The founder of Brisbane-based independent creative agency Wonderkarma, Nick Deane, has expanded his agency brand into the South Pacific with the launch of Wonderkarma Vanuatu.

The new venture will be a sister agency to the Brisbane firm, and will be helmed by Deane from Port Villa. Since opening its doors in January, the agency has built a local client base that includes Gaston Chocolat, Vanuatu Tourism, the Government of Vanuatu, and Accor's South Pacific Mgallery Collection.

The agency's ethos is centred around codesign and authentic integration with Vanuatu's indigenous population, the ni-Vanuatu, with plans to showcase the beauty and diversity of Vanuatu and its people to the world.

"Vanuatu just won 'friendliest country in the world' again, topping the Happy Planet Index for the second time since the list was first published in 2006," Deane said. "The ranking is based on self-reported well-being scores, life expectancy, GDP per capita and carbon footprint - all the truly important things."

The agency aims to become completely self-sufficient, run by ni-Vanuatu creating communications that speak to ni-Vanuatu. This approach is exemplified in its work for Gaston Chocolat, a tree-to-bar chocolate maker in Vanuatu. The new packaging for Gaston Chocolat will feature the artwork of a dozen ni-Vanuatu artists as part of its refreshed brand campaign.

"Vanuatu is pure happiness and a perfect alignment for the Wonderkarma brand, which is built on nice people wanting to do good work with other nice people," Deane said. "As an industry, we can't keep enforcing Western ways of communicating and think that, just by translating, we're doing the job...Communication is specific to country and culture and if agencies embraced codesign, they'd find there's a more effective way of creating impactful communications, wherever you are in the world."

Wonderkarma Vanuatu also aims to increase local capacity and capability in brand and marketing in the South Pacific. "Our goal is to show young ni-Vanuatu that there's a future for them to stay in the country," Deane said. "We're also looking to connect with young ni-Vanuatu who went abroad to study and provide a pathway for them to return home and have a rewarding creative career."

Meanwhile, Wonderkarma's Australian operation continues under the leadership of Tim Kho as General Manager Brisbane and Alexa Pyke as General Manager North Queensland.