100% Malaysian media agency scores big at RECMA

In many ways, RECMA is the Cannes Lions for media agencies. RECMA, Research Company Evaluating the Media Agency Industry,  is the only global research company that evaluates media agencies worldwide.

Founded in June 1991, in Paris, RECMA is the only independent company to publish a wide range of media agency notation reports on a global scale.

The mission of RECMA is to provide strategic intelligence reference tools to help the top 500 global advertisers in their decision-making and agency sourcing.

It collects and analyses data from more than 700 agencies in 45 countries. Of particulate interest, is their annual Country Reports of local qualitative and quantitative rankings available in 50 countries.

Rises to Top 3 in Malaysia 

In many ways, RECMA is the Cannes Lions for media agencies. RECMA, Research Company Evaluating the Media Agency Industry,  is the only global research company that evaluates media agencies worldwide.

Founded in June 1991, in Paris, RECMA is the only independent company to publish a wide range of media agency notation reports on a global scale.

The mission of RECMA is to provide strategic intelligence reference tools to help the top 500 global advertisers in their decision-making and agency sourcing.

It collects and analyses data from more than 700 agencies in 45 countries. Of particulate interest, is their annual Country Reports of local qualitative and quantitative rankings available in 50 countries.

Rises to Top 3 in Malaysia 

The chilli padi metaphor for Trapper Group may not be entirely accurate. Far from being small, but fiery, the agency recorded an amazing growth curve over the last three years, capping off a sterling performance to become the Number 3 media agency in Malaysia, startling even the big boys.

World-Class Evaluation 

As a rating agency RECMA delivers an evaluation of media agencies based on 19 criteria. These criteria are not financial but marketing, reflecting the agencies’ capabilities. This research study provides an external audit of an advertiser’s media agency portfolio. As it goes beyond the simple measure of volume, the qualitative evaluation is a highly effective way for assessing agencies by highlighting their strengths and weaknesses. RECMA assesses agencies based on two sets of criteria: Vitality and Structure.

CRITERIA FOR EVALUATING VITALITY AND STRUCTURE

22 years forward

Under the Trapper Group, there are brands such as Trapper and SEED (both integrated media), Trapper Interactive or TIN (digital media), Compass (Out-Of-Home), Trapper Consulting (strategy consulting), adwork (media marketplace) and adminer (programmatic and adtech).

Out of 70 the independent agencies evaluated, Trapper has recorded the #5 best progression of qualitative-scores over 3 years.

It also leads in Malaysia for its strength in Local Roots.

Purpose-Driven Focus 

Trapperians call themselves Growth Engineers because their approach is function-based. “Sales loss is often a symptom not a disease. We identify the exact business challenges for our clients and design functional solutions via any way that works, even the ones outside of media,” explains Sue-Anne Lim, CEO of Trapper.

She continues….

Culture 

In Trapper Group, we are centred on our DNA: Grow yourself, grow the client’s business and very naturally, we will grow our own business.

There are only two outcomes we advocate – efficiency and effectiveness, and for everyone to develop the wisdom to balance them at any moment. We are agile and efficient with our resources, there are no hierarchical egos to serve when putting proposals together.

We’ve also developed something called rapid feedback where we optimise the way we work as we work, so one year in with all these work hacks in place, the teams are in a really good spot, moving with momentum and in sync with each other.

In 2021, we had the highest pitch conversion in the industry despite taking a month break during our infamous Pitch Detox.

Integrated strategy

We don’t believe in silos anymore. And you can see in the way the industry moves, the clients are very fluid. They want to know who can solve their problems and they don’t care whether you are a brand agency, a creative hot shop, a media house or even an activation outfit.

Therefore, our agencies adopt a whole-business view approach first to identify client’s growth challenges. Then we figure how best to solve those problems from an integrated media perspective, covering all channels.

Admittedly we can’t solve everything, sometimes clients have unrealistic goals with unreal budgets, but we will do our best to give our point of view. Cause that’s what good partners do – tell you as it is.

Client stability

Trapper Group is the number one agency in Malaysia that has the lowest exposure to top three clients according to recma. In plain words, this means that we are hedged against risk of losing big clients. And that means our clients are hedged against trading risks. If a big client walks out the agency door, everyone’s rates are affected.  That doesn’t happen in Trapper, so maybe not having a mega client is a blessing in disguise for us!

The goal of the business is to never rest on our laurels or put all our eggs in one basket. If nothing else, the pandemic has certainly taught us that!  Our business before was more centred on a long tail of local clients with some key global brands but we’ve grown and diversified our client segments. We now have a very strong balance of multinationals, large local enterprises, and a long tail of SMEs.”

Kenneth Wong, CEO of Trapper Interactive, shares, “We are also known as the champion of local roots because of the number of Malaysian businesses in our portfolio against all other competitors. But make no mistake, we are not a local-for-local type of agency. Don’t give us your business because of ‘kita jaga kita’.

We love our Malaysian roots but we believe in having global standards. This again is a testament of our achievement in 2021.”