Pead: From Kitchen Table to Supreme Award

The story of Pead began around a kitchen table. In 2000, after building the PR arm at Bates Advertising, Deborah Pead saw a gap for brand-building PR that went beyond brand protection with reactive media and issue management. So, she rolled the dice, cleared the table space and Pead was born. “I had to make a call early in the piece. Do I operate as a freelance consultant, or do I build a comms agency with all the responsibilities that come with owning and managing a business? The decision was made for me when I won more work than I could manage alone and started hiring people and renting premises.”

Back then, the work at Pead was a heady mix of media relations, stunts, celebrity culture and big lunch tabs. The more outrageous, the better. Alcohol brands and celeb-fronted launches were hungry for cut-through, and we gave it to them in bucket loads. From launching XBox with the country’s biggest ever truck convoy, to educating journalists on the difference between a padded bra and a lined bra during the Mary-Kate and Ashley years, to sending Dan Carter down a runway in his undies, it was high-octane, headline-hungry fun.

There was real purpose too. Helping establish New Zealand Fashion Week as a global buying destination (those were the days when buyers came to NZ with a shopping list.) Turning every provincial Teddy Bear Picnic into a sponsored national tour to launch Tiny Teddies for Arnott’s, helping build 42 Below into an iconic Kiwi brand, inventing new words (Starkish anyone?) celebrating our best dressed men in the land for Working Style and bringing back the NZ Music awards into the respected event its matured into.   “These campaigns shaped the agency, and they didn’t just make noise, they made impact for our clients.”

But markets evolve and so did we. As digital transformed the game, Pead stayed ahead, launching New Zealand’s first influencer-only brand campaign for My Food Bag. It accelerated the business, built personal brands for Nadia Lim, Cecilia and James Robinson, and elevated Dame Theresa Gattung’s profile. Later, we mobilised an entire beauty influencer ecosystem for a sustained L’Oréal NZ campaign. That pivot signalled a new chapter for Pead: reinvention, diversification, and a bold expansion into corporate, B2B and reputation leadership.”