Telum is looking to highlight the diverse and vibrant agencies in the Southeast Asian PR agency landscape in upcoming editions of our PR Alert. We want to encourage networking, business opportunities, and to celebrate the great initiatives being worked on around the region. If you'd like your agency to feature, get in touch.

What services does DIFY offer?
Our agency is an integrated communications agency where we offer the following three core services:

• Public Relations
• Digital Solutions
• Activations and Events (Offline and Online)

We believe communications is key to any brand who aims to build a long-lasting and engaging relationship with its consumers - and have decided to focus on these main areas for our clients.

What is the size of the team?
We are a boutique agency with a strong team of 8 that works hard and smart. The brands we work with range from household names, community organisations, to newly established start-ups. While our focus continues to remain in emerging markets, such as esports and fintech, we have proven ourselves to be adaptable and innovative with the fresh ideas we have for each client across industries.

Where are DIFY's offices?
Given the work-from-home situation, we would say anywhere! For now, our physical facilities reside at Vertex (33 Ubi Ave 3) but we have plans to move out of our current space pretty soon.

Do you have a particular area of focus? (e.g. tech, hospitality, finance)? 
The agency’s overall niche lies in emerging markets such as esports and fintech. We are familiar working with up-and-coming brands or clients who are trying out anything new, and are there to navigate their way through an unfamiliar path.

Who is the founder and why did they start the agency? Tell us about the leadership team. 
Our founders are Roy Kek and Marjorie Poon, and the agency started when they felt they could use their strengths to fill a communication gap for the fintech market. These long-time friends turned business owners found synergy working together as colleagues prior to starting DIFY Singapore.

We do our best to nurture leaders in the agency, and everyone gets a chance to take on leadership opportunities. As we aim to build a trustworthy relationship with our clients, it is equally needed from within the team, and we believe by letting everyone be exposed to chances to lead is how we establish trust and shape their growth. We operate on an open communication basis and value team work greatly.

What is next for DIFY? What is the five year goal?
We aim to continue being the forerunner of working with emerging markets as that’s where our passion lies. In the midst of all this, we are working to expand our client portfolio and take on more projects from the FMCG and F&B industries.

The goal for our agency is to bring about more memorable campaigns and continue telling purposeful stories that make an impact. We also continuously look for ways to strengthen and widen our skill sets so that we can deliver better for our clients.

In a sentence, describe your ideal relationship with a journalist.
An ideal relationship with a journalist (or just about anyone we work with) should be one with mutual respect and understanding for each other’s work and filled with synergy!

Tell us about a campaign you are currently working on or are particularly proud of.
We take a lot of pride in all the accounts we serviced but two stands out the most to us - ONE Championship and EMERGE Esports. We have worked with the ONE team for close to 2 years now and their PR team took a huge leap of faith with us as our agency was very new when they first decided to work with us, and we’ve never looked back since. The good client-agency synergy between ONE Championship and DIFY is something we value so much. Great things have happened, and it feels like home whenever we are working on any ONE Championship event.

We are extremely proud of EMERGE Esports’ growth since its launch, and it is blazing the trail especially in the local esports and gaming industry. We have received a lot of support from the media and are thankful for the love given to this homegrown brand!

You can also look forward to gamescom asia 2021 which is the latest campaign we are working on, and we are thrilled to be a part of this game-changing event that will provide an immersive experience for fans and those in the trade.
 
Any key PR trends your agency is keeping an eye on?
We have noticed the growing importance for sensitive and compassionate communication methods that extends a brand’s humanity to its consumers. We do think that as communicators, we have the power and ability to make an impact, and we hope to magnify that through a collective representation as a brand.

As a team we are also keeping tabs on new and novel ways to engage audiences, as well as find ways to truly integrate communications into every aspect for any brand that would provide a touchpoint to the world.

What skillsets do you look for in new hires?
We look out for core strengths in content creation and development and would love to have creative and organised individuals who aren’t afraid to pick up new skills and lay a foundation with us. We value attitude greatly and expect new team members who join DIFY are ready to get their hands (and legs!) in the mud and set new highs with us!