Orchan Consulting | Asia Sdn Bhd

What if the conversations shaping your brand never appear on your dashboard? In 2026, the most influential discussions about brands are no longer happening on public platforms. They are unfolding quietly inside WhatsApp groups, Telegram channels, Discord servers, and closed communities you cannot see, scrape, or track in real time. This is dark social. And in Asia, it is not a fringe behaviour. It is the default. For PR leaders, this changes the job fundamentally. Visibility is no longer the main challenge. Relevance is. If your strategy is optimised only for public platforms, you are managing optics, not reality. Many organisations still confuse activity with influence. Why Dark Social Now Dark social has existed for years. What’s changed is its weight. More than 70 percent of online sharing now happens through private channels. Across Asia, platforms like WhatsApp, LINE, WeChat, and Telegram dominate daily communication. Gen Z and Millennials, in particular, prefer private spaces for...

Southeast Asia’s marketing game isn’t just changing - it’s mutating. The ET MarTech+ Summit 2025, dressed up under the theme “The Art and Science of Personalisation Beyond Transaction,” made one thing clear: brands in this region can’t keep coasting. Hyper-personalisation, AI-driven MarTech, and the messy but inevitable convergence of MarTech and AdTech are rewriting the playbook for how businesses connect with 650 million restless, mobile-first consumers. Let’s cut through the noise and get practical. Here’s what this actually means for brands in SEA. Hyper-Personalisation in Southeast Asia: More Than Just Product Push 88.9% of Southeast Asians go online through their phones. That’s not just a stat; it’s a warning sign. These consumers expect marketing to know them, not stalk them. And they’re quick to swipe away when brands miss the mark. FAQ: What is hyper-personalisation in MarTech? It’s using AI and real-time data to create experiences so tailored they feel one-to-one, no...