How two kids from the country grew Plato, the South Island’s largest full-service agency.
People might look at Plato today and only see the largest full-service agency in the South Island. Based in Christchurch, it’s easy to assume they’re proverbial city slickers. But this business was co-founded by country kids who simply had big ambitions.
John Plato grew up in the rural town of Leeston while Lisa Plato hails from Alexandra. John was working as a diesel mechanic and Lisa was putting her marketing qualification to use at Ravensdown when the couple met in their early 20s and decided they wanted to launch their own business. So Plato was founded and of course they started out with what they knew best – the agriculture sector. Over the first three years of business, 80% of Plato’s clients were in agribusiness, a sector they still serve to this day.
What is Plato’s ‘origin story’?
We began in 2007 on the cusp of the GFC. But challenges like that have never held us back from striving for growth. Like many owner/operators, we went all in – self-funded and self-driven, working out of our home. But it only took around six months before we needed to upscale in both premises and staff numbers.
In the 2011 Christchurch earthquakes we lost and replaced our office and equipment TWICE. But that taught us to be responsive, resourceful and resilient.
Fast-forward 17 years and we’re now a team of over 70. It’s all down to a simple model: focus on client service, deliver commercial outcomes and build long-term partnerships.
We’ve never looked at how other agencies do it. Instead, we modelled ourselves as a customer-centric professional service. That’s been key – helping us win business awards
for service, craft, culture, and growth.
How important is the rural sector to Plato?
We are still very passionate about agribusiness and the rural communities of the South Island, given our agency was born to serve this sector primarily. We believe what’s good for agribusiness is good for New Zealand. Rural communities are a vital part of our society and national identity, and the country’s economy relies heavily on rural-based activities. Our vision at Plato is to inspire our client partners to think bigger and go further by delivering effective work that accelerates growth. By embracing the norms of social
capital – trust, reciprocity, and mutuality – we can effectively support rural businesses to chase growth in an ever changing and highly competitive market.
How is Plato’s role as an agency evolving?
From being involved with businesses outside of our agency capacity, for example sitting on boards, we know firsthand how much the opportunities and conversations being had today have changed as the world continues to witness rapid shifts in technology, communication, and consumer behaviour. Plato has responded to these evolving market demands by strategically adding to our specialist capabilities to ensure our clients have access to essential strategy and planning, creative, marketing and comms and digital skills.
What are your goals for the next 12 months?
Our strategy is to strengthen our South Island business while exploring acquisition opportunities to continue our growth. Alongside this, we have been investing heavily in bringing in experience and talent to grow our specialist departments of marketing, web and tech, and brand.
Ultimately the plan remains the same, it’s about helping our clients build their brands, grow sales and provide certainty and stability in their businesses.
platocreative.co.nz
This was first published in our June/July 2024 issue
