Independent Australian-owned marketing network Hardie Grant Media recently acquired creative communications and PR agency Keep Left.

Keep Left will retain operational independence and continue to function under its own brand and leadership, with all staff joining Hardie Grant Media in their Sydney and Melbourne offices.

Keep Left delivers campaigns across financial services, technology, sustainability, property and the public sector. Among its roster of clients are Australia Post, ANZ, Guide Dogs, Experian, Great Southern Bank, Charter Hall and St Vincent de Paul.

Over 20 years of growth and development

Caroline Catterall founded Keep Left in 2001, and in 2009, she was joined by Gillian Gosling. The pair have remained the sole owners of the business until this recent sale to Hardie Grant Media and will maintain their positions as managing director and head of PR.

Having gone through several iterations, with their early years focused on learning the basics at a slower, steadier pace, Catterall says that over time, they invested in professional development and exposure to global ideas, which ultimately helped transform it into a full-service creative communications agency.

“We are very proud of the fact that we have grown and sustained an independent agency for over 20 years and remained fairly consistently at the top of our game,” she says. “ We’ve bootstrapped the growth…and have now gotten to a point where we felt for the next phase left, we did need to kick it up a notch.”

“Equally, we also are at a point in our career and our lives where we know that what we love is the work, working with clients and working creatively with the team,” she says. 

The art of the deal 

After being approached with an offer of acquisition in May 2024, Catterall says that Keep Left engaged in a longer sales process with Hardie Grant in order to “get to know each other very well”. 

The deal with Hardie Grant brings various new development opportunities for Keep Left.

“ They have been incredible in terms of helping with the transition. It’s been pretty seamless,” Catterall says. 

As part of the acquisition, Keep Left’s proprietary earned media evaluation tool, Impact Score, has been updated with OpenAI to automate coverage logging. It is now available by subscription to agencies and in-house teams across Australia and worldwide.

“We’ve long admired Keep Left and its reputation for delivering meaningful work. In addition to the impressive team, the Impact Score is a genuinely exciting product with huge potential and a real point of difference for our agencies,” Hardie Grant Media chief executive officer Nick Hardie-Grant says.  

“With the support of the broader business and continued investment, we’re looking forward to helping it reach its full potential.”  

Looking forward

Catterall says Hardie Grant Media’s 2022 acquisition of The Reload Group and their “cultural alignment” set a positive precedent for Keep Left’s integration into the company. 

“We’re very aware that we have a big job to do in the next six months to make sure the integration goes really smoothly. But there’s been good open conversation and I’m seeing so much experience here,” Catterall says.

Following the acquisition, Hardie Grant Media now comprises 130 staff across Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. The broader Hardie Grant Group, including its publishing arm and venture studio HGX, employs 220 people.

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