Sweet shop

AUCKLAND, Today: A new talent and content agency – an offshoot of Auckland PR agency Undertow Media – has put down its roots in Grey Lynn.

Co-founder Greer Bland said: “Liquorice represents tastemakers from food & fashion to parenting & tech plus offers roster of top content creators.

Liquorice offers modern content on demand as well as social media talent for brands wanting to hit the sweet spot with Kiwi audiences.

The brainchild of co-founders Bland and Gina Williams-Folau, Liquorice was born out of a desire to make things easier for brand managers feeding ever-hungry social media accounts with local content and influencer campaigns.

“The old models simply don’t work for today’s landscape. Every day we see brands either miss the mark with influencers or try to repurpose traditional advertising, product photography, even stock imagery for social media and it sticks out like a brussels sprout in a lolly jar,” says Bland.

“Liquorice launched with a roster that includes Millie Elder-Holmes, Flava host Athena Angelou and Ben Evans.”

With a collective 20 years of experience spanning corporate and consumer PR and social media from their work at communications agency Undertow Media (Bland is the founder and Williams-Folau a long-time senior director), the co-founders decided it was time to get working on a solution that will sit as a separate company altogether from the PR firm, plus aim to address some of the pain points they see when commissioning jobs.

“Over the last year, like most others, we took a good look at adapting our ways of working to account for where we are seeing the most growth in the advertising and media industry, and we took a long-term view to focus on planting while others were pruning,” she said.

“We’ve built Liquorice to provide the goods for both influencer marketing that makes sense and content creation with the variety, volume, speed and scale that brands need for their modern marketing efforts.”

“We’ve launched with a roster of big names on board including Millie Elder-Holmes, Flava host Athena Angelou and Ben Evans, creator of the viral hit NZ Lockdown Memes.”

Georgia Collins adds weight
Working alongside the founders is Liquorice’s first appointment, Georgia Collins, who has joined after a six-year stint in Sydney where she covered influencer relations, PR and digital marketing for international beauty brands.

“We mix and match our creators to ensure that every element of a brand brief – product shots, people shots, multi-disciplinary and graphic shots – is in the best possible hands, because a great campaign takes all sorts,” says Gina.

• www.liquorice.co.nz
• www.undertowmedia.co.nz