Note: This article was originally published by The New Zealand Herald. See the full article here.
One Plus One Communications is next week seeking a hat-trick of wins as NZ’s large PR consultancy of the year. Founder Kelly Bennett opens up on the changing face of communications.
A respected public relations industry leader says the days of shiny brand-led TV commercials are “well and truly gone”, with advertising agencies now morphing into “PR stunt agencies”.
“Never has it been more apparent that PR – or culture-shaping ideas that earn attention – is the future of commercial communications,“ says One Plus One founder Kelly Bennett.
“All the big ad agencies are morphing into PR stunt agencies. The most famous ‘advertising’ out of this country in recent years has been a string of PR stunts.
“The opportunity for ambitious PR agencies – who quite frankly are better at understanding what earns attention, interest and trust, and are able to deliver that result consistently with a strategic and commercial rigour that goes beyond flash-in-the-pan stunts – is massive."
Provocative thoughts, for sure.
But Bennett is not observing this trend in any disparaging tone - he came back to me with more thoughts after an initial email and conversation.
He cites several initiatives from agencies in recent years - Motion Sickness’ award-winning ‘Māori Roll Call’ featuring Tāme Iti and its The Best Place in the World to Have Herpes; and The Worst Children’s Library, for Samsung via DDB (now McCann).
“The encouraging industry point I want to make is that commercial communication has been democratised over the last two or three decades, since the halcyon days when several international advertising agencies called our Parnell precinct home,” he says.
He says that changing media habits and audience fragmentation have disrupted the underlying economics of the commercial communications industry.
“The days of big ad agencies packing 100 people, they finished … several years ago, and it’s sort of been managed decline ever since."
He cites a Substack column from US writer Derek Thompson last year: “Everything is television”.
“It’s not to be taken literally, but it’s directionally correct in that much of our most influential media is converging on similar shapes,” says Bennett.
“YouTube now has TikTok-like shorts. So does Meta. Spotify now offers something like YouTube. Podcasts are morphing into something like TV chat shows.
“Here in NZ, the Herald now runs vertical video shorts and creates broadcast television and podcasts. So does Stuff. And The Spinoff. and the NBR. There’s an interesting flattening happening. Every player is doing what they need to earn the audience’s attention.
“The same thing is happening on the agency side of the equation. You can’t reliably buy mass cut-through in the way you once could, so agencies of all stripes are forced to employ earned attention strategies.
“To bastardise Thompson’s coinage and apply it to the agency world, I reckon you could now say ‘Everything is PR’.”
Now, he would say that, wouldn’t he?
But Bennett - who’s been in the game more than 20 years - and One Plus One have the credentials and the track record, to back it up. The agency is nominated, for the fourth year in a row, as a finalist for large PR consultancy of the year at next week’s Prinz Awards - the prime event for New Zealand’s PR industry.
One Plus One won the award last year and in 2024 (it shared the award with Special that year).
The agency is also shortlisted for next month’s PR Awards APAC agency of the year - another award it won in 2025.
Coinciding with that is an optimism within the agency.
General manager Max Burt - “unquestionably one of the best PR brains that I’ve ever met” - and Liz Holt - “one of the best account wranglers in the country” - have become shareholders.
“The value that they’ve brought to the business has helped fuel that growth, as indeed has the calibre of our team, which I think has never been better.”
It’s expanded as others have retrenched, now with just under 20 fulltime staff. It’s moved into Wellington, initially with one staff member, and the expectation is that more will join.
Bennett cites a quote often attributed to Walmart founder Sam Walton.
“Recession? I thought about it, and then I decided not to participate.
“That line is kind of central to the way in which we’ve tried to operate as a business over the last several years.
“Across what has been an anaemic three or four years for the wider economy and our industry, One Plus One has more than doubled in size, by both revenue and headcount,” says Bennett.
“Against a backdrop of global mega-mergers, agency consolidation and AI disruption, we are incredibly optimistic about the opportunity for ambitious independent consultancies and earned-first thinking.”
Among its roster are a string of big-name clients, including Mastercard, 2degrees, Suncorp, Aon, and NIB health insurance. Bennett says One Plus One pitched for two accounts - and won them - last year, directly against ad agencies.
He says they were for remits that were essentially ‘brand positioning’ - briefs that would’ve typically gone to yesterday’s ad agencies.
“One of the clients explicitly said: ‘The media has changed and attention has shifted so much, we’re not really sure what sort of agency we want anymore. Convince us why it’s you’.”
He reiterates that the world is changing and budgets are shifting. He wants One Plus One to become “one of the preeminent communications businesses in New Zealand”.
“And we use that word, ‘communications’, in the more holistic sense: encompassing not just PR firms but advertising agencies, media agencies and digital consultancies. Because, as PR firms, we’re no longer paddling in our own little rock pool.
“The king tide has come in, and we’re swimming with all the fish in the sea.”
