Matt Batten joins Affinity as ECD

August 21, 2025 9:46

Sydney-based independent agency Affinity has appointed award-winning creative Matt Batten as executive creative director.

Previously Five by Five Global’s ECD, Batten has a background in delivering creative and strategic work for “across integrated campaigns, digital and innovative tech, content, direct, CRM and experiential”.

“We recognised we needed a talent of Matt’s calibre to match our credentials in data, tech and effectiveness,” Affinity’s CEO Angela Smith said in a press release.

“We can tend to be seen as hard-core analytical and therefore not champions of creative, but nothing could be further from the truth. To grow our clients’ bottom lines you need technical smarts and you need to win hearts, and that demands human creativity.”

Smith went on to praise Batten’s creative and technical expertise.

“His conceptual thinking is world-class, and he understands and importantly, knows how to get the most from, the entire communications spectrum and funnel. He isn’t precious about where he applies his mind; he’s focused on measurable outcomes,” she said in the release.

In the same release, Batten said that Affinity’s desire to bolster its “creative approach” made him interested in the opportunity.

Matt Batten

“AFFINITY is known for their exhaustive list of Effies over a decade, proving a consistent reputation for delivering value to brands. But what intrigued me most was the team’s appetite for a bolder creative approach. It’s exciting to be part of this new phase for AFFINITY as we build brands through both creative emotional resonance and genuine results driven by innovation, media, data and tech,” he said in the release.

Batten’s career has seen him fill artistic and creative roles at the Australian offices of agencies Saatchi & Saatchi, BMF, Wunderman, Edge and Momentum Worldwide. In December 2012, he relocated to London to head up Wunderman UK as its chief creative officer. While there, he was also the company’s regional creative lead for EMEA. Additionally, Batten served as tech consultancy Valtech’s innovation lead and creative director from August 2015 to August 2016.

He joined Five by Five Global’s Sydney team in mid-2023.

Batten has over 150 international awards under his belt, including Cannes Lions, Spikes Asia and D&AD. He has worked with Emirates Airlines, Toyota, Heineken, Xbox, Coca-Cola, American Express, Nurofen and Microsoft among others.

In April 2024, he self-published his debut fantasy novel, Dark: And the Boy in the Hole, having completed it during the pandemic.

“Life gets in the way, right, so this has been sitting with me for about 10 years. I’ve had this dormant desire to write and express myself through stories, and it was during Covid that I was actually able to address that,” Batten told Mumbrella at the time.

He launched the novel’s sequel, Dark: And the Girl with the Knives, at Australian pop-culture convention Supanova in June 2025.