The 2023 season might prove to be one of the most consequential in the agency’s history. In July, co-founders Adam Ferrier, Jim Ingram and Ben Couzens, along with chief exec and partner Margie Reid, bought PwC’s 10 per cent stake in the agency back. PwC had invested $300,000 into the agency in 2017 just a few months after its founding.

It also opened its Thinkerbell East office in Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland). Luke Farmer, Amy Frengley and Regan Grafton were the founding trio with Farmer as MD, Frengley as chief brand thinker and Grafton chief tinker. Farmer would depart after only seven months.

Jerker Fagerström was another high-profile comer and goer. Fagerström joined in December 2022 as managing partner of Thinkerbell North (Sydney). After eight months, he left saying “it was a new role to the agency and it simply did not work out”.

Despite some tumult with its high-level playing staff, Thinkerbell went on to have a strong 2023 season. With its full independence restored, it scooped awards around the world – and was named B&T’s Advertising Agency of the Year, beating some incredibly stiff competition.

It also won a series of big accounts. In April, it won The Reject Shop’s full-service account and in December, it won Pringles’ content and earned work.

Its biggest win, however, was Menulog. It picked up the full creative account for the food delivery company in March 2023 and has gone on to produce some impressive eye-catching work for the brand.

It also produced XXXX’s “Postcodes of Origin”, an impressive multi-channel campaign that remains a personal favourite of some in the B&T office.

Thinkerbell even acquired a production company to create Hotel Bell, bringing the development and execution of its work closer together.

Thinkerbell declined to tell us about the gender balance of its staff, gender pay gap and any staff recruitment and retention initiatives, save for its overall headcount growing from around 155 to around 170.

Instead, it said: “We take an intersectional approach to recruitment and people management. Everyone is an individual with their own backstory. Where cultural diversity starts and stops is impossible to answer. We encourage an inclusive and diverse leadership team.”