Communications agency and advisory group Bastion Collective has announced the creation of two new specialist business inits, Bastion Engage and Bastion China.

Both have evolved from a previously centralised business unit, Bastion S&GO.

Bastion China has launched as a standalone business assisting brands to better understand and engage with Chinese consumers.

The business is led by Tom Parker, who is the vice president of the Australia China Business Council in Victoria and has worked across the China space for the past 20 years in government, media and management consulting.

Parker said: “As one of a handful of specialist Chinese language marketing and communications’ agencies in Australia, Bastion China aims to help clients connect through campaigns that look at market segmentation, local and international audiences and influencers and the channels and social media tools familiar to them.”

Bastion Engage has similarly launched as an independent business unit with a defined focus on community and government engagement, helping organisations and individuals build relationships that deliver results.

Bastion Engage is led by CEO Sean Sammon, an experienced engagement specialist with more than a decade’s experience in facilitating relationships between community organisations, business to government, and government to government.

Sammon previously worked for a range of federal government ministers across policy and media advisory roles.

Sammon said: “We help our clients identify the community or government relationships they need, put in place the strategy to build relationships and then work with our clients to create, enhance and maintain relationships that deliver results.

“We are passionate about relationship-focused community and government engagement, from meeting with a minister to organising a community town hall session. With the right relationship, anything can be achieved”.

Bastion Collective CEO Jack Watts (pictured above) said: “For the last nine years, Bastion Collective has had the determination to create an agency where clients can access a range of traditionally disparate customer engagement services in one place.

“For the best part of a decade we have created or acquired business built around great leaders with significant expertise in their respective fields.

“These areas of expertise include research and insights, PR and communications, sponsorship and experiential, reputation management, community and government engagement, content production, and China marketing.

“This is an end to end customer engagement service offering focused on helping brands talk to their consumers about who they are and what they want, through the medium of their choice, in their language, in their own time and in the places they choose to be. It’s a model we continue to build on.”

Watts believes that this differentiates Bastion Collective, as the business allows clients to access a range of customer engagement services in one place, while dealing with absolute experts in their field.

“Given each specialist owns part of their business, clients get to experience a level of service you can only get from owner-operators,” he said.

“This model is entirely designed to give the client the best possible experience and put their needs first. At Bastion, our specialists work together under a single roof benefitting from a chain of client knowledge that runs through the collective”.

“Whilst we are focused on getting better every day, we believe we are building the client-first, full-service model for today.”