With a population of 1.63 million, Auckland, by global standards isn’t exactly the epicentre of the world, but by New Zealand standards thats a fair chunk of people inhabiting a single place.
As an outsider (yes, the writer resides in Wellington) Auckland is a pleasant surprise upon each visit.
There’s an eclectic buzz, and palpable vibrancy out on the streets. Not dissimilar to Melbourne, and despite Wellington claiming the ‘creative’ crown, AKL has its own thing going on in terms of its look and feel, with an abundance of creativity of its own.
Auckland is the Phantom Billstickers HQ and houses our largest percentage of staff. There aren’t any unsung heroes within the team, we’re close knit, and all push the beast forward, our knowledge of the market, the streets and strategic campaign management is second to none.
That being said, somewhat out of the limelight at times are the newly formed operations team at the
HQ.
Last week we caught up with the Wellington crew on a rare coffee break between being flat out on the streets executing the best street poster campaigns in the nation, if you missed it, jump here.
This week we figured we’d do the same to the crew in Auckland.
Coco and Arama are recent additions to the team, and have done an insane job at leading from the front to overhaul, streamline and execute impeccable operations in the big city.
As luck would have it, on Monday Auckland was battered by rain, which meant that the hands were on deck inside where they couldn’t escape the marketing crew and the dreaded questions and camera combo.
A team that chooses action over words, we managed to snag a couple of words before it was back to business.
Cheers for taking a minute team, How long have you been at the team with Phantom
Coco – I’ve worked for phantom since 2022 November, so like a year and half?
Arama – I’ve been with the team since way back in Jan 2024!
What about your day to day?
Coco – My day to day has varied through my time with Phantom. I’ve explored multiple roles finally landing on the warehouse manger position. My day to day now consists of starting on the admin, updating my dispatch spreadsheets, receiving rolls of posters, folding said posters, putting said posters into sets (the design order in which they’re displayed), sending said posters to all the cities and towns for the next week’s run. I’m powered by nicotine and caffeine each day.
Arama – I can’t give you the most descriptive answer due to how long i’ve been here, but I’ve found that my day to day consists mainly of helping Coco handle stock, coordinating our contractors, fixing pasting issues and doing some odd jobs from the sales department.
I am still learning the ropes but I’m feeling a lot more confident in my role as time goes on. The work environment is super positive and everyone does an amazing job at keeping me on my feet!
I feel like I’m rambling a little but massive shout out to Alyssa for hiring me!!
If a client came directly to you for advice on running a campaign in Auckland, what would it be?
Coco – My advice would be giving them Madis number (sales team queen).
Jokes aside, my favourite campaigns are always when the posters are in sets that have an image that runs through all the posters so they all connect as one image. I feel like those campaigns always slay and are quite eye-catching. I would also say to lean into the labs side of the business and have some sort of interactive feature so people will engage more.
Arama – Call Coco 🙂
I did warn you all, few words, more actions.
This is something we’re proud of, always action ready.