Consumer PR Consultancies of the Year 2024

2024 Consumer PR Consultancies of the Year

The 2024 Asia-Pacific PR Consultancies of the Year are the result of an exhaustive research process involving more than 100 submissions and meetings with the best PR firms across the region.

Consultancy of the Year winners are announced and honoured at the 2024 Asia-Pacific SABRE Awards, taking place in Singapore on 19 September. Analysis of all Finalists and Winners can be accessed via the navigation menu or below:

Finalists

AKA Asia (Singapore/MSL)

Backstory

2024 marks 15 years since Kate O’Shea and Amy Wright launched AKA Asia, which, moving into new era of being Publicis-owned, spent much of the last year cementing the firm’s “fearless creativity” and the culture that earned it PRovoke Media’s Best Agency to Work For honors in 2022 and 2020 — and with good reason. 2023 was AKA’s best year on record. Having built a 60-person team of people with “wildly different backgrounds,” AKA wears its unconventional approach to the PR business like a badge of honor. Employees are generalists by design; The business isn’t divvied up into practices or specialty areas. “We’re not for everyone, and everyone’s not for us,” AKA says.

Locations

AKA Asia is based in Singapore and works on a mix of local and multi-market briefs within the APAC region.

Performance

AKA Asia saw its best year ever in 2023, which it also capped by formally becoming part of Publicis Groupe some 15 years after launch. The agency grew its headcount from 56 to 62 to support new business from the University of the Arts Singapore, National Museum of Singapore, Attorney General’s Chambers, The Edition Singapore, foodpanda and Muji, which joined existing clients such as Jetstar Asia, Science Centre Singapore, Asia Pacific Breweries, Reckitt Benckiser, Manulife, William Grant & Sons and Dairy Farm International

People & Culture

In 2023, AKA brought on a new CEO, Leya Teo, well-known in the region not only for her two decades at large agencies but also as a champion of coaching, mentorship and learning. With Teo’s arrival, the agencies restructured its senior management team by carving out new roles for leaders including chief operations officer Alicia Thong, deputy managing director Brenda Yeo, head of strategy Jenna Mills, and director Yi Shi Ho. Ahead of joining Publicis, AKA doubled down on safeguarding the culture it built over 15 years, strengthening its career mapping framework, learning & development programs and monthly all-agency meetings featuring speakers, brainstorming and sharing work. The agency has expanded its D&I efforts to retain employees by expanding parental leave and childcare benefits; using DiSC to ensure hiring a mix of personalities; and hosting employees’ extended families to help them understand what their loved one does.

Thought Leadership & Work

In 2023, AKA created The Ideas Vault, a depository of the best creative communications campaigns from around the world as chosen by agency employees. Launched on World Creativity Day, AKA shared the library with all its clients, providing quick and easy access to examples of creative comms — and to help them make their cases for greater comms budgets and support internally. It also set a benchmark for the sort of work AKA aspires to do, creating a common language for new briefs and future work. AKA also invested in a number of tools in 2023 to provide its team and clients with access to more insights and enhanced measurement, enables the agency to back up its instincts and provide data to clients to help them sell fearless creative ideas internally.

— Diana Marszalek

Eon Group (Philippines/Independent)

Backstory

EON was launched 26 years ago with an eye on elevating the image of the Philippines internationally by showcasing the best the country has to offer and rallying the array of stakeholders around furthering the goal. More than a quarter century later, EON is still a proudly Filipino PR firm (among the oldest in the country), one that continuously strives to improve the quality of its output through new ideas and ways of working. That culture of innovation has garnered EON a client base consisting of some of the world’s largest global companies across 21 industries.

Locations

EON is based in Manila.

Performance

While a host of agencies found 2023 a challenge, EON had a stellar year that saw PR income rise 20.5% to $4.1 million from $3.4 the previous year. The firm’s 107 employees serviced new business from Abbott Laboratories, Boehringer Ingelheim, Avon, Coca-Cola, Dyson, L’Oreal and Mars, which joined existing clients such as BMW, United Airlines, TikTok, Nike, Del Monte and Federal Express. EON has four business units: EON PR, Tangerine, Dig and Engage.

People & Culture

EON operates under the watch of president and COO Malyn Molina, who joined the company in 2022 from Edelman Vietnam. Molina is responsible for setting the strategic direction of EON, is responsible for all the major campaigns the agency produces and considered the driving force behind EON’s growth. EON operates an internship program, EON Lab, designed to immerse young people in EON’s inner workings while deepening their understanding of the comms industry. EON’s Employee Wellbeing Program includes mental health counseling, learning & development opportunities and employee engagement initiatives designed to alleviate stress and promote teamwork.

Thought Leadership & Work

EON was built around the concept of trust and, keeping that front and center, publishes the Philippine Trust Index every other year. The results of a major nationwide study, the index is used to guide clients’ decision making in line with building trust among stakeholders and telling the truth. EON has also been behind a major push to make the Philippines a dynamic brand that would magnify its soft power, enhance global perceptions and spark national pride. Working with the country’s largest tourism groups and CEOs association, EON last year spearheaded the creation of positioning position paper laying out the benefits of creating a country brand and creation of a multi-sector national branding council to oversee the initiative. The year’s best client work included “Slay the Storm,” a dengue-focused educational campaign for retailer Watsons.

— Diana Marszalek

Kiwi Communications (Independent)

Backstory

Kiwi Communications was launched in 2013 with the overarching goal of connecting China to the rest of the world through communication, ultimately building better lives. Focusing on travel and lifestyle industries, Kiwi has made precision insight and strategic execution the backbones of its work helping clients reach global consumers, all while adhering to its values of collective growth, efficiency and work-life balance. To that end, Kiwi’s business, client and innovative growth teams are committed to employee wellbeing as well as driving revenue.

Locations

Kiwi is headquartered in China and works across APAC.

Performance

More than 11 years after launch, Kiwi has grown into a 60-person operation that in 2013 saw a 30% increase in operating revenue, reaching more than 140 million RMB largely through its hotel, tourism and lifestyle business. New business last year came from Studio City Macau, TCP Group, Luneng Real Estate, Melco, Hilton Worldwide, Asia-Pacific Hotel Project, Red Bull, Blue Dream Cruises and Beijing Daxing International Airport. Those new partners added to an already robust client roster populated by the likes of Marriott Bonvoy, Melco Resorts and Entertainment, Universal Beijing Resort, Marriott International 5.TCP Group, Red Bull, Marriott Field Marketing, Shake Shack, Microsoft and Royal Caribbean.

People & Culture

Founder and managing director Liang Dong, who continues to lead Kiwi, sees diversity as a major driver of company culture and has instituted hiring practices designed to ensure balanced representation on staff, particularly in terms of gender diversity and LGBTQ+ friendliness. Today, 77% of Kiwi’s workforce is women, 40% of whom are young mothers 67% of whom are in executive positions, Additionally, 20% of Kiwi’s workforce are members of the LGBTQ+ community. The agency operates with an “All Open” internal communications strategy which is designed to boost employee engagement and growth through open, transparent, and efficient communication. Kiwi also offers flexible work, generous PTO policies, and wellness programs. In a 2023 survey, 95% of employees reported satisfaction with the firm.

Thought Leadership & Work

In 2023, Studio City, a resort in Macau, opened the first indoor space-inspired water park in Asia, but had to break through competition from other resorts wooing the coastal destination’s influx of Chinese tourists. Kiwi, which was hired to do just that, focused its campaign on highlighting the difference between Studio City and other tourist destinations by forming partnerships with top influencers on Chinese social media, such as Weibo, RED, and Douyin. Collaborations also extended to popular variety shows, fashion media, and celebrities, amassing a total exposure of 1.6 billion. Other key work included Kiwi building awareness of TCP Group, “Unveiling the True Creator of Red Bull,” amid company expansion in China and forging a hotel industry/e-sports partnership for Marriott.

— Diana Marszalek

Sinclair (Independent)

Backstory

Kiri Sinclair founded her eponymous firm in 2009 to deliver integrated communications, including PR, digital, experiential and social media marketing, to B2B and consumer clients from an office in Hong Kong. The female-owned and operated firm has expanded to mainland China and Singapore and still operates with a core tenet of impacting business through compelling narratives, through local and regional expertise. In its 14th year, the firm continues to progress around its ‘team first’ philosophy: that putting its 36 staffers across Asia Pacific above all else leads to business success. The agency worked with clients across the property, financial services, consumer goods and services, retail, professional services, technology, travel and tourism, arts and culture, hospitality and events sectors.

Locations

Sinclair operates across APAC, with hubs in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore.

Performance

Like many firms impacted by the pandemic, Sinclair is now in the second year of its comeback, with a robust 26% increase in fee income—three-quarters of that growth organic as clients began to raise their spending again. There were 32 new clients among the 90 or so new contracts signed during the year, with new business from Asahi, Association of Pacific Rim Universities, Booking.com, DFS, Gold Coast Motor Festival 2023, Hong Kong - ASEAN Foundation, Hysan Corporation, MTR Corporation, The Londoner Macao, and W Macau – Studio City. Among the long tenured clients sticking around were Franke Coffee systems, FWD, Henderson Land, Hong Kong Baptist University, IWG, McDonald’s Hong Kong, MTR Lab, Sino Group, Sotheby's, and The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

People & Culture

As a female-owned and operated agency with a team that is 89% female – including a 75% female senior management team – gender equality is in Sinclair’s DNA and the agency has a strong focus on developing the careers of female leaders and young professionals. Its supportive culture is based on a non- hierarchical structure, flexible workplace policies, a focus on diversity and inclusion, engaging learning programmes, which led to a 72% staff retention rate in 2022, up 12% from the previous year. New senior hires included Anusuya Mitra, who joined in early 2023 as director of corporate communications from FedEx, where she led corporate comms and marketing for APAC. Carbo Yu, regional executive director, was chairperson for PRHK in 2023, championing the Hong Kong communications sector’s growth.

Thought Leadership & Work

Thought leadership has been a commitment from the start, and in 2023, Sinclair released volume five of its proprietary #ConversationsThatMatter content series that has addressed diverse themes such as content marketing, DEI communications, influencer marketing in Asia, and AI's role in the industry. In terms of client work, Sinclair introduced the Asahi Super Dry 2.0 brand across selected APAC audiences, creating consumer touchpoints to ensure local relevancy within each market, with particular success on Instagram. For the W Macau – Studio City, meanwhile, the firm set out to win hearts and minds in the competitive hospitality market with a strong narrative and talkable moments. Finally, for MTR Lab the firm was charged with building a sustainable and innovative brand identity as a solution provider and investor.

— Diana Marszalek

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