Bastion China rebrands to Bastion Asia
Bastion China has rebranded to Bastion Asia, as it expands its service offering to help brands connect with emerging Asian consumer markets.
The Sydney and Melbourne-based Bastion China re-launched in 2018 as a rebrand of the agency’s S&GO offering, helping brands better understand and engage with Chinese consumers, both in Australia and overseas.
The rebrand comes after the Bastion Collective acquired two agencies in the US, merging ecommerce agency, Cyndica Labs, into Bastion Rare and social media and performance agency, Huntington Pacific Media, into US PR and social agency, Bastion Elevate.
Bastion China has rebranded to Bastion Asia
The expansion of Bastion Asia’s reach across the continent is in response to an increasing number of briefs that seek to reach Asian audiences outside China, particularly those with a growing middle class.
Bastion Asia CEO, Richard Chapman, said: “Bastion Asia reflects a global view that brands are increasingly taking and aims to help clients succeed across Asia – whether that is penetrating a new market, driving awareness and sales growth, or positioning and reinventing their brands internationally and domestically.”
Bastion Asia will continue to offer the prior agency’s services, such as WeChat marketing, and will bring on cross-cultural research led by Isabel Zhang, the former head of qualitative at Nielsen in Singapore, Malaysia and Australia.
The full service offering includes strategy development, public relations, market research and insights, retail and shopper marketing, e-commerce and live streaming services, influencer marketing strategies and engagement.
Chapman took over as CEO of Bastion China in February, following the departure of Jane Lu. He is also the CEO of Bastion Effect.
Bastion Collective’s CEO, Jack Watts, said: “We launched Bastion China 5 years ago when so many brands were just at the start of their journey to open up sales channels with local and mainland Chinese. Over the past few years, we have been doing more and more work for our clients in opening up other Asian markets and now service more than a dozen clients in 10 Asian countries.
“China now only makes up one part of the pan-Asia strategies we are building for clients, hence evolving the business to become Bastion Asia simply reflects the work we are already doing.”
