertising is most definitely one of them.”

McCracken says NZ produces such great creative because of a number of reasons – its isolation geographically, its small size and small advertising budgets, and the laid-back nature of the people. “Creative people are allowed to get closer to the clients,” he says. “There's less layers, more access to decision-makers. It’s a trial place, a test market which allows clients and creatives to do work that it most countries would bomb. The simple reason is clients are more risky there.”

Mackintosh agrees that NZ's general open-minded nature helps, and that adventurous clients deserve their share of the credit: “Work that does well at Cannes etc is often something that hasn't been seen or done before - and this sometimes involves some degree of risk. That's why you see work from NZ that makes you go 'damn, I can't believe they got away with that' - big, sometimes scary, but always fun. To look at the work that's coming out and assume it's due to creative talent however, is misleading - you'll never get this work off the ground if there aren't clients demanding this type of thinking in the first place.”