Haunt hearts Australia

Starting in 2018, our Australia-based work has grown to about 30% of our income. Most of this is in Melbourne, supporting creative and digital agencies with additional dev capacity and capability. In recent years, we’ve started taking on direct client work - mostly site maintenance and support.

This is a question I get asked quite a lot, but the answer is pretty boring. After some initial work with a close contact there (thanks! ;-) ), I just knocked on some doors and went from there.

There’s really no substitute for meeting people in cafés and (occasionally) bars, which is a role I’ve bravely taken on for Haunt Digital. And then work has come largely from word of mouth.

We’ve loved working in Australia for lots of reasons and have found it to be quite easy from a logistical point of view.

Working in Australia has exposed us to some really interesting projects, ideas and approaches that, I think, have had a significant impact on our knowledge and confidence as an agency.

Working in another country (albeit one that is so similar to New Zealand in many ways) has given us perspective on the way our industry is changing too, and where it might go. But just like in New Zealand, the people are what make our work special, which is why we look forward to catching up with them when we go over there.

I’m not an economic commentator, but my most recent trip confirmed for me that Australia is charging ahead compared to us — currently evidenced by the number of New Zealanders moving there.

It seems that New Zealand is much more exposed to global economic headwinds, and this is really something one feels just walking around and talking to people in Melbourne now.
From a web agency point of view, independent agencies remain pretty positive overall, especially because they’ve been able to adapt more quickly to what is definitely a change-y time. I understand there has been a bit more pain at the “big end” of town, among multinational agencies, but I don’t hang out with them so, meh who knows.

Many New Zealanders don’t really know what a massive bummer Covid was in Melbourne — their lockdowns were brutal and drove a lot of frustration and division. It’s awesome to see that city pumping again, even though a lot of more senior industry people moved away, and many haven’t come back. It’s not uncommon to find myself on a call with someone who used to live in the city but now lives somewhere I’ve never heard of.

It felt to me that the more optimistic outlook in Australia was translating to a more positive view of technological innovation, and AI in particular.

My fear is that the more constrained economic conditions in New Zealand will negatively impact our ability to innovate, at a time when there are greater opportunities from doing so.

A lot of people who would normally be innovating are facing pressure in New Zealand, and I hope we can find ways to make space to experiment and get some cool stuff happening.

I’m not sure what that looks like… but I think we’ll know it when we see it.

A lot of our work in Australia is in partnership with creative or web agencies...check out some examples on our Partnerships page.

See some examples of our Aussies work here