Thompson Spencer Group isn’t mucking around – the newly formed super group got together because they have big ambitions.
When we meet, it’s eight days since Thompson Spencer and Reason made it official. Already, the pace at newly formed Thompson Spencer Group has quickened.
“The energy just coming out of the room, the speed, is quite crazy,” says co-founder Wendy Thompson.
On March 19, creative and media agency Thompson Spencer merged with performance agency Reason to form Thompson Spencer Group, one of the largest indies in Aotearoa.
Both parties are clear the agencies are combining strengths, rather than scrambling to survive.
“We are really lucky. We both had very strong years and improved considerably from the year before,” says Spencer.
The agency will be led by Melanie Spencer and Reason’s Tim Pointer as co-CEOs. Meanwhile, Thompson and Pointer’s co-founder Matt Rowe will continue their roles as executive director and strategy lead.
Thompson thinks back to when Spencer came on board back in 2019, saying the agency, then called Socialites, “just blew up”.
“And now, there’s four of us – this is scary!” she laughs.
But scary in a good way – the four leaders are determined, and they’re on the same wavelength.
“We’re four entrepreneurs, four business people. Growing other people’s businesses and seeing the opportunities at the strategic level, that’s our love,” Spencer adds. “That’s what gets us up in the morning.”
Thompson and Pointer, who have known each other for about a decade, would regularly catch up to talk about “indie life” and share ideas. Then at a lunch last year, they realised each business was hugely complementary to the other.
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A really modern agency
“We were like, ‘We are moving into this space a little bit around creative, but we’re a little out of our depth.’ Then Wendy was like, ‘Oh we’re moving into data and we are looking for a little support,’” Pointer says.
“Should we look at something a bit more formal?” It became an easy question to answer when the four started getting together for meetings. They felt good as a team.
“We went really deep into our cultures and our values and they’re just completely complementary. The vision that Matt and Tim had and Mel and I had is for this really modern agency that can just take over the world. We’re like, ‘Oh, same,’” says Thompson.
They add that clients wanted this combination too. When asked their thoughts on the merger, “they started jumping on the table”, says Spencer.
“I’m a massive believer that creative and media go hand in hand. You can’t have one without the other. When you’ve got epic creative working with epic media and performance, that is the future of marketing.
“And when they’re sitting smack bang next to each other and working really closely together in the same room, that is so powerful.”
Technology is the latest layer in the mix – Thompson Spencer Group’s focus is to use tech to produce client work more efficiently.
“We’ve got this word we use: ‘nimbility’. It’s about making our clients more nimble and speeding up the process. Speed to market now is really freaking important. If you’ve got a stodgy, cumbersome agency slowing that down, it’s not the future,” says Spencer.
Deep expertise
An in-house editing suite helps them turn around content really quickly. Meanwhile, the combined knowledge across the team and its various specialities means they have a wealth of expertise at their fingertips.
“It’s full service, but with deep experts in those particular areas,” she adds.
Building a team of experts has long been the vision, and has seen both agencies acquire a range of others over the last decade to better meet their clients’ needs.
Find someone who is an expert in the area you require and then start working together, says Thompson.
“It’s just so much more powerful. Really, you can think you’re OK at it, and then you get actual experts and you’re like, ‘That’s embarrassing,’” she laughs.
“Our model of using absolute experts just works. And I think it’s quite unique.”
While technology has changed considerably in the 15 years each agency has been running, it feels like it’s come full circle for Rowe.
He and Pointer started Reason to work out how businesses could best use Google Search. Now, with the rise of large language models, AI and ChatGPT, it’s happening all over again.
“People are going to have different ways to find businesses. Understanding and working out how to show up as a brand in this new world is going to be really important.”
Getting a grip on AI
Coming to terms with AI has been a journey: “Do I want to get involved in this, what is my view… are the robots going to take over?”
He adds: “The pace of change is really hard for brands to wrap their heads around. It’s a really interesting challenge for brands to think about at an exec level – how do we set ourselves up to innovate at speed? And when is the right time to decide to move forward?
“You’ve got your CTO saying, ‘Brake, brake, brake!’ And then you’ve got your CMO saying, ‘Accelerate, accelerate!’”
Thompson Spencer Group guide clients through internal and consumer-centric decisions: the risks and rewards of engaging with AI, how their data might train models, what model they should use and generally understanding the ecosytem – as well as how people are engaging with these tools and what they are seeing on their side.
The human touch
With the rise in technology and AI comes a parallel rise in the importance of the human touch, says Spencer.
“I’m a true believer that the human and true connection becomes even more valuable – and that will come through in brands and how they market themselves.”
For their clients, this means more activations – for the America’s Cup in 2024, Thompson Spencer Group held a running club in Auckland and host city Barcelona each day that Team New Zealand raced.
“We’re all about authenticity and people on the ground connecting,” Spencer and Thompson agree.
And this is only set to increase as tech gurus Rowe and Pointer combine with Thompson Spencer’s influencer activation arm.
“The energy when they get in a room, it’s actually just magic. We call it ‘feel the fizz’ and it happens every day,” says Thompson.
The four leaders have learnt a lot over the years and they’re more than excited for what’s to come as they work together.
“There’s this cool moment where it’s like our 15-year old company, our kids, are growing up,” says Rowe.
This story comes from NZ Marketing magazine issue 83, Jun-Aug 2025. Why not subscribe? Get four issues a year for just $50 (including delivery) if you autorenew.
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