The New Wave ~ Banter
The New Wave is Campaign Brief’s Q&A series spotlighting the next generation of independent creative companies and exploring how the indie model is evolving. From structure and speed to culture and capability, we unpack where these businesses are finding their edge and what’s driving client decisions today. Next up is Banter.
Give us the elevator pitch – who are you and what do you do?
Brands have never had more ways to reach people. People have never had more ways to ignore them.
We create interactions people choose to experience, use, join, remix and share, helping brands become easier to remember, easier to justify and easier to buy.
We call it real engagement. So put simply, we are Banter, the real engagement agency.
We do that through four integrated capabilities: Experiential & Events, Sponsorships & Partnerships, Social, Content & Connections, and Innovation & Digital.
That can mean turning Sam Kerr’s virtual football pitch into a permanent community facility, making a burger restaurant the Emerald City, getting 26 creators to simultaneously share the stories behind the charms on their Pandora bracelets, or getting Australians to tackle their bucket lists with R.M.Williams.
Different ways in. The same ambition: create something people care about and make it work for the business.
Are indies still challengers, or have they become the norm?
Independents are firmly in the mix. We can probably retire the plucky underdog routine.
Clients are trusting independent agencies with substantial business. But ownership alone doesn’t make you interesting. You still need a point of view and the ability to do something with it.
For us, that’s giving engagement a bigger role in how brands grow. Sponsorships, social, digital and experiential have often been handed a finished campaign and asked to make it work in their corner. There’s a lot of opportunity lost that way. A partnership can be the idea. An experience can give the campaign its story. A useful service can demonstrate a brand promise far better than another paragraph explaining it.
We like being there before someone decides what shape the answer should take. Having said that, we’re also humble enough to know that sometimes our clients or even their partner agencies have a cracking idea, and just need a bit of Banter magic to elevate it.
What’s your unfair advantage over the networks today?
Our advantage is how little distance there is between the people having the idea and the people figuring out how to make it happen.
Strategy, creative, production and technology work together from the start. The people who can make a decision are in the conversation, and the people delivering the work can improve it while it’s still taking shape.
That makes us quick. It also makes us realistic about budgets, ambitious about possibilities and quite good at spotting a problem before it becomes an expensive surprise. Fewer handovers. Less explaining the brief again. More getting on with it.
The business is connected enough to move quickly and hands-on enough to follow through. The people who got you excited about the idea stay close to making it happen.
How are you using AI to compete above your weight?
AI is useful. It’s also very keen to tell you that everything is a bold, seamless, game-changing experience! Ha.
The opportunity is to explore more possibilities, visualise ideas earlier and reduce the repetitive work that eats into the day. More time for people to think, challenge and make better decisions.
We’ve always been interested in technology that solves a problem. We built Bantix because sponsorship ticketing and hospitality were swallowing too much time. We built Bantalytics because we wanted our clients to measure experiential more effectively. We’re also about to launch a game-changing new piece of software that will change the game in the consumer promotion world.
And yes, AI has helped play a role, but it’s our people that are the secret sauce.
What kind of clients are choosing indies right now – and why?
Clients want good people who care about their business, give them a straight answer and get on with it. They also want senior people who stay involved after the pitch. They want to know that the team suggesting something ambitious understands the budget, the deadline and what happens if it rains.
And there’s a personal stake. This is our business. We’re invested in the relationships and the results. We want clients to enjoy working with us and feel very comfortable recommending us. Preferably before we ask.
What’s next – growth, staying lean, or something else?
The next chapter is about bringing our capabilities closer together, taking on bigger challenges and creating more work with a useful life.
The standards are high, the work can be demanding and there should still be room for a laugh. We are called Banter after all. It would be awkward otherwise.
Check out the other New Wave Q&As below:
Read The Fuel Agency’s Q&A here
Read Rethink Everything’s Q&A here
Read Agency Named Desire’s Q&A here
Read The Digital Picnic’s Q&A here
Read Paper Stone Scissors’ Q&A here
Read Curious Nation’s Q&A here
Read cummins&partners’ Q&A here
Read Connecting Plots Group’s Q&A here
Read Jacko Jacko & Jacko’s Q&A here
Read Chimera Project’s Q&A here
Read Today The Brave’s Q&A here
Read Tightknit Studio’s Q&A here
Read Bastion Australia’s Q&A here
Read We Are Different’s Q&A here
Read SICKDOGWOLFMAN’s Q&A here
Read Kill Boring Dead’s Q&A here
Read Oblong Creative’s Q&A here
Read The Many Australia’s Q&A here
Read Bureau of Everything’s Q&A here
Read Art of the Possible ANZ’s Q&A here
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