Designing the most human of experiences back into modern life

Life continues after a terminal diagnosis. We keep shopping, banking, subscribing, working. But modern systems, designed for efficiency, can collide with a need for empathy as our time and energy become limited.

Dying Reviews is a world‑first platform that lets dying people rate and review their otherwise hidden experiences with businesses, transforming them into visible insight. The first round of reviews were compiled into a 145‑page report that gives organisations clear data on cross‑sector themes, systematic pain points and best‑practice behaviours.

Dying Reviews empathetically targets people who are dying and their families, as a distinct and valued demographic. The insights are being used as a benchmark for compassionate system design, enabling Hospice NZ to directly engage businesses year‑on‑year. Major businesses, including institutions like banks, are now actively engaging with Hospice NZ on how to better design for this phase of life.

A tool to simulate coercive control

Insight Young love is the BEST. It’s full of juicy, hot and heavy feelings. But those amazing feelings can turn into something else. The mist of love can cloud controlling behaviour; actions that in isolation appear loving, but when they become a pattern, are anything but.

Idea ‘Love Creep’ is a new piece of language that describes how love can turn into a pattern of control. Lovecreep.nz simulates it; validating those who feel controlled, waking users up to their emotional abuse (knowingly or not), and giving family and friends a way to broach the subject.

Lovecreep.nz uses real life examples to educate people on how to spot controlling behaviours. It also enables them to create their own patterns of control, based on what they may have experienced, seen or used. These edits are being shared anonymously across TikTok, showing up in young people’s feeds and prompting them to reflect on their own relationships.

Results
-5% in controlling behaviours
+5% in young people feeling confident in spotting coercive control
Being introduced into NZ high schools 2025 health curriculum

Real combinations found in deceased drivers. Designed for experts to unpack the harm.

PROBLEM 79% of NZ drivers who die in drug-related crashes have more than one substance in their system. Prescription medication is often one of them. Because they’re usually consumed hours apart, the combined side effects are dangerously deceptive. Drivers may not feel impaired, but they are.

SOLUTION Introducing the Mixed Medication range, common combinations found in deceased drivers. Each product was designed for experts to unpack the harm, unsettling road users across the country.

RESULTS The range gained attention from medical professionals, drivers on medication and Police. Mixed Driving has now been established as a new state of impairment, building public support for the introduction of roadside testing of 20 legal drugs in 2023.

A surf fin that stops sharks being killed.

INSIGHT In the wake of a shark attack, all too often revenge is taken. And it happens without the surfer’s wishes ever truly being known, as there’s no way for them to communicate it.

IDEA FIN FOR A FIN is a specially marked surf fin that alerts authorities to a surfer’s wishes for the shark not to be killed in retaliation to an attack.

RESULTS 31 million reached. $500K Earned Media. 8 Million Video Views. Invited to contribute to the Australian Senate hearing into shark mitigation and protection. Featured on Discovery Channel's Shark Week.

See the website here

Minimal effort. Maximum results.

PROBLEM To launch Lazy Yak Pale Ale, we needed to giveaway a few cases of the beer online. 

SOLUTION So, to live up to our name we created The Laziest Competition Ever: Do Whatever You Want To Enter.

RESULTS 14 times more effective than competitors.

Keeping Aussies up for the Ashes with piping hot pots of the big cold beer.

PROBLEM Nothing goes together like cricket and VB. But when the haloed Ashes Series are played in England, Aussies have to watch in the early hours of the morning. Not the best time for Australia’s big cold beer.

SOLUTION To ensure Aussies could still toast their team with their favourite brew, we created VB Tea. A warm brew of breakfast tea made from VB hops (tastier than English Breakfast).

VB Tea sold out in under 40mins, that’s right, people paid for our promo. To top it off, beer sales across the country boomed.

All in a sick day’s work: heroing a different kind of workday

BACKGROUND: ‘Presenteeism.’ It’s the cultural pressure that forces many of us to head to work when we’re sick. Even though we’re less productive, and more likely to pass the sickness on.

This social pressure keeps people feeling too guilty or disempowered to take a sick day. And it’s something Te Whatu Ora and Te Aka Whai Ora are setting out to change.

IDEA: Let Your Body Go to Work introduces a new way to think about sickness. Empowering today’s workforce with the insight that resting up and getting better can sometimes be the most productive workday of all. Planting the seed that staying home isn’t a cop out – even though you’re stationary, your body’s still working incredibly hard to heal.

Making The Tin Can And Its Contents Valuable Again.

PROBLEM The Shepparton Preserving Company is the last Australian cannery using home-grown produce. But Australians no longer value the quality of preserved fruit. A tin can is just a tin can. People needed to be reminded that what’s inside a can of SPC is special.

SOLUTION So, we created Preserved Memories. Using SPC’s own preserving process, we invited people to preserve their most cherished items in uniquely designed SPC cans. This created personalised time capsules, building lifelong connections with the brand.

WRITING Each can tells a unique story that was written specifically for the owner. In all, over 300 were written to create 300 individual narratives that are forever tied to the SPC brand.

See the campaign site here

RESULTS #1 FMCG brand for engagement in Australia. 230% increase in social growth. 130% increase in brand affinity.

Empathising with the broken hearted

Love Better via Ministry of Social Development, is a primary prevention programme helping young people navigate sex and relationships in order to reduce harm now and into the future. ‘The Broken Heartline’ is a dedicated break-ups helpline, designed to help young people reach out when they’re hurting most.

To promote it, we created five unique broken hearts – each expressing the most common emotions experienced during a break up. Intercepting and supporting them before they do harm.

Helping young peeps coping with break-ups

Summer isn’t all fun and festivals. For many young people, it’s break-up season. Love Better supports 16-24 year olds if things get tricky in love – offering peer-led advice to young people, who often feel overwhelmed by emotions during a break-up. We partnered with NZ poet Dominic Hoey to explore the four most commonly felt emotions young people experience after a split, which we know can lead-on to harmful behaviour. From anger to jealousy, loneliness to sadness, across the radio waves we encouraged young people to ‘own the feels’, lean into their vulnerability, and get through, without turning their hurt into harm of themselves or others.