Pros
At least it’s not a remittance grift.
Cons
This company is the kind of foreign outfit that gives the Malaysian creative industry a bad name. They don’t even have proper agency certificatation (or at least they didn’t when I was there) and they have zero real connection to the local scene. No history, no relationships, no understanding of how things actually work here. They parachuted in with a big “creative” story and treat Malaysia like a cheap production hub, not a market to invest in.
They don’t exist to stimulate the industry or help creatives grow. The model is simple: burn through the best people first, because they’re hungry and talented. When those leave (and they always do), burn through the middling ones. When those are used up, scrape the bottom. There’s no retention strategy because there’s no long-term thinking, just squeezing whatever value is left until the next cycle.
Strategy is just whatever the senior person feels that day.
Because they don’t have real skin in the local industry, they also don’t care about reputation here. They’ve already rebranded once after the old name became toxic. If this one gets burned, they’ll probably just rename again or pack up.
That kind of transient mindset hurts the whole local ecosystem. Clients get cynical, local talent gets exploited, and legitimate local agencies have to clean up the mess.