Agency Launches Pinecone-Only Ideation Retreat, Cites ‘Purity of Thought’
In a bold move guaranteed to confuse clients and inspire junior creatives to feign enlightenment, Auckland agency Buckle & Smirk has officially completed its first Pinecone-Only Ideation Retreat. The three-day offsite, held in a damp cabin somewhere west of Karangahake Gorge, banned all devices, caffeine, and traditional brainstorming tools. Attendees were given only a bucket of locally foraged pinecones, a white tarp, and a single question: “But what if the product *isn’t* the idea?”
Executive Creative Director Stacy Kermitt, wearing a wool vest she claimed to have knit “in honour of the muse,” said the pinecones were chosen for their “clean energy” and “non-suggestive shape.” According to internal Slack logs leaked by an intern who refused to ride a horse to the retreat, the team spent up to five hours in silence arranging the cones in concentric circles, occasionally murmuring phrases like “break the medium” and “the brief is the prison.”
The retreat reportedly produced seven ‘thought-packets’ and one philosophically dense keynote titled *Marketing as Moss: The Quiet Campaigning*. When asked if any actual ideas for clients emerged, Strategy Lead Rakeem Lin simply replied, “That’s not the point.” He added that the goal was to “unthink thinking” and “smell ideas before naming them.”
Although Buckle & Smirk originally billed the initiative as carbon-neutral and spiritually significant, sources confirmed that a junior account manager had to Uber back to Hamilton after developing a strong allergic reaction to pine dust. Plans are already underway for a follow-up retreat focused on staring at puddles while reevaluating the concept of ‘ROI’. Client participation remains ‘tentative.’
Executive Creative Director Stacy Kermitt, wearing a wool vest she claimed to have knit “in honour of the muse,” said the pinecones were chosen for their “clean energy” and “non-suggestive shape.” According to internal Slack logs leaked by an intern who refused to ride a horse to the retreat, the team spent up to five hours in silence arranging the cones in concentric circles, occasionally murmuring phrases like “break the medium” and “the brief is the prison.”
The retreat reportedly produced seven ‘thought-packets’ and one philosophically dense keynote titled *Marketing as Moss: The Quiet Campaigning*. When asked if any actual ideas for clients emerged, Strategy Lead Rakeem Lin simply replied, “That’s not the point.” He added that the goal was to “unthink thinking” and “smell ideas before naming them.”
Although Buckle & Smirk originally billed the initiative as carbon-neutral and spiritually significant, sources confirmed that a junior account manager had to Uber back to Hamilton after developing a strong allergic reaction to pine dust. Plans are already underway for a follow-up retreat focused on staring at puddles while reevaluating the concept of ‘ROI’. Client participation remains ‘tentative.’