Digital transformation agency Krunch’s new framework, M4 Growth Engine, offers a proven roadmap for New Zealand businesses to outpace their categories. The team explains how it works
The New Zealand business landscape is navigating a period of intense structural volatility. For commercial entities weary of defensive, survival-mode tactics, the focus has abruptly shifted away from weathering
the storm toward building a resilient engine for future demand.
At the forefront of this evolution is Krunch, an agency whose senior leadership team has spent a collective century distilling marketing complexity into a singular, high-performance output: measurable P&L growth. By shifting away from traditional agency structures, Krunch ensures its senior leaders remain deeply embedded in daily execution, providing clients with continuous access to heavyweight expertise that directly impacts the bottom line.
A hard strategic advantage
While most agencies offer collaboration as a soft promise, they often remain siloed, leading to disjointed strategies that fail to ignite demand.
Krunch has engineered a hard strategic advantage by housing creative (message), channel planning (media) and first-party data (martech) under one roof – ensuring that cross-functional behaviour is baked into the agency’s DNA.
This integration is operationalised through the proprietary M4 Growth Engine – a framework where measurement, martech, message and media orbit a central customer experience (CX) core. This solution-agnostic approach bypasses the vacuum-sealed creative brief.
Instead, it relies on structured, collaborative workshops that synthesise deep client knowledge with Krunch’s unified expertise to map the entire customer journey and drive tangible outcomes.
The M4 engine: from utility to authority
The effectiveness of this integrated methodology is best illustrated by the recent success of car hire company Sixt New Zealand.
The brand faced a strategic stalemate, with brand awareness stalled while competitors treated car rentals as a purely functional utility. Through the M4 Engine, Sixt made a contrarian pivot, transitioning from a “utility provider” to a “lifestyle authority” by aligning communications with the “dreaming and planning” phases of the traveller’s journey. The results were staggering: a 53% relative growth in awareness and a 22.7% growth in revenue for FY26.
Similarly, Lightingplus, a national 26-store retail leader, used the M4 Engine to overcome competitor brand confusion and move beyond “selling boxes”. By reframing lighting as an emotional design tool through a ‘Mood of the movies’ cinematic platform and revitalising a dormant subscriber database, the brand is setting itself up for long-term sustainable growth.
Senior expertise driving the engine
The strength of the M4 model lies in the heavyweight agency experience of the team leading it:
- Andrew Reinholds: Brings 30 years of media and strategy expertise, having previously served as managing partner at OMD and head of media at Stanley St.
- Aaron Turk: A digital and creative veteran with 30 years of experience, including previous senior creative leadership roles at Colenso BBDO and Tribal DDB.
- Baneen Qazi: A marketing technology solutions architect with over 10 years of experience – most recently at PwC. She is also a recognised author and instructor specialising in data-driven, customer-centric solutions across marketing cloud, personalisation and CDP.
Engineering resilient growth
By providing access to high-performance talent and proprietary technology, Krunch helps businesses move beyond a survival mindset to become category authorities.
“We are seeing signals that businesses are preparing to move beyond survival mode,” says Darren Kirkland, CEO of Krunch.
“But those who want to thrive need to think more strategically. Sustaining resilient growth requires broader capabilities – integrated data-driven insights that embody innovation and a deep, unified understanding of the market.”
The future of growth
As the battle for consumer attention intensifies, the role of the agency must evolve. It is no longer enough to deliver activity – agencies must deliver outcomes.
By fusing deep data analysis with high-impact creative and precise media planning, Krunch ensures that marketing investment leads to tangible business results.
In a market where many are navigating challenges, the M4 Growth Engine offers a proven roadmap for New Zealand businesses to outpace their categories.
As Kirkland puts it: “It’s about doing the right things at the right time. Investing after disruption isn’t just a marketing choice, it’s a growth mindset that wins.”
krunch.co
This story comes from NZ Marketing magazine issue 87, June-August 2026. Why not subscribe? Get four issues a year for just $50 (including delivery) if you autorenew.
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