Campaign Brief Q&A with Motion Sickness: Let’s Talk About Motion Sickness

A freelance creative spent the day lurking around the Motion Sickness offices in Auckland, before sitting down with agency partners Sam Stuchbury (executive creative director), Alex McManus (GM) and Hilary Ngan Kee (head of strategy) to ask a series of questions. Here’s how it went…

Creative: You’ve come a long way from the days of being a small shop in a student city. Is there anything you’ve had to change or let go of to fit in with the big shops in the big smoke?

Alex McManus: I don’t feel we’ve let go of anything, we’ve had to add plenty of stuff. We’ve layered some structure, process and direction on top of Motion Sickness’ fundamentals. Like no massive egos and good people that just want to make great work

Sam Stuchbury: The DNA of the business is the same in terms of the work that we want to do, and the way we approach doing it.

Creative: It does feel like even though you’ve grown a lot, you’re still a bit of a challenger

SS: We still have this kind of underdog mentality, we just know a lot more than we did when we first opened our doors.

HNK: I think our ambition is as strong as it’s always been.

Creative: What would success look like for Motion Sickness going forward?

SS: If we can continue working on good briefs, delivering work we’re really proud of, with a happy team around us – what more can we ask for? We’re hungry to make great work, the kind of work that redefines what advertising can be. Work that in 10 years time you could look back on and see how it created a shift in the industry.

Creative: So you don’t want to take over the world?

SAH: No

SS: We like New Zealand. More power to those who are expanding globally, we’ve found a place we love with good work-life balance and we want to continue to have that. But I mean if Nike reached out with a brief, we’ll be ready to jump on a Zoom.

HNK: There’s also joy in the craft of the work itself and so if we become this massive beast, we’ll lose that connection to the work.

Creative: It’s common for agency websites to talk about being ‘different’, while somehow managing to all look very familiar. Your revamped website is strikingly different to most – how did you find the process?

HNK: We always had our brand and our website and it had done a good job, but we had never given it the attention that we had really wanted to.

SS: Our work feels different, so it made sense for our brand and our digital presence to match. It needed to be interactive, so stacking rocks was obviously a highlight. Aside from seeing the finished site, the most rewarding part was the process of compiling everything together, and seeing the breadth of work we’ve made over the last few years.

Creative: They say petty cash is the worst kind of cash. Just like soap scum is the worst kind of scum. That being said, what is the worst kind of agency?

SAH: Oooh

HNK: I think most agencies in NZ are really good. But maybe globally, when agencies aren’t honest and forthcoming it makes everyone look bad.

AM: Shiestiers

Creative: What was that? Shiestiers?

AM: Kind of like Matilda’s dad

Creative: Danny DeVito?

AM: Na not the actor, the character

Creative: Oh yea, used car salesman…

AM: Sawdust in the engine

HNK: It also feels like there can be an attitude of ‘to win, someone else has to lose’.

SS: I think that’s a good point, I’ve never liked that. I do generally think, if you’re creating good work, not mediocre work, the cake is big enough for everybody.

Creative: Campaigns like ‘Rep Your Suburb’ and ‘Our Future is Māori’ suggest Motion Sickness have a good grasp of modern Aotearoa. Do you see a growing market for work like this in our industry going forward?

SS: I don’t even think it’s a growing market, I think it’s a given now, in a positive way. Internally, we’re really passionate about embracing culture. It’s become a really important part of our business, and we’re lucky enough to have Kātene as Kaitaunaki Māori, so bringing that through the briefs and the work has been amazing, and we’re really proud of the work we produce in those spaces.

HNK: It’s a given that work that’s culturally connected to Aotearoa will resonate better with kiwis.

Creative: There’s a lot of hurdles to get over before a good idea can become a great piece of work. What’s your secret to being able to get great work out the door at a pretty consistent rate?

SS: We’re in a position now where, because of the work that we’re putting out, that clients are coming to us expecting that we’re going to be pitching more of that kind of work. Reputation is everything.

HNK: And I think that we’ve built relationships where clients can trust that we’re not doing or suggesting something just because of awards or for our own benefit. We obviously want the work to be successful for them too.

AM: It also depends on the client sometimes. Taking time to understand who their stakeholders are, what pressures they’ve got, and what flags might be coming from whoever’s got skin in the game off at their end.

Creative: You’re currently running an American drip-style coffee machine in the office. Both refreshingly communal and sufficiently delicious. 

AM: That is a true fact

Creative: What are your thoughts on Auckland’s coffee prices, and what blend would motion sicknesses own roast comprise of?

HNK: It would be single origin, shows we’re thinking about what goes into it.

AM: I don’t really buy coffee unless I have to.

SS: I’m the wrong guy to ask, I don’t drink coffee.

Creative: Really? Do you drink tea?

SS: I don’t drink any liquids.
SS: That’s a joke, I stay very hydrated.

Creative: Alright, that’s probably enough unless there’s anything else you want me to ask or anything you’d like to plug before we wrap up.

SS: Our new website is live at https://motionsickness.co.nz/. We’re really proud of it and the work that’s on it, so go check it out – or at least stack some rocks.