Kathmandu appoints Motion Sickness as Australian and New Zealand creative agency of record
Kathmandu has appointed Motion Sickness as its creative agency of record following a competitive Australasian pitch process. The Aotearoa based outdoor retailer has tasked Motion Sickness with reinvigorating the brand, and growing it globally.
Says Sam Stuchbury, ECD/founder at Motion Sickness: “We built Motion Sickness to help brands grow by doing the best creative work in the world. Kathmandu feels like an exciting next step for our journey, and for us, theirs.
“Throughout the pitch process we got to know the Kathmandu team well, we saw the vision first hand. The global outdoor category finds itself in a truly dynamic space with incredible opportunities. We couldn’t be more excited to help grow Kathmandu across the world, right here from Aotearoa.”
Jo O’Sullivan, chief marketing officer at Kathmandu shares the excitement: “This is the start of a fresh adventure for Kathmandu. It’s a homecoming, back to the great outdoors of Aotearoa, where our company was born.
“Motion Sickness grasp the essence of the New Zealand narrative and possess a remarkable talent for breathing fresh life into local brands. Kathmandu is already an iconic brand but this partnership will craft a new chapter and take ourselves to new heights.”
The win comes on the back of an impressive year of growth for Motion Sickness, who in the last twelve months have added Big Save Furniture, Hato Hone St John and Sorted NZ to its roster of clients.
The new partnership kicks into gear immediately, with work starting on a refreshed brand campaign for Kathmandu arriving late 2024.
21 Comments
But the Special work was so much fun?
Shocker. The work from Special was some of the best in the industry.
for Motion Sickness!
Special’s work was very fun and love their spots. They kicked off the new and weird take for Kathmandu
Equally excited for what MS has to come though – further weirdness to come?
Did the previous work perform?
Was the agency relationship poor? Can’t tell you how many agencies win ‘Agency of the year’ on a campaign then lose the client the next year.
Your opinion of the work doesn’t matter. What matters is consumers opinion of the work and whether it drove results. The agencies opinion of the relationship matters – you can get great work from many agencies.
You need to start asking the right questions.
Did the previous work perform? Sincere question. I really liked the Special work so it would be interesting to understand why they lost the account. Would be a constructive cautionary tale for many of us I suspect.
Hopefully someone with more insight can chime in.
Just because you liked the work, and it won awards, doesn’t mean that it actually did what the client needed it to do and actually sold shit. Their share price is down 40% in the last year, so that to me would suggest that their sales targets were being missed. Badly.
“KMD Brands has achieved record sales of over $NZ1. 1bn dollars in our first year of uninterrupted trade post-pandemic, a significant milestone for the group,” chief executive Michael Daly said 20 Sept 2023”
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/retail/kmd-brands-owner-of-kathmandu-and-rip-curl-posts-record-sales/news-story/8d4866daff49b173748308d02bc25041
Then the Grand Prix winning CMO left…
Then Special stopped working with them 12 months ago…
Then slowly the share price started to drop…
Then it’s dropped 32% in the past 6months…
Brand health certainly isn’t the only driver of share price… but…
So awards are not a proxy for effectiveness, but share price is a proxy for sales?
Why are you so salty about people being surprised and curious about what prompted the change?
But 100% creative awards are NOT a proxy for effectiveness. The fact you even are asking that question is mind boggling
Ah, that’s so sweet. Creative awards equalling effectiveness, and clients believing in that … You still have that wide-eyed hope and wonder that only the young can possess. You haven’t been in our industry long enough to learn, but you will. Just give it time.
Campaignsplaining – a colloquial expression used to describe situations in which a random person provides a condescending explanation of the advertising industry in the comment section of Campaign Brief to someone who already understands the advertising industry.
See comment above.
The question: “So awards are not a proxy for effectiveness, but share price is a proxy for sales?” isnt stating that awards are a proxy for effectiveness, its highlighting the hypocrisy of suggesting share price is a proxy for business sales performance.
Yea, you seem like a real sage of business economics and a real mature member of the industry attacking the responses of others.
Hi we were asked to pitch but didn’t They couldn’t explain what was wrong with the Special work. There wasn’t anything wrong with it it’s excellent. I’ve no idea if the relationship soured – but the work was excellent.
Amazing work team! Keen to see what you come up with!!!!
Looks like the market update wasn’t so good last month – 19th March 2024.
“KMD Brands CEO and managing director Michael Daly has declared that improving Kathmandu’s sales performance is the company’s immediate priority following a 21.5 per cent revenue dive for the first half of FY24. Kathmandu’s total sales dropped by $41.7 million to $152.3 million, with operating profits slipping from a positive $2.7 million in the first half of FY23 to negative $18 million in the first half of FY24. Sales were down by 22.9 per cent in Australia and down 15.9 per cent in New Zealand.”
At least the start of a more intelligent conversation.
Sales have been steadily increasing for the last 5 years (so that’s pre and post Special) and it would be good to know the drivers. Hopefully the work would be one of them (I actually like it too) but there are a huge other number of factors at play incl. covid, increased distribution, blah blah blah. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1030922/new-zealand-sales-of-kathmandu-holdings-limited/#:~:text=Kathmandu%20Holdings%20Limited%20sales%20in,compared%20to%20the%20previous%20year.
The stock price, regardless of the increase in sales has been declining since Jun 2021 (the special brand campaign launched May 2021). Again, a whole host of factors may be involved.
And yep, sales have recently tanked vs the same period last year. Again, may be for a whole host of reasons.
From what I can see on LinkedIn, this CMO has been on the job since Feb 2024 and the brand CEO since may of last year. So if special stopped working with them 12 months ago (no idea but going off what’s been written above), that would be before either of their time and I doubt a new CEO would step in and kill a relationship that fast, especially if all signs were good. But who knows – maybe they did.
According to LinkedIn, Eva left jan 2023, I’m sure whatever strategies played out in 2023 were still the result of her work there (and 2023 was a good sales year).
So what’s left. A steadily declining stock price since Specials campaign launch, steady increasing sales both pre-and post special, and shit recent results.
Point being if you want to be a grown up in this industry, regardless of what department you are in, these are the things you need to consider. Do I agree that the work from special was good? Yes. Were sales good? Yes. Ultimately that’s what marketing can control and if the stock price was continuing to drop, there would other business fundamentals to take a look at.
So why would a company who is smashing sales with what seems to be good work? Put yourself in the marketer/ceo’s shoes and start answering that question.
Good call or bad, now you’re talking like a grownup.
Bet bullfrog thought they would win this. They will never compare to special or motion sickness.
The CMO didn’t leave, it was the other type of ‘leaving.’
The previous work was fantastic – for Uniqlo, who are a cheaper competitor in many SKUs. The strategy and idea was there, but the execution took a New Zealand company with a Nepalese name and made it feel like a cheaper / fun Japanese brand. Confusion never helps anyone.
The campaign work out of special did not perform. Other than some new approach it hadn’t succeeded.