Top 5 agencies in Malaysia that excelled in marketing consulting

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Agencies are a key component to making or breaking your campaign. A consultant for clients, agencies offer strategic insights and advice to help further brands' goals. Building a long-standing client-agency relationship requires trust between both parties, clear goals, as well as a common understanding. All these help agencies become trusted advisors for brands in their marketing innovation and transformation journeys.

At the same time, consultancies such as Accenture Song have crept into the advertising scene, putting pressure on traditional agencies to perform and excel in their field. Agencies, therefore, know the need to beef up on areas that matter to clients, such as data and analytics as well as technology.

To find out how these agencies differentiate themselves to become capable consultants for their clients, A+M looked at our Agency of the Year 2022 Malaysia results to sieve out the agencies that aced the consulting game. Listed alphabetically, these are the top five consultant agencies that won over our judging panel with their ingenious and effective strategies that paved the way for success for their clients.

Ampersand Advisory

Founded in 2017, Ampersand Advisory offers consulting and data services, digital content services, as well as connections and media services. The agency focuses on developing solutions that are cross-functional and fit business requirements by integrating different skillsets and capabilities. Additionally, it has created a tool kit of breed approaches to bring in methodologies that have a greater impact on businesses, which includes projective qualitative research, a kapferer branding model, a business model canvas, a sports marketing framework, and social listening and influence deployment, among others.

Since its founding, the agency has taken on a wide range of projects, ranging from extending brands into the metaverse, developing and managing a database, and managing consumer research across multiple projects across categories, among others. In fact, the agency has obtained a high level of trust and satisfaction from its clients, evident from how repeated businesses represented the majority of its business. This has also allowed the scaling up of the consulting offering via multiple projects from the same client base. Notable client brands Ampersand Advisory has worked with include Nando's, Shiseido, and Alliance Bank.

Even with its complex and innovative tools, Ampersand Advisory still believes that its people are its greatest asset. Ranging from physical, financial, to emotional components, the agency ensured that its staff were well-protected, especially during the pandemic. In fact, besides allowing its team to work from home during the whole year, the agency offered its staff large monitors to extend their screens and protect their eyesight. In addition, it made the tough decision to not cut its staff's salaries, despite the initial fall in revenues and cut in ad spending in 2020, and even gave out bonuses and promotions by December 2021.

To top it off, the agency also ensured its staff remained caught up with the latest digital trends by upskilling them through its digital acceleration programme. It comprised of media training sessions where senior staff conducted training on working days, rigorous digital training where staff were exposed to emerging digital media formats, data analytics workshops working with global data partners where staff were taught their methodologies, as well as making staff undertake tests and obtain certification, among others.

Archetype Malaysia

Operating for over 15 years, Archetype Malaysia strives to equip its clients with the right tools, preparation and people to effectively deliver their stories to audiences. From delivering insights to managing issues, it specialises in strategic communications, earned media, influencer marketing, as well as branding and visuals. Archetype Malaysia operates by innovating within its D.A.R.E framework (distinction, authenticity, resonance, and engagement), and its SCQA (situation, complexity, question, answer) thought process. At the same time, it adapts to different ways of engagement and practices along the way.

With its D.A.R.E storytelling, the agency was able to work with client brands such as 8TV, Mondelez and Coursera. At the same time, it secured partnerships with Disney+ Hotstar Malaysia, and Abbott by offering its earned media strategy development services. Other client brands include Airbnb, where Archetype Malaysia leveraged strategic communications to deepen Airbnb's local relevance and contributions; and Cisco, where the agency oversaw the consistent positioning and profiling of the brand's commitment and thought leadership.

With 39 staff in its team, the agency touts a perennially strong employee culture, flexible and supportive environment. Celebrating individuality, it attempted to break away from the archaic concept of “family”, “culture fit” and “collectivism” in the workplace. In particular, it revamped its career development planning to place emphasis on personal goals and career objectives, adopted flexible hiring, and organised weekly sharing, where its staff had the opportunity to share about their passions. Additionally, it puts staff mental health as a priority, driving the way it operates. For instance, to minimise overworking, Archetype Malaysia tracks overservicing as KPI, as well as discourages employees from sending emails and messages outside of work hours.

Beyond the perks, the agency conducts training and development programmes, such as Archetype modules and access to LinkedIn Learning. To ready the team for the future, Archetype Malaysia also launched a restructured Malaysia training plan covering four areas - foundational, services, people and well-being.

Digitas Malaysia

As a transformation and connected marketing agency, Digitas Malaysia helps clients acquire, manage and accelerate growth through first-party data, insights and actions. This connected intelligence construct enables brands to create better consumer connections through technology, creativity and smart media across all ecosystem touchpoints. What sets the agency apart is how data is at the heart of its work, as it leverages data to deliver personalised connected experiences for its clients' customers. As such, brands in return can fully optimise their customer experiences and deliver clear and measurable ROI.

With the increasing prominence of walled-garden platforms and a cookie-less world, Digitas Malaysia tackled this challenge by adopting new ways of thinking and working. For instance, the agency developed a strategic methodology, the Growth Loop, which anchors all thinking, analysis and action around first-party consumer data, personalisation through value exchange, disruptive creativity and the fostering of direct relationships. In addition, it pushed out a bespoke consumer data platform that integrates with clients' technology ecosystem.

To address the limitations of cookie-cutter global solutions that could not accommodate the diverse requirements of the Asian region, Digitas Malaysia leveraged Smart Data, which ingests and harmonises data signals across online and offline touchpoints. Moreover, the agency's data-driven activation framework enabled clients to activate first-party consumer data and insights in media strategically through personalisation at scale and dynamic creative optimisation.

Digitas Malaysia's proposition of enabling clients to put their consumers at the centre of their brand and marketing activities has delivered a high client retention rate and expansion of scope, contributing to the agency's organic growth. It has bagged long-term tenures with brands such as Nestle, Samsung, Disney, GSK, Coca-Cola, and BMW, with the agency's tenure with Nestle being the longest at 10 years.

To ensure the welfare of its staff, Digitas Malaysia introduced an Employee Assistance Programme, which is a free professional counselling program to support its staff members. In addition, it rewarded all of its staff with work from home allowances to improve their home office environment and technology support. Putting its money to where its mouth is, the agency also provided mental health care and support for its team, as well as financially promoting high performing staff members as a form of encouragement. In fact, the increment pool of the agency increased by 11.5 times, an unprecedented level for the agency.

On the technical front, Digitas Malaysia remained committed to digitally upskilling its team, where 50% of its staff attended enhanced digital skills training via proprietary training course on marcel, the Grooupe's global AI collaboration and knowledge platform.

Beyond profits and numbers, Digitas Malaysia still sought to give back to the community by donating RM23,250 to those most affected by the pandemic. In addition, it also participated in ESG and conservation efforts, where staff across all departments were involved in a WWF campaign to protect the last remaining 200 tigers in the wild through a TikTok challenge.

Digital Symphony

As a full-service digital consultancy providing customised B2B and B2C full-funnel marketing solutions within the digital ecosystem, Digital Symphony's operations are touted to be built on a hat-trick of business insights, marketing tech and agile expert consultancy. Working with its clients towards a common goal, the agency consults its clients at every step of the journey, rather than simply executing a strategy. In addition, with its proprietary ownership of specific tools, Digital Symphony ensures it bridges the technological divide.

Digital Symphony adopts an automated framework which involves a full stack end-to-end system that covers all stages of a project life-cycle. From research and planning during the pre-campaign period, performance management and sales enablement during the campaign period, to gathering insights and reporting post-campaign, this approach has allowed the agency to continuously optimise its campaigns and media spend for maximum impact, while freeing up resources.

These efforts have paid off, as evident in the agency's high customer retention rate and customer satisfaction score. The agency has also bagged partnerships with several notable brands, including Gamuda Land, Subway Property, UEM, Mah Sing, and Matrix, among others. Across multiple industries, it has also worked with brands such as Sime Darby, Guoco Land, BMW, Victoria's Secret, and Charles & Keith.

For Gamuda Land in particular, in light of how the pandemic halted business and hit the property industry, Digital Symphony developed a digital strategy driven by omni-channel performance and awareness campaigns supported by dynamic persona-based microsites. In fact, the agency built a strategic plan to re-create the complete property buying experience virtually, where its team were actively involved at each stage of the project and actively calling the shots. The success of the campaign was evident from the 100% customer satisfaction the agency saw, and the 108% KPI completion.

At the core of Digital Symphony is its team of 42 staff members. As diverse the team is, the essence of its culture remains the same fundamentally - diversity (talent inclusivity), nurturing (continuous learning and development), and affection (care for its people). To train and develop its team, the agency invests in training programmes such as mentorship for employees, structured upskilling initiatives, internal development programmes, and sponsored external training.

FCB SHOUT

FCB SHOUT's affiliation with FCB has allowed it to leverage its most potent, innovative and creative tools - brand bedrock to define brand purpose, definitive design to build powerful brand assets, as well as people and patterns, which involves humanising data.

The agency begins by interrogating the brand's past, understanding its present and anticipating its future. Once the brand purpose is defined, the team is able to make better decisions more quickly and with more confidence. Out of all the stories the agency had told in 2021, RHB's Ally Against Adversity delivered phenomenal growth to RHB's brand awareness, brand equity and deposits' business. In fact, it clinched five golds and three silvers at A+M's Marketing Excellence Awards 2021.

FCB SHOUT then builds brand equity, harnessing the branding power of distinctive design asset. In fact, its ability to create modular design constructs was a major factor behind its appointment as the creative agency for the launch of Genting Skyworlds.

In addition, FCB SHOUT's proprietary tool uses data to map behaviours and recognise patterns emerging in the world, both within the category and those that are specific to the business and the brand. With that knowledge, the agency is then able to uncover the most significant opportunities to maximise how and when people engage. As part of its Ramadan campaign for Quaker Oats, the agency identified a unique audience journey which helped the brand find its authentic voice with the Malay audience.

Beyond campaigns, FCB SHOUT also invested heavily in its people, making its staff its priority and ensuring that jobs were maintained despite the changing circumstances. With its lean operating principles removing all the layers and costs normally associated with a traditional network agency, FCB SHOUT successfully navigated the economic downturn of 2021 without having to implement any salary cuts or retrench any of its people. It also went to great lengths to persist with its training programmes, moving from classrooms to webinar. In addition, when others were downsizing, FCB SHOUT doubled down on talent, and added 10 new hires across all disciplines, ending the year as a 40-strong team.

More importantly, FCB SHOUT's success can be attributed to how it did not shy away from any opportunity to show how creativity is the ultimate crisis-proof foundation, staying true to its principles. The agency's efforts in 2021 paved the way for high client retention rates, as well as strong organic business growth across existing retainer clients. Besides existing clients, FCB SHOUT managed to bag 11 new clients, turning 2021 into its most profitable year since the independent buy-out of the agency.

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