‘We want to be the go-to partner’: Bud Communications expands into Australia, hires country lead
Singapore-born Bud Communications has officially expanded into the Australian market. Speaking exclusively to Mumbrella, founder and CEO, Oliver Budgen, and Australia lead, Richie Kenzie, explained their ambitious move.
Launched in 2020 in Singapore as a PR and content agency built for disruptor brands, the agency hopes to bring creative communications to challenger brands locally, and bolster its regional capabilities across APAC.
While many businesses struggled in 2020 due to Covid lockdowns, Budgen told Mumbrella the agency thrived.
“While a lot of companies were adapting to Covid, they were having to completely change their business practices, their operations, it defined us from day one. We had to be agile, we were flexible, all of our policies were designed from the ground up from Covid,” he said.
“And that still follows us today – it means that we’re still agile and we always try to refresh or challenge the way we’re doing things.”
He said the market was receptive to Bud Communications because companies were rethinking the ways they work too, and being a relatively new “fresh, forward thinking” agency, the market was “going crazy”.
The agency has since opened offices in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, with a team of 15. Leading the charge at the agency’s Singapore HQ is client services manager Patricia Malay. She joined the agency in 2023, having previously held roles at Ogilvy, Havas and FleishmanHillard.
Patricia Malay
While Bud Communications Australia was actually set up two years ago, it’s only in the last few months that things have ramped up. Many of the agency’s Southeast Asia clients are looking to the Australian market, and since hiring Richie Kenzie as Australia lead, it’s been able to support those clients wishes.
“It took us some time to really feel that we were ready, and now with Richie on board to help lead things, we’re confident,” Budgen said.
Kenzie, who previously worked at The Misfits Media Company and Clear Hayes Consulting, among other various content agencies and publishers, has been tasked with building growth in the Australian region, with a focus on integrated content.
“I’ll be doing not just PR, but integrated content for these existing clients,” Kenzie said. “I’ve been in the media industry quite a while now, so I’m bringing quite a bit of experience. I’ve worked across journalism, editorial, media agencies, content agencies, and that is reflected in my work for these clients.”
Bud Communications has already picked up some Australian-based clients, including GumGum and Playground XYZ, Yellow Canary, NP Digital, Symbio, Choco-Up, and impact.com.
“They can see we’re taking it quite seriously,” Kenzie told Mumbrella. “Once they realised that we’ve got boots on the ground here, it’s sort of changed the game.”
(L-R): Richie Kenzie, Oliver Budgen
Budgen hopes the momentum Bud Communications has achieved in the past six months, will continue.
“Australia is a huge focus for us at the moment, basically driven by client feedback and demand,” he said.
“We really want to bolster our APAC credentials to the point where we can be that go-to partner across all markets, and we’re not there yet.”
The agency is currently exploring other regional markets to launch into, including Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and China.
“Our long-term ambition is global – but we’re starting with regional obviously. Eventually though, we’ll be looking to North America and Europe,” Budgen continued.
“Our clients aren’t necessarily looking for a local agency to do local PR in a local market. They’re looking for a growth partner that can obviously help them cover where they are now, but also where they’re going to be at tomorrow too. And that’s where a lot of our strengths lie.”
The agency’s strategy comes down to that partnership – being able to help its clients grow and scale.
“Our strategy isn’t going to be hinged on local market activation without making sure it’s thoroughly connected with our other partners around the world as well,” Budgen said.
“Our teams are connected where it makes sense, because we want to give the best to our clients, whether that’s talent based in Australia or Singapore.”
The agency has recently made its second Australian hire, to be announced in due course.
Subscribe to the monthly CommsCon newsletter
Got a tip?
Lauren McNamara is a journalist at Mumbrella, covering the creative and PR beat. She joined in November 2022 as editorial assistant, after completing a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) at UTS.
Linkedin
Have your say