MSL Conversations

This week, MSL New York Together Work’s Better winners Alyssa Horton and Leila Boukassi begin their journey in Singapore! The Together Work’s Better competition enables a winning team from each of MSLGROUP’s  four regions to visit any office in the network, to discover the people and the city, experience the work culture – and of course to have a little fun too. Alyssa and Leila are one of two teams from the Americas that won in the competition.  Alyssa and Leila suggested a Peace by PUMA campaign.  They are writing a daily blog so we can follow along their exciting adventure.

We spent our second day in the MSL Singapore office on Wednesday.  In the morning, we met with Amy Kong to hear about the healthcare environment in Singapore and her work with Alcon / CIBA Vision on a variety of projects from product launches to tough issues management. Amy, like all of our Singapore colleagues, is a jack of all trades; because the team is relatively small, each member is expected to be an expert in everything from media relations to the intricacies of regulatory bodies – and they are!

For lunch, we walked to Maxwell Food Centre, a food market with many multicultural “hawker stalls.”  We tried various local foods including the famous Tian Tian chicken rice – which was delicious! During our walk back to the office we stumbled across a novelty bar called Obama’s Irish Pub, which features photos of the US president and campaign memorabilia. The team also took us to taste durian ice cream at a local shop.  Durian is a native Singaporean fruit with a VERY distinct look, flavor and smell (we could even detect the smell in the ice cream!).

When we returned to the office, we met with Erin and Linda Lee, team leader of the corporate practice, to learn more about the region’s media landscape and MSL Singapore’s corporate work. Again, Linda’s team covers a wide spectrum of work from C-suite media trainings to cause marketing. Our day ended with Dawn, who provided an overview of Singapore’s P&G health and well-being work.

In all, our two days in the Singapore office were wonderful – we were welcomed warmly, introduced to the culture and we learned so much about how PR works in South East Asia. We’re  looking forward to sharing our learnings, including how we can work together with the Singapore office, when we return.

Anne Yourt in the Toronto office asked how the average day differs in Singapore versus the US. The office is much smaller, but the day-to-day agency experience in Singapore is quite similar to ours in New York – there is clear evidence that we share the same business values, work ethic and passion for the industry. The main differences are the focus on regional programming (emphasis on Singapore being a sort of command center, providing the smarts and the tools for employment outside the country). Media relations is also quite different due to the size (small) and structure (government regulated) of the landscape. Additionally, because the country is so small, clients are practically neighbors – it’s easy to jump into a cab for a one hour client meeting across town.

Tomorrow we’re headed across the border to Malaysia. We’ve heard internet access is very limited, but look out for our next blog in the coming days!