Graffiti

This International Women’s Day, our GM Vivienne reflects on why the industry needs to rethink how it sees motherhood and leadership…

Around International Women’s Day we often hear conversations about supporting working mums. Flexible hours. Policies. Understanding managers.

But after more than a decade working in experiential, and now as a mum of two, I see the conversation a little differently.

Often the framing suggests that accommodating mothers is something teams need to make allowances for. That it’s a pressure on the business.

In reality, many mums develop the exact leadership skills that make agencies tick.

When I fell pregnant with my first child, I remember feeling nervous about telling the team. I worried about what it might mean for my role and whether it would quietly set my career back. Those concerns weren’t unfounded. I have friends who were made redundant during pregnancy or returned from leave to find their career growth stalled.

My experience at Graffiti thankfully was the opposite.

I came back from maternity leave expecting to step back into my role as Experiential Director and find my rhythm again. Instead, on my return I was promoted to General Manager.

That promotion wasn’t just a career milestone for me. It was a signal that motherhood didn’t reduce my leadership potential. It strengthened it.

I’ve spent my career in production and account service. It’s a world built on tight timelines, fast decisions and making things happen under pressure. I thought I was already operating at peak efficiency.

Then I became a mum.

Suddenly my days had even tighter run sheets. I now have two very beautiful but very demanding bosses at home who expect me to show up when I say I will.

Those deadlines can’t be pushed.

What surprised me most was how much that sharpened the way I lead. Decisions become faster, priorities become clearer and I’m focused on what matters. 

Motherhood forces you to uplevel in ways that translate directly into leadership. Managing complexity, setting boundaries and understanding people. 

And those boundaries can actually make teams stronger. A culture that values outcomes over hours. 

Which is why I would love to see the conversation shift.

Working mothers aren’t a leadership risk. They’re often the exact leaders the industry needs.

By – Vivienne Collins (General Manager) 

We’re opening up our Inspo Sessions for 2026.

One of our favourite things to run, and the perfect way to shake up thinking as you kick off 2026.

Our Inspo Sessions are:
– A 90-minute deep dive into global and local brand experience trends.
– Customised to your category, challenges and opportunities.
– Completely blue sky — no brief or pressure required.
– Free, because the first drink is on us.

We live and breathe brand experience, and our team is always swapping case studies and cool ideas from around the world. These sessions are your chance to step inside that stream of inspiration.

They’re built to crack open new perspectives, spark bold thinking and inspire fresh ways to make your mark.

If you want to bring your team together before the year ends, or start 2026 with a clearer, more creative lens, consider this your sign.

Drop us a message and we’ll take it from there.

IF YOU’RE HIRING A BRAND ACTIVATION AGENCY, ask these questions

In a sea of Google ads, it’s fair to wonder what makes clients click on one activation agency over another, and how they decide who they want to work with. Because it’s more than just an idea that wins new business.

So we put together our cheatsheet of questions we would ask an activation agency if we were looking for one. Which we’re not, because we are one. Which technically makes us experts of what to look for. Very meta of us, we know.

1 – In-house production

Do they have producers in-house who make things happen, or are they white-labelling another agency to do the heavy lifting? You’d be surprised how many are.

2 – Renders vs reality

Ask to see pitch renders next to what was actually delivered. Case studies always polish up well, but did they deliver what they promised?

3 – Measurement credentials

How do they measure brand activation success, and what level of reporting can you expect throughout the project? What tools or tech are they using to capture results?

4 – Detailed budgets, not ballpark figures

Ballparks are for sport events. If they aren’t giving you a line-by-line breakdown, how do you know they’ve scoped it properly and your budget won’t blow out?

5 – Results vs awards

Awards are great, but do they have results to back them up? Ask about ROI, lead generation, and what changed because the activation existed.

6 – Client references

A page of logos always looks impressive but ask if you can speak to three clients and find out what it’s actually like working together. We do it with staff, why not agencies?

7 – Staffing

The brand ambassador team on-site is the brand, in real life. Many activation agencies outsource staffing. If they do, how are staff trained, briefed, mystery shopped and managed?

8 – Impossible feats

Ask about the most challenging project they’ve delivered and how they turned it around. You learn what an agency is made of in those stories.

9 – Safety and compliance

How do they manage risk assessments, permits, insurance, accessibility, and public liability? (This is the real separator between an award chasing agency and a real delivery partner.)

10 – Experience design

How do they design the customer journey. From approach, wait time, staff scripting, accessibility, and take away moment? The best activations can fail on flow.

So next time you’re speaking with a new activation agency, look beyond the process charts and team bios. Ask the bigger questions. Honestly, we’d love to be asked these.

There are some exceptional brand activation agencies crafting amazing activation work out there, but not all are created equal. Choose wisely.

Experience matters.

The opening of the Metro Tunnel was more than a project. It was a once-in-a-generation moment for Victoria, the biggest public transport upgrade since the City Loop opened in the early 1980s.

Moments like that don’t come around often.

So when it came to launch day, we knew the magic wasn’t in building a big extravagant activation. It was in amplifying what was already there: anticipation, pride and shared excitement.

Across one massive day, the Graffiti team coordinated over 18 troupes of performers across the CBD and suburbs. Singers, dancers, musicians, roaming characters, there was colour and play bursting out of the platforms. Everywhere we went, people lit up. More than one person told us it felt like “Melbourne in the 90s”.

And this is where brand experience is unmatched. Infrastructure can change how we move, but experience changes how we feel.
It turns a functional milestone into an emotional one and lets a whole city celebrate together with memories that stick.

Over forty Graffiti team members were out in force bringing the buzz to life. It was colourful, energising and an honour to be part of.

A new journey has begun for Melbourne.

What a privilege to help mark the moment.

One of Graffiti’s core values is calculated risk taking.

We are not gamblers, but we know when the risk will be worth the reward. That comes with a lot of assessment (just ask our OH&S advisor). But it’s not just about what we build. It is about the creative judgements we make and knowing when to press go on big decisions.

Because it’s a core value, we attract clients who share that same desire to take a leap of faith when it matters.

Some of our best work has started with a client calling to say: “We want to do something impossible.”

Like the time Myer asked us to host a tennis match in the middle of Melbourne’s busiest street, Bourke Street Mall. They probably thought we were as mad as they were for saying yes. But in just a month (over Christmas), with only 24 hours of site access, we shut down the trams, built a pop-up court, brought in four tennis legends, and delivered an unforgettable experience broadcast live.

It is still one of our proudest projects. And it happened because there was bravery on all sides.

But bravery does not always mean shutting down Bourke Street. Sometimes it is a client trusting us to make a creative call when our professional judgement says something will resonate, even if their personal preference leans another way. That is not always easy to do. But when clients remember they are not the target audience, we create the outcome the brief really needs. That trust is often the difference between safe and standout.

Every brief we answer is something new. There is no rinse and repeat in what we do. Every build, every design, every moment is made for the first time. That alone takes courage from both agency and client.

It is also why every Graffiti pitch ends with a “What if” idea. Something outside the brief or budget that we cannot bring ourselves to throw away. When a client says “Hell yeah” to those, that is when magic happens.

Like Volvo at the Ocean Lovers Festival.

The brief began as a simple vehicle display. We showed them a What if idea because we felt there was an opportunity to own the moment. And they said yes. A takeover of Bondi Icebergs, transforming it into a bold global statement on their commitments. They went big, and it paid off.

In brand experience, bravery is not optional. It is the difference between forgettable and unforgettable. The brands that make their mark are the ones that choose courage, big or small, every single time.

After over 20 years of building unforgettable experiences for clients, it was time to turn the spotlight inward. In September 2025 retired the old Graffiti brand. Not because it stopped working, but because we have outgrown it. And as a founder, that’s a pretty great feeling knowing we’re still just hitting our strides.

Graffiti has evolved. And with 21 years behind us, we’ve matured into the experts of brand experience.

I initially hesitated with that word, expert. It felt big, maybe too bold. I’ve never been good at shouting from the rooftops about what we do. But when I looked at the definition, it became clear. An expert is someone with a high level of knowledge and skill in a particular area. And given brand experiences have been Graffiti’s pure focus for 21 years, I can hand on heart say we are the experts. And it’s time for us to own it.

Across hundreds of projects, with clients who return time and again, and a team who knows how to deliver every element of a world-class brand experience from strategy through to measurement, we’ve made our mark.

The road hasn’t always been easy. From starting the business before I really knew what I was doing, to being part of a global holding group to buying the agency back and becoming independent, surviving covid and navigating constant economic challenges. Through all of that, I’ve watched the industry go from turning their nose up at experiential, to suddenly catching on to the results brands were getting and the big agencies began tacking on ‘brand experience’ to their growing list of capabilities.

But for us, that focus has never shifted. Brand experience is the one thing we’ve built our expertise on.

Where we’ve grown is in how we now deliver integrated experiences end to end. That includes strategy, creative, social, PR and content. But activation has always been at the heart of it.

In an industry where most agencies try to be everything to everyone, we’ve stayed true to doing one thing and doing it exceptionally well. That’s what makes us experts.

So that’s why we’re owning who we are — without the jargon, without the ego. Just clear thinking, strong ideas and experiences that leave a mark.

Our relaunch isn’t just a new logo or typeface. (Though we did hold a moment of silence for the orange paint splotch.) It’s a sharper identity, a stronger voice, and a clearer vision of the path Graffiti is on, and what we offer our clients.

And that vision is simple: to inspire more marketers to harness the power of brand experience and the value it delivers as the most memorable media channel.

Kerrie Spaargaren, Founder and Managing Director @ Graffiti