Australasia’s largest integrated marketing and communications agency, Bastion, is continuing its expansion by acquiring one of New Zealand’s leading and most well-respected digital experience agencies, Catch Design, renowned for its human-centric design approach.
Founded in Wellington in 2005 by Hamish Stevenson, Catch Design has grown from a digital experience design studio into a full-service digital agency. With a dedicated team of 25 strategists, designers, producers, and engineers, Catch has established itself as a leading force in the digital creative, creative technology and experience design space.
The acquisition aligns with Bastion’s strategic growth ambitions across Australia and New Zealand in the digital arena, bringing deeper expertise across customer experience, experience design, marketing technologies, CRM, web, app, and product development. They will join the wider team across Digital Customer and Technology Experience, and Digital Transformation, led by Managing Director, Tim den Braber.
Catch Design CEO, Hamish Stevenson says the partnership will also enhance their business offering and capabilities.
“We’ve had big ambitions to grow and broaden our services and have been looking for a partner that can help us successfully scale up. Joining the team at Bastion provides the opportunity to access global clients and markets whilst also increasing our capabilities for existing clients,” said Stevenson.
“After meeting with the team and hearing their vision and philosophy for the future of Bastion, we knew we’d found the right partners. Both businesses are culturally aligned.”
Catch’s portfolio is immense, having partnered with notable brands such as 2degrees, Mercury, One NZ (formerly Vodafone NZ), Burger King, Consumer NZ, NZ Olympic Committee, Now NZ, AA Smartfuel, Fonterra and TSB.
Managing Director of Digital, Tim den Braber said the acquisition enhances Bastion’s innovation and expertise in the creative digital space, positioning them as leaders in an ever-evolving industry.
“Bastion’s acquisition of Catch brings world-leading technical expertise in the digital activation space. Our clients will be able to leverage specialisations that push smart strategy, data, and analytics into tech automation and activation to realise customer and business value. Spending time with Hamish and the team collaborating across Australia and New Zealand with key clients only showed why they’re the right business to bring into the group. Mindset, culture, client centricity, a progressive approach to technology and innovation is exactly what every client needs today.” said Braber.
Bastion ANZ CEO, Cheuk Chiang, says the partnership represents an ongoing expansion of Bastion capabilities and is a significant milestone in their plans to become the leader in the digital space.
“At Bastion, we believe in not only providing wide end-to-end capabilities for our clients, but also deep expertise. This means investment in highly experienced talent in key practice areas. Our digital services ecosystem is able to help clients leverage specialisations in digital advisory, data and analytics, tech automation, and best-in-class activation to drive growth and realise customer and business value,” said Chiang.
“The acquisition marks the latest move in our strategy to strengthen digital offering and integrate top-tier talent into an already exceptionally talented team.”
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