R/GA, constant reinvention: Singapore’s most innovative agencies
Singapore has developed into the central hub for marketing in APAC, with many major brands now based in the city state. Add to this a government committed to a smart city mandate, and it is one of the most exciting places to be working in the industry today. The Drum takes a look at 20 of the most innovative agencies operating on the island, including R/GA.
R/GA
When it comes to innovation, R/GA is synonymous with the term, wholly reinventing itself every few years in order to avoid its offer from becoming passé and keeping itself intentionally on the cusp of marketing trends. In fact, it is a KPI that is regularly measured across the company, but there is internal awareness that conditions are set in order to ensure it isn’t just a buzzword bandied about internally, reveals Jim Moffatt, the agency’s executive vice-president and managing director for Asia Pacific.
A number of core pillars have been set in order to foster innovation, including collaboration with ‘unlikely partnerships’ that generate interesting ideas as a result.
“Within APAC we use a flat structure, making sure each discipline is involved from the get-go on any new brief. We even design our office spaces to be able to move teams around at speed and to have plenty of meeting space. We seem to be never more than five feet away from a white board,” Moffatt reveals.
Technology is built in-house at the agency with teams trained in agile delivery enabling new ideas to be brought to life to meet fast demand, which has led to the creation of the prototype studio in Singapore where a team handles code and hardware delivery. The agency claims that this allows for a more effective spend of budget with tangible results being created and user tested in order to ensure that new and original ideas are fully functional.
Google recently worked with the agency on a two-day brand hack in order to generate new ideas while the ‘FutureVision’ service is also used to identify industry trends in order to provide predictions and ideas that may lead client business transformation.
There are three offerings that R/GA plans to develop in the coming months, focusing on expanding its business transformation and consulting practice, its experience design and prototyping capabilities and its content studio to prove short-form content within a fast turnaround period.
This article was originally published in the Singapore supplement of The Drum and is available for free on The Drum app which can be downloaded from the Apple App Store and Google Play.