Digital Day Out 2025 in a nutshell

Sam Stuchbury was kicking back watching Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares when he got the call. It was the UN, phoning to say Motion Sickness’ and FINCH had won gold at Cannes for their herpes campaign.

It started as an “impossible brief” from the NZ Herpes Foundation. At Digital Day Out 2025, Motion Sickness executive creative director Stuchbury walked attendees through the process of turning it into the viral campaign ‘Make New Zealand the best place to have herpes’.

He was one of many speakers at Auckland’s Cordis Hotel for the Marketing Association’s annual DDO.

AI the name of the game

The one-day summit started as it meant to go on: with housekeeping instructions provided by AI avatars. The avatars even introduced Marketing Association CEO John Miles to the stage next.

AI was the overarching theme of the day – Google New Zealand country director Caroline Rainsford began the day, talking about Google’s AI-powered future. It aims to be more intelligent, agentic and personalised: from the “world of information to the world of intelligence”.

Going travelling? Google’s AI Mode will know your travel details and hotel location – it could recommend and even book a restaurant for you before you arrive, says Rainsford.

Seen a dress that you like but it’s too expensive? Set a preferred price and if it drops to that point, the AI agent can go ahead and buy it for you.

Google is “building right, not building fast”, said Rainsford, building with the “user in mind”.

Rainsford returned to the stage with Julian King of BCG X to discuss the 4S consumer behaviours: streaming, scrolling, searching and shopping. They talked about how businesses can use AI to empower their marketing capabilities in these areas.

AI chats continued after morning tea with a discussion on the biggest shifts in digital marketing. The panel included PureSEO’s Richard Conway, ABB’s Sophie Neate, Hubspot’s Kat Warboys, Google’s Adrian Vallelonga and Ridiculous Digital’s Santosh Pandey. It was moderated by Stitch’s Adnan Khan.

AI also rounded out the day with The Accelerants CEO Tara Lordsmith who returned to the agentic world to discuss why your next teammate won’t be a human.

Bluey, icebreakers and herpes

BBC digital director for TV show Bluey Simon Clarke beamed in from the UK for a lively Q+A session with Bluey fan and emcee Travena Addenbrooke.

He’s worked on Bluey right from when it began in 2018 and finds it amazing to see how the show has grown from its Australian origins to now being a worldwide phenomenon. Last year, a giant inflatable Bluey floated down the street in the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving parade.

The show has cross-generational appeal, which the team capitalises on by optimising and differentiating content across its many digital channels as well as for different countries – from TikTok to YouTube.

Then came an icebreaker session. Guided by conversation cards from functional drinks company No Ugly, tables quick-fired through topics including politics, religion, Gen Z employees and Only Fans. Were they “ugly” or “gorgeous”? Laughter and much discussion ensued.

From the ground up

There were also plenty of light moments during Sam Stuchbury’s talk. He told the audience how the comicly long name for the campaign ‘Make New Zealand the best place to have herpes’ was poart of the appeal.

Motion Sickness built the idea for the herpes campaign from the ground up. This included creating their own algorithm – the Herpes Stigma Index – to measure other countries’ performance. It was all plain sailing, he said: the video series was fillmed in just three weeks after wrangling talent into line at short notice.

The power of social

There’s an area of TikTok for everything, including renovations. WeAreTENZING’s Brooke Howard-Smith, Panasonic New Zealand’s Gab Davenport and Mitre 10’s Rob Bowring spoke about how a team of creators made content series, NZRenoTok, a massive hit as well as the most popular DIY platform in Aotearoa.

Jordan-Lee Ikitule took to the stage following afternoon tea to remind the audience that awareness starts at home. Ikitule is the founder of ASD Dads, a group for fathers of children with autism. A single social post turned his mission into a global movement and now has further community outreach programmes, including an ASD Mums group.

LinkedIn got a look-in too – Robin O’Connell talked about how video supercharges purchasing behaviour on the platform. He even live tweaked his slides during the talk, landing on the phrase: “Buyers hit play before the pay.”