A Silicon Valley-based cloud communications platform-as-a-service (CPaaS) company was entering Southeast Asia with an aim to grow its international operations. New to the region, it was of course an unknown company, faced with the task of building its business while creating brand awareness and educating a new market.

LITMUS was appointed as the regional communications consulting team by their then Executive Chairman, with whom the agency had worked when he was CEO at another firm.

LITMUS worked closely with the corporate team to establish the company, as well as build a market understanding of its services and offerings in SEA, using strategic media (print and online) and industry analyst (including IDC, Gartner, Frost & Sullivan) engagement.

The Silicon-Valley firm was acquired a couple of years later by a New York Stock Exchange listed provider of business cloud communications, for several hundred million dollars. Through this acquisition, the New York firm planned for international expansion, especially Asia.

LITMUS has been supporting the new entity’s Asia Pacific (APAC) expansion, including their openings in China and Japan. LITMUS also supported them for a variety of partnership announcements in Japan and the Philippines, along with customer wins, customer success stories and industry awards.

Of the long relationship, the client commented “The LITMUS team has been instrumental in helping us break into the SEA market, helping to build our regional market presence through their deep understanding of the local market. LITMUS provided invaluable counsel on how to make global strategies regionally effective, as well as serving as my on-ground ears and eyes, an absolute dependable communications partner in Southeast Asia. I strongly recommend LITMUS to any business in need of an efficient and trusted communications partner in Southeast Asia.”

LITMUS has considerable experience in the important cyber security space. LITMUS recently managed the public launch of a Singapore-based firm that offers a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform for companies to monitor, measure and mitigate human-induced cybersecurity risks.

The founding CEO was kind enough to offer his take on objectives, audiences and business impact. These are his words:
“As with any start-up, we have multiple objectives: build our brand, educate the market about our product and services, differentiate from competitors, acquire customers, acquire partners, and speak to the investor community.

We decided to work with LITMUS based on their 10 years of innovation experience in Singapore and the region, backed by their strong understanding of technology and their expertise in translating business insights into content, and getting a brand in front of the right audiences.

The media results were excellent, 83 media reports across regional and global publications: 33 news reports and 50 social media news reports, with an audience reach of more than 2.8 million. Those audiences were the ones we wanted to reach business, finance, investors, innovation, technology, and security.

And the broader business impact has been invaluable”

⇒ Investors: several Series A investors contacted us keen to learn more about what we do.  This is great, allowing us to maintain contact over the longer-term now that the ice has been broken organically.

⇒ New customers: including a well-known ASEAN FinTech who reached out to us and with whom we are already working on a POC. We are also in conversations with other firms.

⇒ New partners: cybersecurity companies that offer complementary cyber solutions.

⇒ Social channels: our biggest social channel uptick on LinkedIn

⇒ Website traffic: ~2x surge in website traffic over 30 days

So, if you have objectives and audiences like ours, work with LITMUS.”

Founding CEO

LITMUS worked with a Singapore-based consumer finance platform as it planned an aggressive business push across its seven markets: Singapore, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Malaysia.

Its business objectives included acquiring consumers and partners, while demonstrating its leading position and plans to the financial sector.

Its communication objectives were to be positioned and perceived as an established fintech company with strong products, partners, and technologies to compete and win in a highly competitive space.

LITMUS, working with the headquarters team, was responsible for the campaign across all seven markets, from conceptualisation, messaging, and content development to media strategy, targeting and engagement.

LITMUS developed internal campaign briefing books, counselled local country heads on the campaign, its focus and in-market approach, and media interaction guidelines. LITMUS identified and coordinated several key media interviews in several markets, including Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Hong Kong.

Critical to the campaign success was the strategic approach of developing a regional news release with a consistent message, along with customised content supporting each of the seven markets to increase relevance and impact at the regional and local levels, and most effectively reach business and consumer audiences.

From a story-line perspective, in addition to emphasising the company’s track record of success, it was important to describe the future, in particular how funding will be invested to drive growth through product and technology enhancement, management and technical talent acquisition, and partner network expansion.

One of its key differentiating elements was its focus on driving greater financial inclusion and security for the promising customer segments in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong. These solutions help to improve the financial health of consumers by helping them made informed choices on varied financial products in a simple way.

The multi-market PR and communication campaign generated nearly 250 news reports, including 20 interviews, while reaching over 200 million people across broadcast, dailies, business, technology, start-up, fintech, banking/finance, and payments publications. Some key media included CNBC, Asian Venture Capital Journal, Tech in Asia, e27, Deal Street Asia, Hong Kong Economic Journal and The Philippines Post.

A European-based global leader in industrial automation and robotics had Southeast Asian business objectives of differentiating its brand, promoting its innovation-leading products, dominating market share, and educating customers and potential customers of the value and benefits of robotic automation.

Its products are cutting edge, and applicable to a wide variety of industry sectors, including automotive, agriculture, medical, metal working, hospitality, manufacturing, and FMCG.

Working with the Singapore-based team, LITMUS developed a strategic regional communications plan to deliver partners, customers, and revenue.

That plan, involving content development, partnerships, customer success stories in written and video format, marketing collateral infographics was reviewed, endorsed and executed for six Asian markets – Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, and seven languages.

Within those markets, we needed to reach corporations, enterprises, SMEs with a message of innovation, technology adoption and competitiveness in an Industry 4.0 world.

The plan’s execution saw thought leadership, media engagement (broadcast, print and online) targeted interviews, press conferences, journalist briefings, and press releases researched and distributed, delivering exceptional brand exposure, with over 1,000 news stories, driving customer acquisition and partner engagement.