This story was prepared by the Uptown Business Association and is being published by OneRoof as advertorial.
Leon Kirkbeck isn’t quite sure when he started “people collecting,” but it’s an endearing descriptor for a managing director that reflects Augusto Creative Agency’s kaupapa and explains its enduring success.
He casually uses the term over a flat white in Twenty Three Cafe, a short walk from Burleigh St in Eden Terrace, Uptown, where Augusto recently moved into an impressive new whare. Kirkbeck and his wife, Michelle Walshe, launched the company 16 years ago from their home in West Auckland, but Augusto relocated as it expanded – from Te Atatū to Pt Chevalier to City Works Depot in the CBD. Now, they’ve found a foothold in a place they’ve admired from a distance for decades.
“We started at home back in 2008 – during the financial crisis – just the two of us, but we quickly began what we call ‘people collecting’,” Kirkbeck says.
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Over the years, the company has grown not only in staff numbers – currently at 50 – but also in capability. “We found we needed separate brands to represent the in-house skills we had. Augusto remains the marketing side of the group; there’s Corner Store making social media content; Dark Doris creating documentaries and TV shows; the tech company Walshe co-founded, CoachMate, which is designed to help kids thrive in sports; and the recently formed Ballyhoo, which takes care of event work.”
Michelle Walshe & Leon Kirkbeck Photo/Blink
The building is named “UFO Rodeo” and Kirkbeck is somewhat coy when explaining what that is. “Well, we needed a new group name and, personally, I loathe the collective noun ‘group’, so we decided we’re a ‘rodeo’ of companies doing brave things for the purpose of entertainment, defined by the UFO acronym that these days can really mean anything. At the moment, we’d like to think it stands for Uptown Funky Ones!”
On the scale of human experiences, acquiring a mortgage isn’t often described as inspiring, but getting their own space in Eden Terrace was exactly that. “We’ve actually tried to move Uptown many times over the years. We were so taken with the area and loved the feeling of creativity – the live event spaces, the bars, the history. We’ve always been drawn here.”
While they loved their location in the CBD, it became clear it was no longer the right fit. “When you run a company in New Zealand, cash flow and margins are always going to be tight. The parking rates went from $8 a day to $28. The eating places became really expensive and when you have staff coming in from all levels of society who don’t earn that kind of money, it starts to become a real problem.”
Eden Terrace, Kirkbeck says, felt like “coming home”. They landed right next door to artist Dick Frizzell and up the road from White Studios.
A caravan full of Kiwi history Photo/Blink
“There are also the reservoirs right beside us that are feeding the city, but the greatest part is being part of a real community. We have affordable parking options for our staff. We have different food and meeting options to take clients anywhere, from a sandwich shop to Twenty Three Cafe through to the French Cafe. You've got an awesome level of diversity at your door. You don't get that downtown because they’re all paying so much rent.”
Augusto, Walshe and Kirkbeck’s “fifth child,” is, according to him, the “most needy”. Their other four children have all grown up with the business.
Walshe was a TV director when they met, and Kirkbeck was a camera operator and editor. They’ve built an impressive and diverse body of entertainment work, including the highest-grossing TV documentary ever in Aotearoa New Zealand, the Richie McCaw biopic Chasing Great, directed by Walshe.
Long-term client Adidas has been working with Augusto for more than 14 years with its sponsorship of the All Blacks.
UFO Rodeo, which also has an office in Brooklyn, New York, has just become B Corp certified, one of about 650 companies in Australasia. The movement, started by Richard Branson in 2007, measures companies' social and environmental impact.
The building on Burleigh St is filled with relics of the UFO Rodeo’s past. Its interior is designed by Kirkbeck's high school friend and Oscar-nominated art director Ra Vincent and was mostly constructed using recycled materials from their building at City Works. One of their more interesting meeting rooms is a caravan in which the Topp Twins once toured the country and Jacinda Ardern once owned as her campaign vehicle.
It’s an expansive, industrial-scale home base, built from ‘people collecting’ and legacy-building, from the ground up.
