About us

Right first – Brilliant Second
Origami is a strategic brand agency that injects commercial rigour into brand development.

We then execute brilliant creative work across a wide range of outputs directed by this thinking.

For more than a decade, our ‘right first, brilliant second’ approach has delivered successful business outcomes for innovative companies in New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia, Germany, Spain, USA, Canada and Qatar.

It’s about identifying the essence of what you do, distilling it down to a core promise that everyone in the company understands and believes in, and delivering it every time your customers interact with your company, or service, or product.

When that happens it inspires and ignites transformational business change.

Directors

Chris Taylor

Strategy Director and Founder

Chris leads strategy development at Origami and is passionate about guiding clients to make the right strategic choices for the commercial success of their brands. With Origami, Chris has been instrumental in the development of successful brands for 2degrees, Vodafone Qatar, Axis Indonesia, Sanford, Les Mills and pioneering New Zealand tech businesses such as Next Window, Phitek and Foster Moore.

With more than 30 years’ marketing experience, Chris has held general management roles in the FMCG and Telco industries. Chris was a Director of Vodafone New Zealand and a member of their global brand council, growing their market share from 26% to over 55%, and customer numbers from 500k to over 1.8m during his tenure.

“I was extremely impressed at how quick and deep Chris and his team’s understanding of our business was acquired. Origami executed a very efficient, smooth process that created a fantastic result. We now have a fantastic handle on customer and internal expectations, and what brand really means for Foster Moore.”

“Origami’s expert and friendly guidance created a new brand which was instrumental to Next Window’s growth and ultimately the successful sale of the business.”

Tim

Tim Skellern

General Manager, Strategy Director and Partner

Tim may be the newest of the Origami Partners, but he’s no stranger to the idea of ‘right first, brilliant second’.

His experience encompasses global marketing roles with Unilever, brand and media agency leadership as Managing Director of Mindshare Melbourne, as well as Chief Marketing Officer positions for Heinz Wattie’s, ANZ and La Trobe University in Melbourne.

In every role he has learnt something new and applied it to improve business outcomes. Every learning, from the fundamentals of brand management and positioning to customer segmentation, marketing automation, design thinking and journey mapping, has reinforced Tim’s belief that delivering successful outcomes starts by having a rock-solid brand position based on customer insight.

Directors

Chris Knox

Strategy Director and Founder

Chris wears many hats but utilises his vast expertise primarily as a strategic planner at Origami. He leads the strategic development and marketing departments of two of Origami’s partner businesses, Ando Insurance (New Zealand) and Nectar Mortgages (Australia), both of which are rapidly gaining market share in their respective countries.

Prior to Origami, Chris was a Partner and Managing Director of Lowe NZ (now FCB) and led their key account, Vodafone, to leadership in the New Zealand mobile market and to become one of New Zealand’s most-loved brands.

Andy Haines

Creative Director and Founder

Global award-winning Creative Director and self-proclaimed ‘Chief Colouring-In Guy’, Andy has worked at Wolff Olins (London) on branding programmes for global giants Unilever, Toyota, Shiseido and GE Healthcare. Since co-founding Origami, Andy has continued to direct brilliant creative, including iconic work with 2degrees, Vodafone Qatar, Sanford and TVNZ.

Andy heads our creative team, tasked with delivering brilliant creative across a constantly evolving range of media and channels. Regardless of the task at hand, Andy’s guiding force is the unshakeable belief that the most effective creative can only be produced if the right strategic thinking is in place first.

Of Origami’s creative work, one long-time client said:

“Projects that Andy and his team have delivered 13 years ago, six years ago, even three years ago are always ahead of the game. We know that because some time afterwards we’ve watched really big global brands start to look like us.”

Our Services

Marketing Strategy

 

  • Research and analytics
  • Opportunity analysis
  • Marketing planning
  • Proposition development
  • Launch programmes
  • CRM strategy and execution

Employer Branding

 

  • Employer Value Proposition (EVP)              research and development
  • Recruitment messaging framework
  • Talent Acquisition toolkits
  • Creative development
  • Media and campaign management

Services delivered in collaboration with DA.

 

Origami and DA have merged forces to be able to offer world class Employer Branding capability. DA have been recognised at the very pinnacle of best practice in this space, working with some of Australasia’s leading employers such as Qantas, Commonwealth Bank, Aldi, The Warehouse Group and Bunnings to name a few.

In forming a Strategic Partnership with DA we maintain the same importance of getting the thinking right first before executing brilliantly .



  Find out more about our sister agency 

Communications

 

  • Communications strategy
  • ATL and BTL advertising (print, TV,            radio, digital, outdoor, POS)
  • Corporate communications
  • Stakeholder communications
  • Prospectus
  • Annual reports
  • CSR

Brand Identity and Design

 

  • Logo design
  • Brand livery
  • Packaging design
  • Brand books
  • Brand guidelines
  • Corporate interiors
  • Trade shows and events

Retail Design

 

  • Branded environments
  • Interior design
  • Retail strategy and design

Digital and Social Media

 

  • Interactive engagement strategy
  • Social media strategy
  • SEO optimisation
  • Social media management
  • Social media content creation
  • Website design and development

Brand Strategy

 

  • Brand assessment and audit
  • Brand positioning and architecture
  • Brand name development
  • Messaging strategy
  • Training and organisational change

Internal Brand Ignition

 

  • Brand workshops and ignition process
  • Internal brand communications
  • Staff engagement programmes