After sharing the same office for the last five years, independent PR agencies Dig and Common Ground have merged. They are now Ground Control PR.
Co-directors Olivia Boswell of Common Ground and Leni Ma’ia’i of Dig officially launched their new outfit with a party in the Tāmaki Makaurau CBD on September 10.
The announcement has been brewing for some time. Boswell and Ma’ia’i signed the papers for Ground Control back in April.
I first noticed something was up when I spotted a new email signature on Ma’ia’i’s emails in June. This was, apparently, all part of their plan to confuse journalists, he says with a smile: “So they’d be so confounded they’d just have to write a story about it.” Well, it worked on me.
Refining the narrative
It turns out Ma’ia’i was mostly joking about wanting to confuse journalists. The launch was actually delayed because the new entity got off to a running start immediately, says Boswell.
Along with bringing along all of their previous clients, Ground Control won new work with Griffin’s, Les Mills, and DB Breweries’ restaurant group Star Group.
This pre-launch period helped Ground Control both inform and refine its narrative, says Ma’ia’i: “You learn a lot from going into bat together. We understood what our strengths and weaknesses are.”
Boswell adds: “Having this track record [of client wins]gave us confidence that we’re doing the right thing.”
Faith in media
The two directors say launching Ground Control PR acts as their vote of confidence in the importance of media, especially as the industry continues to going through a turbulent time.
“We need trusted voices to help us navigate the world,” says Ma’ia’i. “We have faith that some version of this will continue.”
Boswell adds: “We really believe in New Zealand’s media industry. We have lots of friends there and we rate them highly – they’re under-resourced, overworked but still producing high-quality work.”
Deep curiousity
Boswell founded boutique PR agency Common Ground in 2020 and was joined by former lifestyle journalist and PR specialist Rosie Herdman in 2024. The agency has worked with brands like Boring Oat Milk, Oppo, and the NZ Olympic Committee.
Meanwhile, Ma’ia’i started Dig PR in 2021, an outfit dedicated to startups and tech companies. He’s since worked with Icehouse Ventures, OpenStar and the Ministry of Awesome.
Sharing a Karangahape Road office has seen them consult each other on projects both unofficially and officially over the years. Now, they are looking forward to a combined future that will allow them to operate at a larger scale.
Despite working in different fields – lifestyle and tech – here’s throughline across them all, says Boswell: “A deep curiosity to find out what makes these businesses tick. We apply journalistic sensibility to all of our clients, and know that there are stories to tell, no matter the business.”
Ma’ia’i adds that he believes their team is well-equipped with a “natural shit detector” to tell what makes a good story.
“When you’re doing your own thing, it’s hard to see the wood for the trees. We provide that external perspective to say what makes your work interesting to the mass market.”
As an example, recent work with Motion Sickness and Sealord on the ‘We love fish’ campaign turned an ad about fish into a news story. “It was an amazing ad, but it won’t earn media coverage on its own,” says Boswell. “So, what will get it across the line? Meaningful data.”
Ma’ia’i adds: “So, we created the world’s first fish discrimination report. A thousand nationally represented Kiwis talked about fish discrimination in the workplace, like being forced to leave their delicious lunch at home.”
Media therapists
Throughout our conversation, they describe themselves as “media therapists” who support their clients through the inevitable ups and downs that come with running a businesses.
And as for the constant battle for attention? “It’s our job to create storytelling that withstands the attention span, that’s interesting enough to merit a great headline,” says Boswell.
While people might not always read the full article, AI does, they say. Research from Muck Rack shows that 84% of citations made by AI search links back to earned media. “Earned media is incredibly important in influencing conversations,” says Boswell.
It comes back to the song
Perhaps the most important question of all is how did they come up with the new agency’s name?
“Names are funny,” says Boswell. “We had a few floating around like CommonDig or Dig the Ground. But then it just came to us.”
As it happens, inspiration came from David Bowie’s Space Oddity, but then you probably guessed that.
They add it was a natural fit to the work that they do: “Those people in ground control aren’t seen. They’re in the background, helping you launch,” says Boswell.
The post Dig PR and Common Ground merge to launch Ground Control PR appeared first on stoppress.co.nz.
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