Meet our Friends… Choir
‘Meet our Friends’ series is where we take a moment to celebrate and share a little about the diverse studios who make up our DA Friends. Today we spoke to our friends Choir to learn more about their studio team, culture, and design philosophy.
New around here? Consider joining the fam as a DA Friend for 2023.
We have membership types for all size designers – from the student through to large studios. Your DA membership helps to support the Aotearoa design community and gives you discounts to our workshops and events along with profiling opportunities throughout the year.
Where are you based and what shape does the Choir team take?
Choir is a full service advertising agency based in Ōtautahi Christchurch. Our core team of 15 consists of a mix of creatives, account service and strategists, and we have a wider collaborative network of web and digital developers, PR and communication consultants, media strategists, event managers and print partners.
Can you share with us what a typical day at Choir looks like?
Honestly, a typical day at Choir varies depending on our clients and the deadlines we have, but we try and start the day with an informal catch up with the most pressing deadlines and then, more importantly, coffee or tea depending on how wired we need to be!
Once we work out what we’re all working on, the music is turned on (or headphones are put on) and then the organised chaos of the day unfolds. We’re an open plan, collaborative environment so we’re constantly working together, proofing each other’s work and helping each other out. It can get intense but the environment is extremely supportive and we’re constantly cracking jokes to lighten the mood.
Almost every day at lunchtime, a group of us try to stretch our legs and go for a walk. We’re located in the central city and there’s always something interesting going on, new food places to check out or window shopping at the ready!
What projects have you been working on recently?
Most recently, we’ve been working alongside Metlifecare to help refresh and articulate their brand. Working across their parent brand and all their individual retirement villages, we’ve been fortunate to help them strategically reposition themselves and express their new brand across various mediums. Safe to say we’ve learnt a lot about retirement villages in the last couple of years and really enjoy working with everyone at Metlifecare on their various projects from the senior leadership team through to the marketing team.
We’ve also been working closely with a number of other clients in various project capacities. This ranges from acting as their marketing team, or being an external resource that compliments their internal marketing and comms teams for clients including Pacific Radiology, Tāwhaki Joint Venture, Lincoln University, EcoCentral and the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra Foundation.
What does the Choir design process and philosophy look like?
Our process is pretty simple and is based around the idea of “Listen. Think. Do.”
We really pride ourselves on being a strategic partner to our clients and that starts with a lot of listening and asking a lot of questions. The more we’re able to understand the client and their industry, the better we’re able to develop a strategy and creative solutions to achieve their goals.
Favourite tools in the studio to help your team manage the day-to-day?
Coffee, scones and a sense of humour!
What recent achievements or projects are you most proud of?
We’re really proud of the Metlifecare work we’ve done over the last couple of years, especially launching the new brand and filming a number of television commercials that captured the essence of a Metlifecare retirement.
We’re also proud of our collaboration with Ocean Bottles, an initiative to help remove the equivalent of 100,000 plastic bottles out of the ocean, as well as provide education, healthcare, mental health support and financial security for the locals who collect them.
Where to next for Choir, what is your team working towards for 2023/24
We’re gearing up for an exciting and busy year ahead for both our clients and ourselves.
We’ve started our journey towards being a more purpose-driven agency and begun the process of becoming a B Corp. We want to be an agency that isn’t just doing better for our clients, but for all people, communities and the planet. It’s something that’s been important to us for a while and we’re excited about making it a greater part of our everyday ethos.
Lastly, where can people connect with you on socials?
Website – choir.nz
Facebook – facebook.com/choir.nz
Instagram – @choir.nz
LinkedIn – linkedin.com/company/choirnz
