The New Creative Playbook: Beyond the Brief. Keziah Wildsmith on Turning Moments into Momentum.

Shop Drop Daily
23 hours ago
5 min read

Keziah Wildsmith, Founder and Managing Director of Heaps + Stacks, has built an agency that believes the best brand experiences don't simply create a moment, they create momentum. Known for blending cultural insight with bold creativity and strategic thinking, Heaps + Stacks has become a trusted partner for brands looking to build deeper, more meaningful connections with their audiences. Now, with the launch of a dedicated merchandise offering, the agency is taking another step towards creating fully connected brand ecosystems that extend far beyond the event itself. In this conversation, Keziah shares why the future belongs to agencies that challenge briefs, think beyond execution, and design experiences, products, and stories that continue to live long after the activation is over.

Keziah Wildsmith, Founder and MD at HEAPS + STACKS.

SDD: Keziah, Heaps + Stacks has always championed culturally connected experiences, and now you're expanding into merchandise as a dedicated offering. It feels like a reflection of a much bigger shift in the industry. Do you think agencies today have a responsibility to think beyond delivering a single activation and instead ask, "How does this idea continue to live, travel and build value long after the doors close?

KW: In theory; an agency's job ends when the doors close and the client's happy. But that's not really true anymore…

Because a ‘moment’ shouldn't end when the event does - that needs to be the launch pad for where the campaign narrative goes next.

So yes, agencies most definitely have a responsibility to think of the future potential of a campaign beyond just a singular activation - a campaign should be a constellation of creative moments that play out in both digital and physical forms that make it impossible for consumers to miss!

One and done doesn’t work for brands who want sustained, engaged audiences. Even if it is ‘just one’ event, there will be elements like merch that continue the momentum of the initial activation into a GWP in-store or seeded out to their community which keeps people talking and lands with a bigger impact.

The Ordinary The Markup Marche, London

SDD: The best brand experiences don't end when people walk away, they become something people talk about, share and, increasingly, take home with them. Why do you think tangible objects have become such an important part of modern storytelling, and what separates meaningful merchandise from something that's simply branded swag?

KW: It’s stating the obvious, but we’re living in an age of immense digital fatigue. We’re all doomscrolling ourselves into a rabbit hole and so real-life experiences - and their textured, tangible signifiers - have become a new cultural currency.

When it comes to modern storytelling, we’re seeing a mass rejection of a polished filtered existence, in favour of flexing those messier, unfiltered, slightly-chaotic moments that can only happen in reality. Even the online world itself is turning away from traditional expectations on social media in favour of more niche, subcultural platforms (like Discord, Substack and Perfectly Imperfect).

People don’t just want to be sold to by the algorithm; we’re all out here seeking belonging and our place amongst the chaos. As an industry, we’re always looking for ways to stick in people’s minds and actually resonate with them, especially now when every brand is fighting for the same nanosecond of your attention.

When audiences have seen everything, what actually stands out?

That’s why creating limited-edition, super special objects works. We’ve seen a proliferation of meaningless merch over recent years and so I think it’s important to make this distinction. Intentional, niche merchandise that speaks to a specific moment in time carries weight.

Diet Coke x The Devil Wears Prada 2, London

SDD: You've built Heaps + Stacks around the idea of blending cultural insight with bold creativity, and that often means challenging the brief rather than simply responding to it. How important is it for agencies today to act as strategic partners, pushing clients beyond what they asked for and uncovering opportunities they perhaps hadn't even considered?

KW: Our team is constantly analysing the world around us to make sure we’re designing with an eye on cultural movements and trends while always preparing for where things are heading next. That means we’re not always going to offer up what’s most convenient or what’s expected (even if the clients asked for what Loewe has just done with their logo on it…).

We want to make people do a double-take and create intrigue and surprise, and ultimately, we want to create conversation.

So that guests leave our experiences with a unique and tangible memory (or a tangible object) to remind them of why it was so special - to remember what it was that the brand’s given that can physically embody the messaging or even be regifted to send message even wider.

And our clients can see that trusting us to take that creative risk pays off. What we specialise in is creating memorable and emotional connections for audiences with brands. This is why we’ve expanded into merch, alongside the rest of our offerings. We know that there’s a whole brand universe that we can create experientially, and the event itself is only one part of that!

Hotel Coco with BHC, Credit One Charleston Open

SDD: Your new merch offering isn't just a production capability, it's being launched with its own beautifully art-directed campaign, inspired by cinema and fashion. That says a lot about how you think as an agency. How important is it to lead by example and use your own brand as a canvas to demonstrate the creativity, craft and ambition you want clients to buy into?

KW: Our brand identity and TOV (which is sort of based on my own - whoops!) are super important to us; they shape and guide everything we do.

We’re particular about how we do things.

From our own brand positioning to the creative, playful and strategic eye we bring to the experiences we design for our clients. We really wanted to showcase our in-house capabilities with this campaign. Namely our stellar art direction skills and production expertise, as well as the range of beautiful and unique merch that we can create for our clients!

It’s a way of really re-introducing ourselves to those who already know us and establishing ourselves with those who don’t.

The films say a lot about who we are at Heaps + Stacks: playful, tongue-in-cheek and stylish, with bags of creative prowess and strategic insight to back it all up.

Rare Beauty x Sephora DRM LND, London

SDD: Looking ahead, it feels like the agencies that will thrive are the ones building complete brand worlds rather than isolated moments, where retail, events, content, social, digital and physical products all work together as one connected ecosystem. Is that how you see the future of experiential creativity, and where do you see Heaps + Stacks leading that conversation over the next few years?

KW: 1000%! A multi-faceted brand universe filled with IRL experiences is where we’re heading, and we want to be the ones setting the pace. This year alone, we’ve moved into influencer marketing and now we’re launching merch, plus we also have a couple more launches up our sleeves in the near future to expand out on our brand universe offering…

We evolve to match what our clients need, but mostly it’s in anticipation of where the world of experiential is heading.

We’ll be there, armed with knowledge, creative solutions and bags of insights to help our clients build out fully-integrated campaigns that resonate. Be it with events, trips, pop-ups, mailers or merch, we want to showcase exactly how all those ingredients can work together harmoniously!