About Us

Experience is Everything. Experienced people, creating meaningful experiences, for ambitious clients. In essence, that’s who we are and what we do at D&Co.

We began life a decade ago with a new and exciting agency model that brought together a hand-picked team of experienced, senior specialists offering clients a better alternative to existing models.

Covering Brand and Marketing, Design, Brand Voice, CX, Innovation, Digital, Business Strategy, Transformation, and more, there are no cascading hierarchies, no unnecessary billings, and no duplication of roles. Just senior people at every stage, at a highly competitive price, working together to create better experiences at every touchpoint.

“Lots of the traditional big agencies talk about ‘new models’. But when you look deeper, they’re really just wrapping fancy wallpaper around the same old services.

With D&Co, I wanted to set up a creative company specifically for the experience age – nimble, proactive and absolutely transparent when it came to fees. The networked collective we’ve built is one of the best in New Zealand, so our team can easily become yours too.”

Russ Douglas

Founder & Principal Consultant
Brand, Experience & Innovate

Tailored expertise aligned to your specific needs

We hand-pick the right D&Co team for your project - every time.

Collaboration in everything we do

An experienced team that works shoulder to shoulder with yours.

Transparent and trustworthy

It may come as a surprise that we give clients back budget we don't use. When was the last time your agency did that?

Integrated and complimentary solutions

Strategy, creativity, direction and expert management - a unique service offering wrapped around you.

Proven, award winning excellence

This isn't our first rodeo - proven and experienced specialists give you peace of mind.

  • “I’ve worked with Russ since he first established D&Co and when I made the move to SeaLink I reached out to D&Co when I needed a safe pair of hands for our brand strategy, story and design system refresh. The SeaLink brand had become tired and Russ and his team have injected an energy, passion and creativity that’s got the whole business buzzing. It also helps that he’s a genuinely decent bloke and fun to work with.”

    Teresa Smyth
    Sales and Marketing Manager
    SeaLink

  • "We're delighted with the level of engagement, creativity and programme support from D&Co. They've been an incredible partner and we continue our relationship as we explore and develop new energy service innovations.”

    Kerry Green
    GM Energy Services
    WEL Networks

  • "D&Co have been a breath of fresh air to work with bringing customer-centric thinking, creativity and pace to everything they touch. Working with D&Co across a number of Anchor Food Professionals projects has always been collaborative, transparent and refreshing, and I would recommend D&Co to anyone who is looking for this dynamic, fresh approach to delivering great work."

    Susan Cassidy
    GM Global Marketing Brand & Communication
    Anchor FP

  • "We really value the partnership with D&Co, and look forward to it making a real difference in the moments that matter to our members.”

    Jody Bews-Hair
    Head of Customer Experience
    Southern Cross Health Society

  • "As part of introducing the new Innovation Refinery at Z, Russ and the team at D&Co designed and facilitated the first design sprint. This included an introduction to primary design thinking methods as we co-created a vision for the Future of Loyalty."

    Scott Bishop
    Chief Innovation Officer
    Z Energy

Our leadership team

Russ Douglas

Founder & Principal STRATEGIST

Russell is a multi-award-winning brand and customer experience strategist and creative consultant who has been helping clients bring their brands to life for the past 25 years, primarily using design-led thinking to reimagine brand and customer experience.

Working across the world, he has led projects for many top international brands including British Airways, O2, Air New Zealand, Z Energy, New World, Mitre 10, Southern Cross, PAK’nSAVE, Loyalty NZ, Meridian Energy, Radisson Blu Edwardian Hotels, NAB, Australia Post and Fonterra.

He has also spent a considerable amount of time in North America helping IDAIR (a Panasonic Avionics and Lufthansa joint venture). This project involved developing an entirely new product suite for their VVIP in-flight entertainment clients ranging from Heads of State and Royalty to multi-billionaires, perhaps one of the toughest customer segments in the world.

Closer to home, Russell was instrumental in the development of Air New Zealand’s in-flight entertainment experience, and was instrumental in Z’s innovative ‘ShareTank’ (another world-first) and ‘Fastlane’ – the fly-through fuelling experience. Together with his team, he used bespoke design thinking methods to design a vision for the Future of Loyalty. This led to several ideas being green lit to exit the innovation process into commercialisation.

Russell and his team at D&Co have also worked closely with Foodstuffs NZ on the development of New World’s ‘Moments that Matter’ CX Strategy and customer focused marketing campaigns, while also creating a new service design for PAK’nSAVE. The team has also worked on CX Strategy for Mitre 10’s and Southern Cross, with additional innovation design sprints for the latter.

Russell’s philosophy with all of this is a simple one. He’s passionate about connecting everyday people with extraordinary innovation and believes that human-centred design methods are essential to deliver business growth today. After all, when the customer is delighted, revenue and brand engagement will usually increase. As a result of this experience, Russell is also a regular international keynote speaker and design thinking facilitator.

Outside of D&Co, Russ is addicted to kitesurfing (so if the wind is up and the tide is right there may be some gaps in his responses to your calls and emails!)

Naomi Douglas

Principal Consultant: Transform

Naomi works with our clients to help them accelerate the transformation of their business activities, processes, competencies and operating models to fully leverage the changes, challenges, and opportunities of digital technologies.

Naomi’s extensive background in General Management, Technology, Programme and Project Management means she has worked alongside the Microsoft HQ Teams in Seattle to help light up ‘the art of the possible’ across Microsoft’s technology platforms. In addition, she has worked with executive teams in a broad spectrum of major global businesses to build out their innovation and digital roadmaps across various platforms including Microsoft, AWS, and IBM. Naomi’s experience here includes leading customer relationship management (CRM) implementations, bringing the customer journey to life, and building datapoints to measure, learn, and improve the customer experience while transforming it into a hyper-personalised experience.

Her diverse experience across business management, technology, and programme delivery is crucial in designing our implementation roadmaps to create viable next steps.

The
D&Co
Collective

We are a new breed of creative company, specifically created for the experience age. Our shared belief in the limitations of the ‘traditional model’ has resulted in a networked collective of Brand, CX, Innovation and Transformation specialists that come together in powerful, channel-agnostic ways to solve today’s ‘wicked’ problems.

In short, the D&Co team are a collective of some of New Zealand’s best Brand, CX, Innovation, Service Design, Digital, human-centred design practitioners and coaches in New Zealand.

Our specialist Transform division helps progressive businesses deliver exceptional outcomes through rigorous program management, diligent project management, and agile consultancy.

Our teams are carefully tailored to specific client challenges and work closely with your internal teams across all initiatives.