1What makes you ‘you’?
Our people. More passionate, more committed, braver than the average. Make no mistake: advertising is still a people/ creative/data-informed business, despite the rise of AI and more. Plus, our configuration and business model: we’re the only truly integrated shop in town, with media, creative, PR and data under one roof, with one P&L. We’ve won more than 250 awards, 127 in the last year alone, and a lot of that comes from seamless integration and joined-up thinking as well as execution.

2What are you best at?
We live for our motto: business results now! We’re driving outcomes for our clients every day – impacting sales, brand metrics, perception and data insights to transform their businesses and more. All our disciplines have been lauded, awarded and noted, which we take great pride in. It implies we’re competent on multiple levels. We were the #1 ranked agency at seven different award competitions and shows in 2024, which is a sign that clients and our peers recognise what we’re doing.

3What’s the fuel Worldwide Partners puts in your fire – and why should clients care?
Worldwide Partners gives us confidence, reach and revenues. First, it shows that independence is the way to go: others are doing it successfully globally. That’s good news for clients fatigued by network agencies. Second, it creates a platform for sharing global best practices, which our clients can benefit from. Third, it gives us reach overseas, which is important for our clients who are expanding. Fourth, WPI gives us the ability to handle clients moving into South East Asia from other geographies.

4How does collaboration within Worldwide Partners show up in your work?
Collaboration shows up in different forms. From articles we write in our local market that cite WPI global research, through to us managing the SE Asia digital roll-out of a campaign for a client headquartered in Denmark, via a WPI agency based there. And more: it was gaining an understanding of e-payments in the early days (2019), for example, which gave us the insights to win Malaysia’s largest e-wallet media account.

5What’s the most important thing you do when solving clients’ problems?
Digging beyond the brief. Briefs can be short, inaccurate and changeable – and are often given by mid-level or junior personnel who may not be clear what their bosses want. So we go beyond to find the underlying business problem. We use an array of digital tools, such as ad spend analysis, social listening and analytics. Even more importantly, we conduct primary research, talking to customers and non-buyers IRL. Nothing beats real-world understanding.

6How do you collaborate with clients to push the boundaries of what’s possible?
We like to work with clients who want to do different things and break through the walls of the conventional. Those kinds of clients push us too: to explore the latest technologies and ideas to solve business issues. We created a virtual reality world for Shiseido during the pandemic to enable sampling and brand engagement which was later exported to 17 European markets in five different languages. This kind of work attracts other like-minded clients to us.