Australian independent communications agency Bastion Collective has expanded its business with a new retail strategy and marketing arm Bastion Retail.
Bastion Retail will help retailers and brands create new ways to attract, engage and retain consumers, with a "harmonised" approach to the physical and digital world.
“Growth for our clients often involves driving sales both online and in-store. As such, it is pivotal that the campaigns we run for a client translates all the way through to the point of sale," says Jack Watts, Bastion Collective local chief executive.
“Seeing things through to the retail environment, both e-commerce and bricks and mortar is pivotal to delivering a holistic communications approach and driving sales for our clients."
The new arm will be headed up by Marcus Millgate who has more than 20 years of retail marketing and advertising experience.
He has worked in senior agency roles in London, Kuala Lumpur, Sydney and most recently Seoul, working with WPP’s major clients at Grey Advertising, Ogilvy Worldwide and Geometry Global.
Millgate will work with Bastion’s clients, and complementary agencies, on retail marketing including shopper engagement, customer journey mapping, e-commerce strategy and development, trade promotion, packaging design; along with retail transformation and retail technology including voice AI and shop-streaming.
Millgate says Bastion Retail will be a force that "drives the re-imagining of retail" in the Australian market.
“People still want to touch and feel an item before buying it. Whilst online shopping and mobile commerce are the keys to retail growth, harmonizing the physical and digital world is the new black," Millgate says.
“In-store experiences are changing. It’s moving toward feeling like you’re in your cool friend’s apartment, rather than a department store, and service is becoming a key differentiator between retailers”.
Since launching, Bastion Retail has begun to work with Microsoft’s XBOX in Korea by establishing a dedicated page and presence on Korea’s largest e-commerce and social site, Kakao.
Tactics have included providing weekly sales offers and creating and repurposing global content achieving some strong results in just a five-day-period; going from zero to 10,000 subscribers, nine million impressions and 300,000 page views.
Millgate says the work with XBOX highlights the global reach Bastion Retail has from its Sydney office and knowledge of the Asian market to "deliver strategic value, insight and on-time execution".
The launch of Bastion Retail is the latest move from Bastion Collective, following the acquisition of Sydney-based creative agency Banjo last year.
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