In the June-August 2026 issue of NZ Marketing magazine, we asked agency founders to tell us the story behind why they started their agency, their favourite thing, what they’ve learned and their best advice.
Brainchild
- Founder: Angela March
- Year founded: 2020
Tell us the story behind founding your agency.
I founded Brainchild five years ago, just four months before my first child was born.
I started the agency because I desperately missed doing the strategic and creative PR I’d built my career on. I wanted to remain in Hamilton, but work nationally. We’ve never thought like a regional agency.
Running a business while navigating two maternity leave periods and working part-time should have been impossible. Especially considering at one point, I’d spent more time out of the business than actively working in it!
But thanks to great people and good systems, it has actually shaped our innate flexibility and (borderline) obsession with finding new ways of doing things so that our clients always stay one step ahead. Right now, that means helping clients show up not just for humans, but for AI too. Discovery has changed. If your brand isn’t credible in both worlds, it’s invisible.
What’s your favourite thing about running your own agency?
There’s no version of this job where you’ve “figured it out” and I like that.
PR, comms and marketing are always changing, so you’re constantly learning. Then you layer in business ownership and people leadership, and the learning curve only gets steeper. It keeps things interesting in the best possible way.
What’s the most important thing you’ve learned?
You have to back yourself, but more importantly, you have to back your team. So hire very wisely.
The strength of the business comes from the people in it. I learn from my team every day, and the work is better for it. You don’t have all the answers, and you’re not meant to. It’s more about building a team that helps you find better answers anyway.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve received or given out?
“The job is to run the business, not just do the work.”
It’s easy to stay in execution. It’s what you know, and it feels productive. But staying there can limit the business and the people in it. I still have to remind myself of that. The work pulls me in, and I genuinely enjoy it. It’s also more satisfying in the short term to tick things off a to-do list than it is to spend time at that higher, more strategic level. But that’s where the real value sits.
Anything else we should know?
In a world where anyone can publish anything, credibility matters more than ever.
That’s only becoming more important as AI reshapes how people discover and assess brands. It’s no longer just about being seen, but being understood and trusted by both people and the systems influencing their decisions. Most brands aren’t thinking about that yet. They should be.
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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