Orchan Consulting | Asia Sdn Bhd

In APAC , ESG is exploding, but audiences can sniff out greenwashing instantly. There’s no faster way to burn trust than to plaster “sustainability” all over your marketing while your operations tell another story. In Asia-Pacific , ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) has shifted from nice-to-have to non-negotiable. But the danger is clear: do it poorly, and your brand risks being dismissed as performative. Do it well, and ESG becomes one of your most powerful reputational assets. This isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being real. Stakeholders across Southeast Asia , from investors to regulators to consumers, are sharper, more vocal, and more connected than ever. If your ESG story doesn’t add up, it won’t take long for someone to call it out. Performative vs. Purposeful: Spot the Difference The gap between performative ESG and purposeful ESG is obvious once you know what to look for: Tone: Performative comms sound self-congratulatory (“Look how good we are”). Purposef...

Let’s be blunt: a two-paragraph blurb in the back pages of a trade journal isn’t going to change how decision-makers in Southeast Asia buy. B2B PR has outgrown the era where media relations was the holy grail. The game now is relationship-building; and that means meeting executives where they actually discover, evaluate , and trust new ideas. The shift is happening fast. And the companies still measuring success in “number of press clippings” are quietly losing ground to those shaping conversations directly, in the right places, with the right credibility. The New Reality of B2B Decision-Making Here’s what’s changed: Executives buy through peers, not press. In industries from fintech in Singapore to manufacturing tech in Vietnam, decisions are being influenced in WhatsApp groups, closed-door peer forums, and LinkedIn comment threads -- not glossy magazines. A CFO is more likely to act on what another CFO posts on LinkedIn than on a half-page feature in a trade weekly. Though...

Not long ago, we walked into a pitch with a regional brand team. They proudly showed us their “cutting-edge” PR dashboard: a glossy interface packed with charts, graphs, and numbers that spun and updated in real time. It looked impressive. But five minutes in, we asked a simple question: “So, what decisions are you making based on this data?” Silence. The truth is most dashboards are beautiful distractions. They count clicks, mentions, impressions, and sentiment scores; but rarely tie those metrics back to business outcomes. Worse, they give leaders a false sense of control: as if more colourful charts somehow equal smarter strategy. In practice, we’ve seen teams paralysed by dashboards. They obsess over vanity spikes (“Look! Engagement’s up 35% this week!”) but can’t explain whether customer trust actually improved, whether stakeholders feel reassured, or whether sales conversations got easier. That gap -- between what’s tracked and what actually matters -- is where communicators los...

Every brand loves its own story. Stirring vision statements. Emotional launch videos. Slides polished to perfection. But here’s the brutal truth: if no one outside your leadership team can repeat that story in their own words, it’s worthless. Case in point: We once worked with a fast-growing tech firm. Their “brand story” filled forty slides and a glossy manifesto. The problem? When we asked ten employees, “What does your company actually do?” we got ten different answers. Some talked features. Others talked values. A few mumbled jargon so dense even the CEO wouldn’t understand it. If your own people can’t tell your story back to you, what chance does the market have? We stripped that bloated manifesto back to one line: a simple, human explanation of the problem they solved and why it mattered. Suddenly: Employees were saying it consistently. Investors started quoting it back to leadership. Customers shared it with peers -- unprompted. That’s when the story stoppe...

When crisis hits in Asia-Pacific, speed and nuance decide whether a brand sinks or swims. Social media storms in Jakarta. Regulatory crackdowns in Singapore. Consumer backlash in Bangkok. It’s a volatile region where reputations are built -- or shredded -- in hours, not weeks. And now AI is in the mix. Tools that can scan sentiment in real time, predict reputational flashpoints, or even draft holding statements are reshaping how brands respond. But here’s the kicker: AI doesn’t replace crisis communications. It simply raises the stakes. Brands that misuse it risk amplifying the very chaos they’re trying to contain. So, what lessons can we take from APAC brands already navigating this AI-crisis intersection? Lesson 1: Speed Is Useless Without Context AI excels at velocity. It can monitor thousands of conversations across Twitter/X, TikTok, WeChat, WhatsApp and niche local platforms like Line or Koo. But speed without cultural context is dangerous. Take an example from a consumer e...