Bastion, Australia's largest integrated marketing and communications agency, has announced its acquisition of New Zealand's leading digital experience agency, Catch Design.

Catch Design, founded in Wellington in 2005 by Hamish Stevenson, has grown into a full-service digital agency with a team of 25 strategists, designers, producers, and engineers. The agency has 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.

This move 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. Financial terms were not disclosed.

"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 client," said Stevenson, CEO of Catch Design (pictured right). "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."

Bastion's client list includes Air New Zealand, Spark, Genesis, Tower Microsoft, L’Oréal, Unilever, Kellogg’s, Ferrari, Cancer Institute NSW, and Whittaker's. The agency is Climate Active Carbon Neutral, a partnership between the Australian Government and Australian businesses driving voluntary climate action.

Tim den Braber, Managing Director of Digital (pictured left) at Bastion saw its acquisition of Catch bringing 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," he said.

Cheuk Chiang, CEO of Bastion ANZ, said it also tied into the belief in not only providing wide end-to-end capabilities for 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. The acquisition marks the latest move in our strategy to strengthen digital offering and integrate top-tier talent into an already exceptionally talented team," he added.