Year in Review: Lola Elle Bellamy-Hill

Every year, StopPress catches up with a group of industry leaders from across Aotearoa to talk about the year that was. From the highlights and the lowlights to their favourite foods, fruits and Christmas traditions, they give us a little insight into 2025 as well as a look forward to 2026.

Lola Elle Bellamy-Hill is an account executive at Mango.

Earlier this year you wrote for NZ Marketing magazine about your job hunt experience. What did you learn from that time?

My biggest advice to any grad, that I was encouraged to do from the lovely Jen Rolfe, is to find a way to make yourself newsworthy – and learn how to newsjack!

It can be as traditional as an article about how the system and job market sucks or as simple as a viral TikTok complaining about your journey. Find your channel, craft your messages tirelessly, and make sure they relate back to your own truth. You just might be surprised at who’s listening.

What was your highlight, biggest challenge and the most interesting thing that happened to you at work this year?

The highlight of any work is the talented and lovely people I get to work with.

My Mangoes in the fruit bowl; Keely Allen, Janvi Shah and I getting sheep and beers into the headlines; Elle Grace, Sophie McGregor, Janvi and I launching the new cultural hub for underground Kiwis at Tribe; making the headlines more colourful for Kaleo Designs with Jo Martin and Sean Brown; and the Worst Children’s Library with Emily Brown, Iris Nguyen, Chloe Leuschke.

A shout out to all the equally lovely people that still wanted to go out to coffee and chat after all my inbox pestering. To name a few: Jessica Allison at Thinkerbell, Hilary Ngan Kee and Mel Fiolitakis at Motion Sickness, and Amy Pollok at FCB. I also dearly miss my Crushes family, who allowed my pipe dream of creating merch to help fundraise for my trans whānau to become a reality.

The biggest challenge has been adjusting to a more corporate culture. Not in a bad way, per se, but when your background has been in small business, you’re not used to so much red tape and rigid systems. You also must learn how to adapt your essence – how can I still be approachable and warm but still maintain professionalism? It’s been a journey of rediscovery, but highly rewarding to find my footing in how I want to establish myself as a professional and as a creative.

The most interesting thing was cropping up as a Society Insider with Janvi in the Herald as part of the Tribe Auckland launch with Mango. We produced the All Nighter launch, inviting some of Auckland’s creme de la creme of the underground, and somehow got mistaken as one of them.

What has surprised you the most about working in the industry, compared to your experience while studying?

I think a lot of my grads from Advertising and Brand Creativity would agree when I say some lessons in Excel would have been helpful!

What trends did you follow in 2025 and how will these shape your work in 2026?

The general trend this year is realness. Embracing vulnerability in your posting and messaging; showing the messiness, in contrast to the internet’s usual prim and proper curation. Photo dumps, “the claw,” oversharing, old-school blogging. The goal isn’t to be relatable anymore, but to empathise with the chaotic landscape we’re in culturally.

Emotional connection should be at the heart of any storytelling: this was at the heart of Samsung’s Children’s Worst Library success. It made the toxic subject matter kids come across online into literal books to flip through. It’s hard to not be overwhelmed when confronted with that.

Another of my other favourite projects is Beings from Léon Bristow. In a time where diversity and inclusion are on the decline culturally, making sure there is still space for racial, gender, and body diversity is crucial. Even their byline tells the story succinctly with determination: Nothing about us, without us.

How has AI impacted your work this year?

The team know me as someone who is very anti-generative AI. The writing is on the wall: this bubble will burst. Once it’s popped, we still need to be able to know the basics and harness them. As a junior, I think it’s important to not skip that step. Learn how to write an e-mail! Become an e-mail people love to receive so they want to respond to you! Convenience will come at the cost of skill and productivity should mean more than just finishing something quickly.

LLMS like ChatGPT and Gemini also have major blind spots to New Zealand culturally, since we’re such a small data and history pool. To find meaningful work that will hit Kiwis – you gotta dig in the archives, dig into Nana’s garage! If the throughline of my musing is emotional – AI cannot find those emotional truths. If anything, the rise of AI psychosis is showing it can only create echo chambers that make us further doubt and hesitate. We need to trust ourselves and the skills of our loved ones.

I’m sure in 2026, we’ll see a lot more success in collaborations between brands to break through to not only cement community building as a pillar of branding – but also because the human touch will become the thing that’s recognisable after a year of ‘slop.’

Quick fire five

Your favourite campaign or project you worked on this year?

There are a few contenders, but releasing the Lola from Crushes merch to help fundraise for Gender Minorities Aotearoa has got to be up there.

What is your signature dish?

Whatever I’m making with my date that evening, usually a pasta.

Best in real life experience you had this year?

My best friend and I went on a short trip to Melbourne to celebrate my first big girl job and his birthday. We masqueraded as cultural aficionados amongst galleries, musicals, and a one year anniversary for my friend Sarah’s store: PDA.

Best film to watch at Christmas?

Personally love a nostalgic rewatch of How The Grinch Stole Christmas. I’m not a massive Christmas movie person, but I can’t deny that Jim Carey’s Grinch makes my heart grow three sizes too big.

Your favourite Christmas tradition?

Every year as a family we would go to a local Christmas store and each select a decoration for the tree. We’ve recently started it back up again as gifts to each other, which is very lovely.

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