And now Motion Sickness has announced more expansion \u2013 from starting out in a Dunedin flat 12 years ago to now commanding its own upscale premises in Grey Lynn, Auckland, the company expects to be hiring more staff and moving into Australia within the next 12 months.<\/p>\n
The backbone of all that, says founder and executive creative director Sam Stuchbury, is human creativity.<\/p>\n
As many of the bigger global agencies proudly embrace the efficiencies and apparent effectiveness of AI, Motion Sickness is heading the other way.<\/p>\n
Sam Stuchbury, founder and executive creative director of Motion Sickness.<\/p>\n
This week, it\u2019s launching a campaign for its own business \u2013 reiterating that it\u2019s people who make the best and most brilliant ads.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to invest in people, humans \u2013 we see that as a big differentiator for us,\u201d says Stuchbury.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a lot of conversations about AI, but I think the wrong conversation has been happening a little bit. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not necessarily about the technology or the data or the algorithm. It\u2019s remembering that there\u2019s a human being on the other end of it, and I think people forget that sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n
So what is he saying here? No AI at all in the creation of marketing and creative ideas?<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re definitely not ignoring AI. We have clients who use it, and there are some opportunities within research. But … the origin of an idea and the ideas that make [campaigns] stick and that people connect with \u2013 they are human for us.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not generating ideas from AI. We\u2019re not using it to craft it either. We\u2019re really big about craft and making.<\/p>\n
\u201cA future for us is not underpinned by AI, as an advertising agency, it\u2019s underpinned by capital investment in humans.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two porn stars arrive at the front door of a young boy and his mother, with news that he’s been watching them online, in an advertising awareness campaign for the Department of Internal Affairs.<\/p>\n
And before anyone accuses Stuchbury of being King Canute \u2013 fighting a rising, modern-day tide of slop \u2013 his business does have both the clients and recognition to back up his position. <\/p>\n
Last month, Motion Sickness was awarded agency of the year at the Axis Awards \u2013 the first time in 13 years that an independent New Zealand agency had won the top prize.<\/p>\n
The M\u0101ori Roll Call campaign and another for Karangahape Rd in Auckland \u2013 including an idea that customers could use K Rd receipts as \u201clegal tender\u201d for more K Rd purchases \u2013 were at the heart of their award-winning entry.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also made its mark on the global stage. <\/p>\n
Motion Sickness\u2019s herpes awareness and destigmatisation campaign for the New Zealand Herpes Foundation won the agency two Grand Prix awards at the 2025 Cannes Lions event.<\/p>\n
The campaign \u2013 \u201cMake New Zealand the Best Place in the World to Have Herpes\u201d \u2013 starred the likes of Henry, Sir Wayne \u201cBuck\u201d Shelford, boxer Mea Motu and Sir Ashley Bloomfield.<\/p>\n
Boxer Mea Motu, former rugby coach Sir Graham Henry and comedian Angella Dravid were among those who featured in a campaign aimed at reducing the stigma around herpes.<\/p>\n
In the Cannes Lions\u2019 2025 global creativity report, Motion Sickness was named the leading agency across New Zealand, Australia, and the Pacific region. It was also ranked among the top five independent agencies globally.<\/p>\n
\u201cFour or five years ago … we would roll our eyes at people entering awards all the time,\u201d says Stuchbury.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut … to be honest, the reason it\u2019s so valuable is that it just builds our brand and gives that external validation.\u201d<\/p>\n
About a third of the company\u2019s business now stems from international clients, including Shine Lawyers in Australia and \u2013 rather ironically \u2013 Kiwi-founded, Silicon Valley-based AI contract review firm Ivo. <\/p>\n
Motion Sickness has almost doubled its staffing in a year, from 18 to 33 and aims to have 37 by the end of 2026. Separately, it plans to open a Sydney office, with four or five staff initially, within 12 months.<\/p>\n
Not bad for a business that started out in a rental.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe went from a flat in Dunedin, to a villa in Mt Eden, to a loft in Newmarket, then to a studio on Cross St,\u201d Stuchbury said in late 2024, as the company moved into its then new headquarters in Maidstone St, Grey Lynn.<\/p>\n
Kiwi ad agency Motion Sickness’ Grey Lynn headquarters – a far cry from the Dunedin flat where it launched.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be totally transparent, I think we went into the business, at the start, quite blind,\u201d he tells Media Insider today.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe never really had a business plan or knew what it would turn into, but what we did follow was our creative instinct. We knew what a good idea was and that\u2019s been our North Star as we\u2019ve grown. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve definitely learned a lot along the way. We didn\u2019t work at other agencies ever, which I think maybe was a blessing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we started we thought it was a massive disadvantage, because we didn\u2019t know how to do anything. But I think, upon reflection, even today, like the way we approach and come up with an idea, [there are] few levels of bureaucracy and layers we have in the business.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it allows us to be a lot more efficient and get to the idea quicker. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think if I had to spend 10 years in a traditional agency, I probably would have brought a lot of that with me when I started the business.\u201d<\/p>\n
With some audacious goals to grow further, and represent some of the world\u2019s biggest brands, Stuchbury brings it back to his team of free-spirited thinkers.<\/p>\n
Its provocative AI campaign this week will see the release of \u201cblood oath\u201d kits to clients, potential clients and others to sign up to the principle of human creativity, literally in blood.<\/p>\n
Motion Sickness’s “blood oath” kits that encourage people to sign up – with their own blood – to the principle of human creativity.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe best ideas usually begin as a mess,\u201d said Stuchbury. \u201cThey can be awkward, instinctive, overambitious or hard to explain. That\u2019s often the part people respond to. That spark has taken us further than any neat process ever could.\u201d<\/p>\n
And he makes a final point: \u201cWe don\u2019t want to be the pig-headed people saying, \u2018AI is bad, we\u2019re good\u2019. We\u2019re just offering this up because we think there\u2019s another way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand\u2019s most experienced senior journalists and media leaders. He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME including Managing Editor, NZ Herald Editor and Herald on Sunday Editor and has a small shareholding in NZME.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"And now Motion Sickness has announced more expansion \u2013 from starting out in a Dunedin flat 12 years…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387758,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1032,26696,3041,365,2851,85,138,200815,33118,6788,11598,44934,3029,9639,11600,21556,2936,296,302,19133,1073,75287,200817,111,139,69,2171,8998,200814,11547,2687,30646,11555,8475,223,102,17450,200816],"class_list":{"0":"post-387757","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-advertising","9":"tag-agencies","10":"tag-agency","11":"tag-ai","12":"tag-also","13":"tag-australia","14":"tag-business","15":"tag-cramped","16":"tag-creative","17":"tag-dunedin","18":"tag-expand","19":"tag-expanding","20":"tag-eye","21":"tag-flat","22":"tag-globally","23":"tag-independent","24":"tag-insider","25":"tag-into","26":"tag-its","27":"tag-looking","28":"tag-media","29":"tag-motion","30":"tag-nah","31":"tag-new-zealand","32":"tag-newzealand","33":"tag-nz","34":"tag-plans","35":"tag-position","36":"tag-provocative","37":"tag-recognised","38":"tag-saying","39":"tag-sickness","40":"tag-started","41":"tag-thats","42":"tag-the","43":"tag-with","44":"tag-worlds","45":"tag-yeah"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}