Insight Communities
Making customer centricity part of everyday. Through agile, research sprints we deliver real time feedback in bite-size chunks suited to the speed of business today.
Insight Communities
Experience Design
Improving experiences for everyone through human centred design (HCD) principles. We can examine the experince from any perspective – customers, users, community, stakeholders or staff. Experience design covers customer experinece (CX), user experience (UX) and servce design (SD)
Experience Design
Communication Research
Nurturing the power of creative hearts through science brains, we use research to help design better communications through all stages of comms planning.
Communication Research
Cross-Cultural Insights
The Cross-Cultural Insights team’s expertise focuses on cultural research and consulting, targeting the Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) communities residing in Australia. Through conducting research across Australia, the Asia-Pacific and beyond, we have developed strong expertise in social and commercial research and established a significant understanding of our diverse consumers and CALD communities in Australia. We have a deep understanding of cultural nuances and their impact on social behaviours, brand aspiration, purchase expectations, drivers and barriers, decision making, and the impacts of communication and marketing strategy planning.
We act as the bridge, helping you and your business to connect through differences.
We bring the world to you.
Cross-Cultural Insights
Behavioural Insights
Using research and behavioural science to understand human behaviour through both exploration and experimentation.
Our research goes deeper to explore the context, and to understand the biases, heuristics and norms that impact on people’s decision making.
Behavioural Insights
THE LATEST INSIGHTS ON THE PANDEMIC IN AUSTRALIA
ADAPTING TO THE NEW NORMAL: RESEARCH STUDY
Our
Work

Many CALD migrants struggle to integrate into Australian culture due to knowledge and understanding gaps, and fear of not doing the right thing. In partnership with the VRC, the Chinese Museum and Myer, we strived to close these knowledge and understanding gaps through creating a meaningful engagement opportunity for n=10 handpicked, high-net-worth, first to fifth generation Chinese migrants. Guests were invited along to a two-part event: The first part was a session at the Chinese Museum to educate guests on the racing industry and the Chinese-Australian migration journey, followed by an exclusive personal shopping experience at Myer’s flagship Bourke Street Mall store. The second part of this event, the…

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) on behalf of the Australian Energy Regulator (AER), commissioned strategic market research and CX consultancy Bastion Insights to conduct a review of Energy Made Easy (EME), their electricity and gas offer comparison tool. In its quest to redevelop Energy Made Easy, AER needed to more accurately understand user needs and expectations, ensuring it based its new vision, product roadmap and website user experience within a deep understanding of the energy consumer. Through a multi-disciplined approach including usability testing, workshops, an online community and a survey, we developed insights to inform AER’s planning over the next…

As the COVID-19 pandemic emerged, Medibank identified a critical need among the community for mental health support services to help people cope with the stress caused by the situation. As a leader in healthcare in Australia, Medibank developed a concept for a health and support service for its members that provided access to a range of healthcare professionals, at no extra cost. The Bastion Insights team stepped in to provide extremely timely but valuable insights on this concept, gathered from conducting rapid turnaround quantitative research among Medibank members. This assisted Medibank in making very fast decisions about the service, its…

New Era has manufactured high-quality caps for generations. With 100 years under their belt, they are the world leader in headwear and are the official cap of many renowned sporting leagues locally and internationally. But their offering goes beyond simply sport: New Era caps are also a fashion statement for an eclectic group of consumers. With a product that has such broad appeal, New Era needed to sharpen their understanding of who their priority consumer targets should be to drive success. The benefits of a buyer persona or consumer target are that it ensures business decisions are driven by customer…

Transurban wanted to understand the pain points the Chinese-speaking community was experiencing, and the key questions they have when it comes to traveling on toll roads and paying for them. Bastion Insights helped to explore how language barriers may impact customers’ knowledge and experience of using toll roads. This helped Transurban develop relevant and meaningful communications that engage Chinese drivers and encourage them to get set-up for traveling on toll roads. The Cross-Cultural Insights team has identified gaps and issues that are deeply linked to the Chinese culture and brought-up, combined with challenges new migrants face. These have shaped the…

Despite being first to market with the innovative pancake shaker bottle, our client has experienced a significant increase in competition in recent years – particularly from private label. As the current market is heavily price-driven, our client is seeking a point of differentiation in order to reinstate growth within the product category once again. Everyone loves pancake shakers for how easy and convenient they are to use (and the quick clean up afterward) but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement. We wanted to uncover any functional pain points, big or small, that could be addressed through product innovation….

How we used Cross-Cultural Insights to help a historic wine brand tap into a growing market.

Deakin University’s nutrition degree was experiencing a significant drop in enrolments. Bastion Insights’ research not only helped reverse the decline in demand but resulted in a nomination for the 2019 AMI Awards for Marketing Excellence.

Bastion Insights conducted user acceptance testing with a ChatBot designed to help smokers quit.

Bastion Insights has partnered with L’Oreal Australia to provide a pool of consumers to tap into at a moment’s notice; creating an ongoing, holistic connection with all their consumers.

Special Olympics Australia wanted to understand the public’s perception of their organisation in order to tailor their communications and drive positive perceptions.

Negative media coverage has been an issue for the entire sun protection category for the past 3 years and a well-known brand needed help addressing by utilising an insights community.

A well-known caravaning and camping brand commissioned Bastion Insights to bring their customer segments to life by better understanding the customer journey and their attitudes, behaviours and key purchasing decisions.

Bastion Insights were engaged by a leading Australian university about to launch its long-term strategic vision and comprehensive change program.
Testimonials

The Bastion Insights Idea Exchange community has become a
key element in Medibank’s insights strategy. As an insights-led,
customer first Marketing function, it is vital that we have access to
high quality, relevant customer insights in a timely manner. The
Bastion Insights team consistently deliver on these requirements
and have become a trusted partner across multiple Divisions.
Medibank
The team at Bastion Insights offer consistently excellent research support across a gamut of activities, including comms testing, sentiment analysis, UX and product design. They’re succinct, timely and really understand our business objectives.
Australia Post
Before the research took place, we didn’t have a thorough understanding of how our brand was perceived by Chinese, but we have learned so much about Chinese and their culture, this (research) has been an invaluable investment!
Yalumba
Bastion Insights are an excellent research house, with an exceptional understanding of the commercial context. They are particularly good at the visual presentation of data which we can use at all levels through the organisation. They’ve been very responsive in both qual and quant studies and they deliver insights rapidly, so we can drive decision-making at the pace we need. I’d have no hesitation in recommending them to any business that wants to discover their customers’ unspoken motivations.
Discovery Parks
The Bastion Insights team have worked with us now for more than three years on Shopper Experience as well as ad-hoc communications development and testing. Our business has benefited greatly from the partnership with Dianne and her team. More importantly, our customers are heard within our organisation. We elect to work with people who are responsive and clear-thinking. Their research must also be excellent. We look forward to continued success together.
Metcash
I really enjoy working with Bastion Insights. They’re always on point for great research and are very commercially astute with their recommendations. They have helped us connect with our consumers in a way that enables our business to be truly consumer centric and uncover learnings we simply could not have found without them.
L'Oreal Australia








WHAT CAN WE DISCOVER TOGETHER?
We are fast-paced, customer-centric and culturally attuned. Australia’s leading agile insights consultancy using customer communities, human-centred design, behavioural science and cross-cultural insights to ensure our clients keep pace with an evolving Australia.
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Bastion is a truly integrated, full-service marketing and communications agency founded in 2009. We are Australia’s largest independent agency, with an ambition to achieve the same feat in the USA.
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