Hello. We Are Make.
We make beautiful work through our collective of creative people. We keep things simple, fun and fresh. If you want to make something great, we’d love to make it with you.
How we do the business
Make is an advertising agency based in mighty Christchurch, New Zealand.
We do things a little differently. The Make team concentrate solely on strategy and account management. That’s more time making sure you’re happy.
We then work with a core network of award-winning specialists in brand strategy, print, web and media. Beyond this tight-knit core are film makers, audio experts, designers, copy writers and photographers.
Because they’re not in-house we’ve got the freedom to match the best people with the job at hand. And because they’re not in-house we don’t pass massive overheads on to you.
We think it’s a pretty great way of doing business (just quietly).
Figure 1.1 demonstrating the relationship between you, us, the collective and Michael Jackson
Our work
Our clients range from boutique retailers to large government agencies. You don't have to be big to have a grand vision. And you don't have to be small to try something left-field.
The process goes a little like this: All our work begins with research. A lot. We want to know you better than we know how we like our coffee. Then we get to the heart of what you need (sometimes it's not the same as what you think you want) through collaborative strategy sessions with you. We'll make recommendations. You'll give us feedback. Then we work with our specialist suppliers and take a pragmatic design-oriented approach to achieve the best result for you.
At every step you'll have our ear and we'll be bending yours about where we're at and what's happening next. We know it's your baby. You can be hands off or super involved.
We'll also be keeping you in the loop on your spending so there are no unpleasant surprises at the end of the month. Achieving the best results doesn't always come cheap but with our flexible approach we can usually find a way to work within your budget.
We get geekishly excited about what we can do for you because we're constantly amazed by what our creative network coughs up. They're the city's finest talent (we're talking skills but they're good looking bastards too). The Make Collective don't want to just get the job done, we want to create work that looks so good and works so well that you grin like an idiot when you think of us.
Love Christchurch
Two serious earthquakes in six months pose a massive challenge to people's faith. Recover Canterbury and Canterbury Development Corporation wanted to inspire people to feel positive about Christchurch and its future. Make came up with a warm, direct campaign featuring prominent and iconic people and businesses based on the simple idea of loving Christchurch. Each creative featured a different candid portrait and a simple message. By keeping the statements personal we avoided sounding ‘preachy’ while giving the campaign credibility. Since we launched it organisations have been approaching us to be a part of it. Which is nice.
UCSA
The UCSA is a tricky organisation to pin down. Students come to them wanting to party, party party, but also arrive needing support or financial assistance. We distilled the UCSA's vision down to just two words 'For Students' and created a comprehensive web solution to help them deliver everything from support to events. As well as their main website we also designed and developed a clubs management solution that is set to save 1000s of hours of UCSA staff time and an award-winning site for the UCSA's magazine, Canta.
Canterbury Business Profiles
As part of our redevelopment of CDC's website we went out and made four short films about innovative businesses in the region. We had a great time meeting some interesting people and learning about some of the cool stuff that's going on around our city.
Maybe you should watch a video or two.
CDC Website
Canterbury Development Corporation are specialist in the Canterbury economy. We created a site with a tasty design that helped CDC explain what they do and how they do it. We wanted to show that Christchurch is a compelling business destination, even after the shakes. Using video and journalism we let leading Canterbury business tell their own stories and explain how CDC has been a driving factor in their growth.
Earthquake Commission
We won the pitch for EQC’s work by offering the right combination of great Christchurch-based account management, a friendly refresh of EQC’s brand and high value media buying. The EQC team are great and we all share the desire to help demystify the complexities of the assessment/repair process and provide the information required as simply as possible.
Boxing Day Replay
Christchurch got dealt another cruel blow when a 4.9 quake interrupted trading on Boxing Day. To give people and retailers another chance to enjoy the traditional retail boom, the Central City Business Association (CCBA) organised another sale in the Central City. Make was asked to create a brand for the sale to be used in print, outdoor and radio advertising with a limited budget. We created a simple, iconic brand that was easy to understand and stood out in print and on street and shop posters. The public responded in their thousands and more than made up for the lost income.
Christchurch Creative
We're connected with a lot of freelancers in Christchurch. Right after the quake work for many completely dried up and many people were concerned for their livelihoods. In conjunction with Alec Bathgate and Stephen McCarthy we created a website to help drive work to the region. The site got national media attention and using Twitter, Facebook and traditional media to drive traffic to the website we'd like to think we helped a few freelancers keep up the good fight!
Canterbury Business Recovery
Recover Canterbury was set up by the Canterbury Development Corporation and Canterbury Employers Chamber of Commerce to help provide support and information to businesses in the Canterbury region after the February 22 earthquake. The organisation needed to establish itself and distribute information quickly so Make created a strong brand with a focus on clarity and simplicity. Within just a few days of the shake we had press ads running. Since then several sub-brands have been added to the Recover Canterbury stable, each requiring regular adverts, websites and copy writing. We continue to provide rapid responses to their needs.
Kind words
Every now and again our clients say nice things about us. When they do we get all giddy, skip around the office and do a little dance. It’s unlikely that you’ll have the same reaction but, just in case, we thought we’d publish a few kinds words here.
We are thoroughly enjoying our relationship with Make. Their creative ideas and passion for the subject have begun to change our brand and perception for the better. The Make team is customer-focused and honest in its feedback from a Canterbury perspective, which ensures that the way EQC is positioned is relevant and real.
Heal the world, make it a better place. For you and for me and the entire human race.
I have worked with the team from Make for some time now. They are thankfully, always extremely responsive and able to turn things around in tight timeframes. From our immediate response to the September and February Earthquakes through to the more recent city-wide campaign, Make have been creative, dynamic and fantastic to work with.
The Make team have continued to impress us with their creativity. It is driven from a complete understanding of the values of our organisation, and means we get the benefit of a creative initiative perfectly tailored to our needs. When Make were asked to devise, design and deliver a total online presence for the UCSA, they took the time to get to know us before beginning their planning. This meant the end result was pitched perfectly (and won two national awards to boot!).
During 2011 the Canterbury Employment and Skills Board (CESB) had the opportunity to work with the Make Collective team on multiple occasions. We liked the fact that:
- they listened
- they made constructive suggestions for improvement both to the brief and in the structure of the site
- they responded with options
- we really liked their creative
- they were responsive working under tight timeframes
- they shared their knowledges.
We would happily work with the Make Collective team again in the future. It was a pleasurable experience.
Tim: +64 21 88 57 58 / tim@makecollective.co.nz