Bastion has launched a new media division with Kellogg’s parent Kellanova as its foundation client across Australia and New Zealand, B&T can reveal.
Earlier this week, B&T also revealed that Bastion had gobbled up the consolidated creative accounts for Kellogg’s Breakfast and Wholesome Snack brands. Publicis-owned media agency Zenith had been the incumbent on Kellogg’s media. Zenith had no comment on the story.
Bastion CEO Cheuk Chiang told B&T that the new media division would have a “profound” impact on Bastion’s business.
“We want to be able to go to our clients with a stronger, more integrated offering with one door to go through. What that’s meant for us is that we needed to close the gap within media.
“The play in media is going to be quite profound across our entire business. Media isn’t just going to play a role connecting with creative. It’ll make our creative stronger but also make our experience offering stronger. It’ll make our social and influencer offering way stronger, obviously because we’ll have stronger connections with the platforms. It’ll make our insights offering stronger as it will plug directly into media—something unique and distinctive for us because we’ve got such a large insights capacity, more so than any other agency group.”
Bastion is currently the largest independent agency across Australasia. Chiang joined Bastion nine months ago, after a stint as the CEO of Dentsu Creative APAC. However, Chiang’s true area of expertise has lain within media—he spent nearly five years as PHD’s Asia Pacific CEO before heading upstairs to become the Asia Pacific CEO of the agency’s parent, the Omnicom Media Group.
“It was always the plan to round out our offerings, our end-to-end capabilities,” Chiang said.
“But I couldn’t be more pleased [with the media division’s progress]. It’s not just about us, it’s about how engaged we are with our clients.”
Ben O’Brien, Kellanova Australia’s commercial director said the business was “excited” about the new media offering.
“By bringing media and creative services under one roof, we are fostering a unified approach that will drive collaboration and push our brands into new territories, unlocking their full potential. This integrated team will deliver excellent creative work supported by first-class media, ensuring strong ROI,” he said.
Bastion will be announcing the leader of its new media division soon.
Return To Full Service?
Bastion’s Kellanova win perhaps points to a broader trend within the marketing world. Clients are struggling with growing media complexity, finding audiences harder to reach and returns harder to generate. Against that backdrop, some are choosing a return to agency models that consolidate services behind one door, rather than spreading them across specialist agencies.
Earlier this year, Honda, for instance, pooled its creative and media with Howatson+Company. More recently, Suncorp brought the creative for all of its brands in with Leo Burnett.
“There are several trends we’re seeing more of,” said Chiang.
“With the digitisation of media and audiences shifting primarily to the large platforms – Google, Meta, TikTok – we’ve seen clients focus on engaging with audiences within those channels. There is also a greater shift, that we’re seeing with our other clients, is a shift to integrated marketing comms (IMC), there has been a need for greater integration of capabilities. The third trend is that CMO roles are changing, they’re no longer focused on brand development or creative or media. Their role now covers digital transformation, e-commerce and other things.
“We want to be able to go to our clients with a stronger, more integrated offering with one door to go through and that means we need to close out our offering end-to-end.”
Angela Morris, Bastion’s chief strategy officer, concurred: “The convergence of media, creative and other services is essential for driving measurable value in today’s market. Our new media offering enables us to fully support the CMO’s broadened remit by delivering holistic solutions that address every facet of brand building. We’re here to be a true partner, working as an extension of the client’s team to ensure alignment on shared objectives and outcomes.”
Ana Lynch, Bastion’s managing partner, said that it was a “catastrophe” for creative when it separated from media. Now, however, she feels it is right that the two are converging again.
“It’s great to see that finally there is a recognition [that they need to come together]. There are various models, agency villages, within networks and we’ve seen that partners can play well in a sandpit.”
But to truly generate results for clients in a shifting media landscape that requires more tailored content than ever, Lynch said that both creative and media need to sit under one roof.
Bastion will still pitch its services separately, the team confirmed to B&T, depending on client needs. However, it is confident that once clients see the benefits of full integration – particularly with its insights offering generates research from a panel of more than 100,000 Australians and New Zealanders – they will find it hard to resist bringing everything into the Bastion fold.
Its ultimate aim is to become Australia’s largest independent media agency and Chiang is also plotting an Asian expansion. It seems there is plenty more to come.
