#PRAwards 2021 spills: Hoffman sets sights on expanding reach and footprint in APAC

When Twitter wanted to showcase its relationship with K-pop during the 10th anniversary of the music genre's growth on its platform, The Hoffman Agency Asia Pacific developed a comprehensive global campaign alongside the client, involving infographics and a live-streamed K-pop event to attract media interest and increase buzz among K-pop fans. The scale of the campaign and significance of the results saw Hoffman taking home the bronze award for Best Insights Driven PR at MARKETING-INTERACTIVE's PR Awards 2021.

General manager of The Hoffman Agency Singapore, Maureen Tseng, shares with MARKETING-INTERACTIVE how the agency thrived and grew despite pandemic headwinds, and what clients can expect from Hoffman in 2021.

This interview is done as part of MARKETING-INTERACTIVE’s winners and finalists’ interview series for PR Awards 2021. To find out more about the awards, click here.

What would you say was the biggest accomplishment for the whole PR/communications community in 2020?

Tseng: Looking back at 2020, one thing is perfectly clear - when the going gets tough, communicators get going! Communications teams truly stepped up to the challenges of working in the new normal, demonstrating a huge amount of tenacity, creativity and resilience. The market shifts of last year placed the focus of communications firmly on integrated campaigns for brands to compete.

Brands and their communications teams across all industries had to pivot to delivering digital services and campaigns as social distancing took hold and B2B marketing especially was forced to transform faster than any year before.

The sheer speed at which communications professionals pivoted to ensure they were able to compete on the digital playing field when the pandemic erupted was incredible. In a matter of weeks, we saw almost everything move to the virtual sphere with integrated communications taking centre stage, with a special focus on creative, targeted content deployed across a more varied and diverse range of channels.

It was truly impressive to see how the communications industry started to leverage different technology mediums and platforms, from Zoom to TikTok and Clubhouse, to communicate with audiences. The move to adopting these new platforms with very engaging content has been seamless and this seismic shift in the communications landscape - especially for B2B brands - has created a huge demand for content to keep marketing campaigns running and leads coming in. This is a trend we believe will dominate in 2021.

Additionally, the pandemic has forced everyone to focus on what’s truly important. It’s heartening to see organisations focus more on meaningful internal and external communications with corporate communications back to the fore and a special focus on placing brand purpose and CSR at the top of the agenda.

What would you say was your proudest achievement of the year?

Tseng: In a year that battered businesses across the board, something we are incredibly proud of is the fact that our agency not only weathered the storm - but thrived and even grew.

The strong foundation we laid in the years leading up to this gave us a solid footing in the face of everything that 2020 threw our way and led to us winning marquee accounts such as Twitter, Zoom, Twitch and Align Technology. What is especially exciting for us is that every single one of these clients has a regional hub or multi-market remits, which plays to our company’s strengths as an agency that specialises in running multi-country campaigns powered by great stories and content.

During this time we also grew our digital and integrated marketing business and embarked on several exciting projects that have expanded the breadth and depth of our portfolio and capabilities, of which our K-pop campaign for Twitter is a prime example. We couldn’t be more proud to be spearheading and implementing an award-winning global campaign for a household brand name such as Twitter.

What are some communications trends you see carrying on post-pandemic?

Tseng: We expect to see a continued push towards integrated communications for brands in every industry, no matter if they’re B2B or B2C. The events of the last year will see the playing field for brands continue in the digital space - even the most traditional B2B brands had to make the leap to delivering digital services and campaigns to compete for customer attention and build thought leadership and we expect this to continue.

We also expect to see a sharp rise in demand for content as the seismic shift in the communications landscape - especially for B2B brands - has created a huge demand to keep marketing campaigns running and leads coming in. We are already seeing targeted, creative 360-degree campaigns aimed at micro-audiences.

Another trend we are already seeing is brands across sectors turning to technology for a competitive edge - be it for customer engagement, personalisation or delivery of new services - and this is also becoming something that brands increasingly communicate and build into their storytelling.

Lastly, we expect to see a continued focus on purpose-driven communications with big pushes towards initiatives and campaigns focused on diversity and inclusion, representation, equality and sustainability and other CSR.

How will the role of communications professionals evolve as we move into a rather uncertain future?

Tseng: It’s an interesting time for communications professionals as we figure out what all this change will mean for us and our profession. It’s an incredibly challenging time, but one that also presents a window of opportunities for becoming more strategic brand partners if we are able to adapt in the right ways.

Firstly the pivot to digital will mean that the communications profession will need polymaths who are adept at using technology and live on new platforms and can identify trends and leverage the tech to capture these trends.

At the same time, we will need to develop cultural expertise that enables us to navigate nuance and be aware of context when communicating with different audiences, given the very sensitive nature of operating in today’s landscape with consumers and brands alike more aware of unconscious bias, racial, gender and social issues.

But there are a lot of reasons to remain hopeful and we believe that the right mindset will place communications professionals with an adaptable, flexible and collaborative mindset in a strong position. We believe that the most successful communications professionals will be those open to change and willing to try new things to stay ahead.

What can we expect from your company in 2021?

Tseng: We have a lot of exciting initiatives in the works and a big focus for us this year is on the development of our integrated marketing capabilities. In line with the trends we’re seeing with the crossover of digital and PR, we will be focusing on the development of our content marketing team to provide more specialised consultancy and services in the remit; enabling us to help clients create exciting and engaging content that makes headlines, stops people from scrolling and supports their business objectives.

Apart from bolstering our services and capabilities, we will also be focused on expanding our reach and footprint in more markets throughout Asia Pacific to better support clients exploring a wider range of geographies in their expansion plans.