Decade of Disruption

May 7th, 2020

By 2017, local small and medium-sized enterprises had grown to contribute nearly 40% of Malaysia’s GDP, of which almost 90% came from the Services sector. This says a lot about our homegrown entrepreneurs—confident, successful, and fearless.

In the local marketing landscape, large multinational agencies definitely dominate. But big brands are starting to partner with smaller agencies. What’s that all about?

Here’s what we’ve observed over the ten years that we (a smaller agency) have been around:

Relationship—clients get to speak directly to and work closely with the creatives of independent agencies; while big agency bureaucracy, internal politics and personal agendas often get in the way of real client-agency relationships

Results—big brands are willing to hire agencies that are interested in results, not only how good the campaign looks; smaller agencies are naturally more invested in results in order to earn market reputation.

Economy—even Malaysian clients understand that the expertise of a smaller agency isn’t necessarily less expensive than a London-bred agency’s, but ultimately with less overheads and staff, clients do enjoy lower prices

Reach & Scale—it’s a myth that only large agencies can give clients the reach and scale a nationwide campaign requires; with today’s digital media and gig economy, any size agency can give the reach and result a national campaign deserves

Creativity—big brands also now realise that creative ideas do not necessarily come from a huge team with huge resources; in fact they are often the work of a few good people who connect very well on a project, and this more likely happens in close-knit teams in smaller establishments

Then again, we could be bias.

All this coming from a startup agency that has remained 100% locally-owned since 2010, having declined a number of mergers, partnerships and buyouts; grown consistently year on year; never had to downsize; won awards, consulted on regional projects, worked on international campaigns and having our best work become standard template in foreign markets; and most of all, continuing to expand and win big brands. We’re proud to say that we’ve successfully built, in every sense of the words, an independent boutique agency.

A full decade, done. Industry, disrupted. Dominate next?