Bastion Australia’s ‘biggest ever’ agency claim after Shine deal

Advertising firm Bastion has bought New Zealand creative Shine in a deal it claims will make the combined business Australasia’s biggest locally owned independent agency.

Jack Watts and his brother Fergus now oversee a business with annual revenue well above $50m and growing 30 per cent per year. Picture: John Feder

Advertising firm Bastion has bought New Zealand creative and digital agency Shine in a deal it claims will make the combined business Australasia’s biggest locally owned independent agency.

Bastion chief executive Jack Watts says his business is one of the few in the sector to grow substantially during Covid, with the Shine deal adding about 20 per cent to its staff on top of the 250 Bastion already employs across Australia and the US.

The deal adds Shine clients such as Air New Zealand, telco Spark, energy company Genesis and Tip Top to Bastion’s global client list that includes Microsoft, Google, KFC, AIA and L’Oreal.

Jack Watts and brother Fergus now oversee a business with annual revenue well above $50m and growing 30 per cent per year, and one that has employed 50 new staff alone since mid-2021 in an effort to win market share while their foreign-owned rivals have downsized.

Mr Watts attributes the firm’s growth during Covid to a key meeting with an industry legend just as the pandemic hit Australia last year.

The 34-year-old was in Melbourne and about to attend the 2020 Grand Prix with key client Ferrari when the gates literally shut on the event as the world suddenly had to grapple with a virus spreading rapidly and throwing business into chaos.

“Harold Mitchell had called me in late 2019, and said ‘hey you’re doing great things and an Aussie independent agency, come and see me for a cup of tea’,” Mr Watts told The Australian.

“I grew up in South Melbourne and so being summoned to York Street by Harold was like being called in by the king.”

Bastion CEO Jack Watts: ‘Clients want local agencies and people who understand them and have autonomy to do what they want with them.’ Picture: John Feder

Mr Mitchell famously built his Mitchell & Partners from scratch into the country’s most powerful media buying agency and told Mr Watts his most successful strategy was aggressively growing during economic downturns.

“Harold said, ‘listen son, this is what you need to know about business’ as he pulled out this chart showing revenue over time and the dips in 1987, 2001 and 2008,” recounted Mr Watts.

“He said these are the times our business got fundamentally better, we changed and went harder than anyone else, hiring not firing, and as a local business we made our own decisions quickly and came out the other side better than expected and better than the overall market.”

On Friday the 13th of March last year, Mr Watts remembered the lessons and dashed back to Bastion’s Melbourne office and called every client – he still gets chills looking at the chair he made calls from – and then spoke to Mr Mitchell for a refresher the following Monday. Bastion started implementing a plan on Tuesday.

“Pretty much from there, we’ve grown exponentially, hiring not firing and being there when clients need us. Clients want local agencies and people who understand them and have autonomy to do what they want with them.”

That has meant offering traditional media and ad buying but also digital content, film public relations, research and advisory services at the time that client spending is picking up again.

“They’re riding the wave of strong economic growth and, with the significant disposable income that Australians are sitting on, our clients want to be part of that,” Mr Watts said. “The cost of (advertising on) Google and Facebook is up, TV is up, so clients are asking how do we cut through with more creativity or better PR, how do we channel customers to their own digital platforms and so on. There’s a lot of work out there.”