Edge and retail specialist Creative Oasis merge to form one of Australia’s largest indie agencies

Leading content agency Edge has acquired retail communications agency Creative Oasis to create an enhanced agency offering. The two agencies will operate under the Edge name with over 60 staff in Sydney and Melbourne.

Edge manage some of the largest content and social accounts in the country including AAMI, Suncorp, Australia Post, Lendlease, Petbarn among others. Creative Oasis look after the creative communications for a number of retail clients including Mitre 10 and Dymocks. The two businesses have been collaborating on key client projects for the past two years, share office space and have common shareholders.

Says Strategy Partner at Edge, Richard Parker: “We believe that in a rapidly changing world, the biggest challenge brands face is to stay relevant, constantly. If we want to help brands meet this challenge, we have to fuse traditional creative craft with strong data, tech, media and content nous to own the overarching brand story for clients, and drive their communication strategy. It’s about delivering big meaningful brand communications alongside highly personalised micro-moments. The approach allows us to relentlessly drive brand relevance – and this merger allows both businesses to work towards this common vision”.

The merger sees the new group managing director role filled by David Stretch, previously MD at Creative Oasis (CO).

Says Stretch: “I’m hugely excited by the opportunity ahead. Edge’s data-driven digital, social and content capability, blended with CO’s brand creative and retail comms experience, will provide an enormous opportunity to shape an agency that can comprehensively deliver end-to-end”.

Adds Fergus Stoddart, Commercial Director and one of Edge’s founding partners: “Next year we are celebrating 15 years as an agency. The only constant has been growth and change. It’s exciting to be where we are now; one of the largest independent creative agencies in Australia, full service, with a unique depth of talent in content and unrivalled expertise in retail.”

Retail industry guru Steve Kulmar, founder and ex-CEO of IdeaWorks, will be Chairman of the combined agency, whilst continuing to run his own strategic consulting business RetailOasis. Says Kulmar: “Retailers are increasingly seeing the opportunity that data and technology play in delivering value-rich, hyper-relevant customer experiences. A key part of this opportunity is the challenge to scale from big brand ideas right down to customer-centric, one-to-one content experiences. The merger creates a new breed of agency that can deliver to this challenge”.