What Buntin Group does

Buntin Group, founded in 1972 in Nashville, was a fiercely independent U.S. brand-building agency. In August 2026 it merged with Bastion USA to form BastionBUNTIN, a wholly owned subsidiary of Australasia's Bastion Group, employing over 400 staff across nine offices in the United States (Nashville, New York, Los Angeles), Australia (Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane), and New Zealand (Auckland, Wellington). The company operates a B2B professional services model, delivering integrated marketing work through direct enterprise client engagements across six practices — Communications, Advertising, Digital, Experience, Insights, and Media — and counts Coca-Cola, Spotify, Kellogg's, Trex Company, and SERVPRO among its named clients. Its go-to-market is relationship-based enterprise field sales, positioned explicitly as an independent alternative to WPP- and Dentsu-style holding-company networks.

Underpinning the service offering is a stack of proprietary assets: a World Building brand-construction framework, an internal Radical Collaboration operating ethos, and a Super Human offering that blends human creativity with machine intelligence. Three proprietary tools sit on top of this stack — StrengthOS, an AI-powered platform for strengthening briefs and accelerating delivery; the Net Conviction Score (NCS), which quantifies brand conviction across Practical, Emotional, Personal, and Causal drivers; and the Conviction Business Index (CBI), which correlates conviction to business outcomes such as comparable sales, margins, traffic counts, and transaction averages. Pricing is engagement-based and not publicly disclosed; the firm earns revenue through professional-services retainers and project work rather than product or media resale as a primary line. Leadership is anchored by Group CEO Cheuk Chiang, CEO Jeff Browe, Co-Chairmen Fergus Watts and Jeffrey Buntin Jr., and a U.S. executive bench covering creative, client leadership, insights, experience, PR, and finance.

Name

Buntin Group

Legal name

BastionBUNTIN

Website

https://buntingroup.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

1972

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

51–100 employees

Short description

BastionBUNTIN (formerly Buntin Group) is an independent integrated marketing agency serving enterprise clients such as Coca-Cola, Spotify, Kellogg's, and Trex across nine offices in the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand, using proprietary AI and brand-conviction tools.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Nashville

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices8 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Marketing Agency Services: Full-service integrated marketing agency providing services across communications, advertising, digital, experience, insights, and media. Revenue generated through professional services engagements with enterprise and mid-market clients.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

Buntin Group (now BastionBUNTIN) is a strategic brand communications and integrated marketing agency that delivers end-to-end services across Communications, Advertising, Digital, Experience, Insights, and Media practices for enterprise clients. The firm packages these services under proprietary frameworks—World Building (brand-building process), Radical Collaboration (integrated operating ethos), and Super Human (human-plus-AI capability)—and supports execution with proprietary tools including the StrengthOS AI platform, Net Conviction Score (NCS), and Conviction Business Index (CBI).

Product overview

BastionBUNTIN is a unified agency network formed from the merger of Nashville-based Buntin and Australasia's largest independent agency Bastion. The offering combines three core strategic approaches—World Building (proprietary brand-building framework), Radical Collaboration (integrated operating ethos), and Super Human (human-plus-AI capability)—with six service practices: Communications, Advertising, Digital, Experience, Insights, and Media. Supporting these are three proprietary tools: StrengthOS (AI-powered strategy platform), NCS (Net Conviction Score brand metric), and CBI (Conviction Business Index correlation tool).

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Communications Service practice that helps organizations shape and deliver powerful messages that protect reputation and engage audiences through consumer PR, corporate communications, media relations, crisis and issues management, influencer marketing, and public affairs.
• Advertising Service practice that creates compelling campaigns that build conviction and drive brand impact through end-to-end advertising solutions across strategy, creative, design, omni-channel media management, and production.
• Digital Service practice that connects brands, customers, and technology to create meaningful digital experiences through advisory, analytics, automation, and activation services.
• Experience Service practice that brings brands to life through partnerships, experiential activations, and creative storytelling, combining commercial strategy with experiential delivery to create lasting brand connections.
• Insights Service practice that delivers research and data-driven insights for smarter organizational decisions, covering consumer insights, communities, social and government research, and cross-cultural intelligence.
• Media Service practice that ensures brands reach the right audiences through strategic, insight-led media planning and buying, combining research, technology, and data optimization across channels.
• World Building Proprietary brand-building process providing a central system for strategy, customer experience, storytelling, and innovation; aligns all brand activity through a consistent framework to optimize performance at key moments of truth and engagement.
• Super Human Next-generation offering where human expertise meets intelligent technology, blending the art of human creativity with the precision of machine intelligence to drive transformative marketing outcomes.
• StrengthOS AI-powered proprietary platform purpose-built to strengthen briefs, accelerate delivery, power smarter strategy, and drive connected growth across teams and partners.
• NCS – Net Conviction Score Proprietary metric that quantifies brand conviction by establishing a measurable benchmark across Practical, Emotional, Personal, and Causal drivers to drive targeted growth.
• CBI – Conviction Business Index Proprietary metric that correlates brand conviction to business results, quantifying business lift across KPIs including Comp Sales, Margins, Traffic Counts, and Transaction Averages.

Quantifiable outcome

• Brand Conviction measurement across Practical, Emotional, Personal, and Causal drivers
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers5 records

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability6 records

Feature5 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• Bastion USAcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 18 August 2026Independent marketing agencies Bastion USA and Buntin merged to form BastionBUNTIN, establishing a global independent agency network serving the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand. The combined entity employs over 400 staff across nine offices under CEO Jeff Browe.

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Stagwell: Publicly traded independent marketing and communications network explicitly built as an alternative to WPP/Omnicom. Directly comparable to BastionBUNTIN in its independent-network positioning, multi-discipline offering (creative, media, digital, communications), and consolidation-driven growth model.
• Wieden+Kennedy: Large fiercely independent creative agency with global offices and a roster of major enterprise brands. Comparable to BastionBUNTIN in independent ethos, integrated creative/advertising offering, and enterprise client base (e.g., Nike, Coca-Cola).
• R/GA: Independent digital and creative agency operating globally with enterprise clients. Comparable to BastionBUNTIN in its digital/creative integration, AI-enabled offering, and Fortune-500 client roster across multiple geographies.
• 72andSunny: Independent creative agency with offices in the US, Europe, and Asia-Pacific serving major brands. Comparable to BastionBUNTIN in its multi-market independent positioning, integrated brand-building approach, and entertainment/CPG client base.
• Mother: Independent creative agency network with offices in NY, LA, London, and Shanghai. Comparable to BastionBUNTIN in its fiercely independent positioning, integrated creative/advertising offering, and roster of major consumer brands.

Broad incumbents

• Omnicom Group: Global advertising holding company (BBDO, DDB, TBWA, etc.) with multi-billion-dollar billings. Comparable to BastionBUNTIN in its full-service integrated offering across advertising, media, digital, and PR, but at vastly greater scale and with multinational geographic reach.
• Publicis Groupe: Global advertising holding company with agencies including Saatchi & Saatchi, Leo Burnett, and Digitas. Comparable to BastionBUNTIN in offering the same integrated disciplines (advertising, digital, media, communications), but operates at global holding-company scale.
• WPP: World's largest advertising holding company, explicitly named in the company data as a competitive incumbent. Comparable across all six integrated service disciplines but at a vastly larger scale with global reach across all major markets.
• Dentsu: Global advertising holding company with strong Asia-Pacific presence, explicitly referenced in the company data as a competitive incumbent. Comparable to BastionBUNTIN across integrated service lines, with particular overlap in the Australasian market where Bastion historically operated.
• Interpublic Group (IPG): Global advertising holding company with agencies including McCann, MullenLowe, and FCB. Comparable to BastionBUNTIN in offering the same integrated disciplines across advertising, media, digital, and PR, but at holding-company scale with global footprint.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/the-buntin-group
• Xx.com/thebuntingroup
• Facebookfacebook.com/buntingroup

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles17 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Buntin Group