What’s next for R3 after its acquisition by MediaSense?

In November 2024, independent global media advisor MediaSense acquired R3, the creative and media advisory born out of Singapore, for an undisclosed sum. The deal included R3’s global footprint across North America and Asia but notably excluded its China entity.

Three months on, MARKETING-INTERACTIVE sat down with R3 founder Goh Shufen and MediaSense CEO Jamie Posnanski to discuss the agency’s future in APAC.

Posnanski, a veteran in large-scale marketing transformations with stints at avVenta and Accenture Song, said the focus since the acquisition has been on “unifying, integrating and aligning” the business.

Don't miss: MediaSense acquires R3 North America and Asia operations

“We are going to unify as one business. It's not going to be separate P&Ls. I've seen the damage associated with that, and so we're in the process now of re-imagining, and resetting the overall vision under a very unified brand, a unified company, a unified culture,” Posnanski said.

When asked if that means a possible rebrand of R3, he said its all under consideration right now but that as CEO of MediaSense, he is being “very deliberate in the way he is honouring” the DNA of what has made R3 so successful in the region.

A large part of that, he says is because of the founders Goh and Greg Paull and the relationships they have built.

“So, the last thing we’d want to do is come in and do anything that's going to tarnish what's actually been so successful,” he said. Posnanski is also a big advocate of local relevancy.

He said in any acquisition, it is paramount to understand that global success requires local relevance. “With the acquisition of R3, it was about adding a new set of capabilities and creative content in addition to the media strength,” he said.

Adding to the conversation, Goh said that working in the APAC market requires a high-level of local knowledge – particularly in the area of marketing organisational models, agency landscapes, media and digital.

“R3 has that depth of knowledge from working in this multi-market, multi-cultural environment for more than 20 years, in a market that is under-penetrated on marketing advisory versus more developed regions like US and Europe,” she said.

Goh adds that with the partnership, R3 looks to help more Asia clients go global and MediaSense provides Asia clients with access to “world-class media auditing, performance, and compliance services”.

But of course no acquisition, and subsequent integration is without its challenges.

“Our biggest challenge is building paths for communication in the business that will allow easier sharing of data and insight,” Goh said, adding, “There’s a lot of expert knowledge that needs a home and we’re working on that.

What can global clients learn from Asia?

Good governance frameworks are essential when working in Asia where relationships tend to be shorter, less transparent and more project based, said Goh. Asia tends to be highly decentralised while having to drive brand consistency.

“This requires a deeper understanding of the foundational elements of marketing, and CMOs face the challenges of unrealistic or unclear expectations on the role of marketing in driving business impact,” she said.

She added that marketers who are successful in this region use innovation to leverage the freedom they are given within any framework to drive engagement and growth.

“To stay ahead of local competitors, global brands need to be nimble and think outside the box,” she added.

Transformation fatigue

Posnanski added that universally, marketers everywhere are getting transformation fatigue. And the reality is, in modern marketing, transformation is never over.

“We want to be able to help clients orchestrate and optimise from within, starting from where you are, and just continue to improve off of that,” he said.

Posnanski added that innovation is also an area that is often misunderstood where innovation teams are sat in isolation. “What then happens is that they end up doing really cool proofs of concept, but it's not actually connected to the core problems that organisations trying to solve,” he said.

To be successful, innovation has to be embedded in the way that companies actually operate.

“The best people to actually innovate are the ones that are in living in the work. So innovation is living and breathing within the way we work to remain agile,” he said.

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