Good Bandit spins out Bandit Animation — a bet that craft beats the feed’s slop

After two years of growth, Auckland creative studio Good Bandit has launched a dedicated animation studio, Bandit Animation, built for creative agencies and internet-native brands.

The launch is a bet on craft. As the studio puts it, feeds are filled with slop and audiences want more — work that feels like a person made it. Bandit Animation makes hand-made, thumb-stopping work designed to feel at home on the feed.

The spinoff is not starting from zero. It already holds an ongoing production partnership with US tech company Patreon, crafting podcast shorts, brand animation and paid campaigns, and its portfolio includes work for Answer in Progress in partnership with TED Audio Collective, plus collaborations with Australian and New Zealand agencies including Bastion for clients such as Whittaker’s, Genesis, Spark and New Zealand’s Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.

Co-founder Chase Madsen frames the move around how the internet itself has changed: “There’s more output than ever, but the brands actually reaching their audience are building on authentic cultural resonance, not just slick visuals.” The studio offers both campaign-based commercial production and embedded retainer models for brands that want a consistent visual presence across internet-first channels.

For independent teams, the move itself is the story. A spinoff brand lets a small studio sell one clear service — internet-native animation — to agency partners and marketing teams, without diluting the parent studio or asking it to be everything to everyone. Specialise the offer, keep the parent broad.

See the work at banditanimation.studio, and read the announcement at Campaign Brief NZ.