Kia ora, I’m Simon Neate

I grew up in Mount Maunganui and my family now call Matapihi home.

I’ve always been intrigued by media, cameras, digital tools and the storytelling process and have been lucky to turn this into a career - continually learning, upskilling and collaborating with some incredible people.

Scroll on find out out a bit more about my work history or get in touch to chat.

Back to the Bay

After many years living, studying and working around Aotearoa and the world I moved back to the Bay of Plenty in 2014, armed with a Bachelor of Communication from Massey University and digital marketing experience with two Wellington software startups.

Marketing and communication roles with Sport Bay of Plenty and Bay of Plenty Regional Council saw my skillset and responsibilities expand rapidly - writing constantly, producing videos, managing bigger budgets and collaborating with other departments, journalists, publishers, producers and designers.

Highlights from this era include editing two weekly columns for local media, a cover story in UNO Magazine, teaching social media to community groups, winning a Sport New Zealand communication award, working on the national committee that created Bee Card and providing crisis comms from the emergency operations centre during Cyclone Cook.

Self-employed

In 2018 I went launched Simontology, offering media and marketing services to help business and organisations stand out online.

There was a real demand for content creation from the construction and real estate industries and during this time I was producing a lot of videos, shooting drone imagery and writing blogs and articles for clients’ websites and social media channels.

I also had the pleasure of working with Basketball New Zealand, Reform Fitness, Ngā Pōtiki ā Tamapahore Trust, Harcourts, Wave Agency and Te Whetu o te Rangi marae.

Tauranga City Council

In 2021 I was approached to plan and deliver several promotional campaigns and feature stories for Travel Safe, a road safety and active travel initiative run by Tauranga City Council. This led to a great ongoing relationship with the wider transport team as well as the Council’s Community Relations and Creative and Digital teams.

For the last three years I’ve been contracting solely to the Council, taking the strategic communication lead on various marketing, engagement and infrastructure projects including Water Watchers, the Mount to Arataki Spatial Plan, Destination Skatepark and countless others.