Interview: Meilin Wong on earning trust before scaling in Malaysia

For brands entering or scaling in Malaysia, communications cannot be treated as the final layer of a launch plan. Positioning, reputation, stakeholder alignment, and local trust all need to be considered before major PR and marketing spend begins, particularly in a market shaped by multicultural expectations, regional nuance, and different ways of building credibility.

Telum Media spoke with Meilin Wong, Founder of Ember42, about what brands need to have in place before launching or scaling in Malaysia, the assumptions regional teams often make about the market, and why successful localisation needs to go beyond language.

Before a brand launches or scales in Malaysia, what should be in place from a communications perspective?

Assuming the business already knows there is a market for what it is selling, communications should help it reach the right customers faster. That means communications cannot sit separately from the commercial plan. They should help explain what the company does, why it matters in Malaysia, and why customers should trust it enough to take the next step.

For a B2B company, my immediate focus would be on building credibility and sales support. The communications story needs to make it easier for a prospect to understand the company, its expertise, and why it matters to their business. Media coverage, executive visibility, customer proof points, industry partnerships, and strong thought leadership can all help shorten the distance between "we have never heard of them" and "we should speak to them". Communications usually isn't what closes the sale. However, it can certainly help to shorten the sales cycle.

For B2C, the emphasis is slightly different. Awareness matters more, but so does familiarity and social proof. The brand needs to show it understands Malaysian consumers. Local relevance, reviews, creators, community engagement, earned media, and the customer experience itself all play a much bigger role in building confidence quickly.

One thing I'd caution regional teams against is assuming that because markets are close, they behave the same way.

I spent more than 30 years in Singapore, much of it working with global brands using it as a regional base. Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines were often grouped into one ASEAN plan. Operationally, that may work. Communications-wise, it often doesn't.

The media behave differently. Relationships are built differently. Hierarchy and authority show up differently. Even the way people disagree can vary from market to market. That’s why regional consistency should never come at the expense of local judgement. The strategy can be regional. The way you earn attention, trust, and influence has to be local.

What do regional communications teams often overlook when entering the Malaysian market, especially when it comes to multicultural expectations, local nuances, and differences across the country?

Malaysia can look like an easy market to understand from the outside. It is international, English is widely used in business, and global brands are already part of everyday life here. But familiarity can be misleading. The way trust is built, authority is read, and relationships are handled is shaped by Malaysia's own culture, history, and social norms.

Malaysia is multicultural, but that goes well beyond language. Different communities can have different cultural reference points, sensitivities, media habits, and expectations. Religion matters. Geography matters. Kuala Lumpur is not Johor or Penang, and Sabah and Sarawak should not be treated as an afterthought to Peninsular Malaysia.

Hierarchy matters too. Titles, seniority, who is in the room, and who speaks on behalf of the organisation can all shape how a company is perceived. That does not mean everything has to be formal. It simply means understanding how respect is shown here.

I have seen this many times when working with global and regional brands across Southeast Asia. A campaign, message, or media approach may have worked well in the US, Europe, the Middle East, or another Asian market, but that does not mean it will land the same way in Malaysia.

A good recent B2B example is Australia's NEXTDC. When it launched its first Malaysian data centre in Kuala Lumpur earlier this year, the story was not simply about expansion. It was tied to Malaysia's own ambitions around AI, cloud infrastructure, investment, and becoming a stronger digital hub. That gave customers, partners, government, and media a clearer reason to care about the company and what it was bringing to the market.

And this applies to media engagement too. The relationship between media, brands, and PR agencies can differ quite significantly from one market to another. A regional announcement that gets attention in Singapore may need a much stronger Malaysian angle here.

The journalist will want to know: what does this mean for Malaysia, who benefits, and why should our readers care?

So localisation is not about changing a few words in a press release or translating a campaign. It is about making the story genuinely relevant to Malaysia and backing it up with real proof.

My advice is very simple: don't assume that what works in one Southeast Asian market will work in Malaysia. Start with the local audience, local context, and local expectations. And ensure your message can be clearly translated into both Bahasa Melayu (Malay language) and Simplified Chinese.

How should brands build trust locally before they make a commercial push? What credibility signals matter most with Malaysian consumers, media, partners, and other stakeholders?

In Malaysia, trust is often built before the transaction. People pay attention to who you are associated with, who is willing to endorse you, and whether you show up in the right places. That could be through industry bodies, business communities, respected partners, local leaders, or credible media.

Relationships matter too. This is not a market where every conversation needs to start with a pitch. Sometimes the smarter thing is to spend time getting to know and understand the people around the business first, especially with partners, government, industry stakeholders, and the media.

Consistency is just as important. If the CEO says one thing, the local team says another, and the customer experience tells a third story, trust can wane quite quickly.

Brands also need to be careful about assuming that because something worked elsewhere, it will automatically work here. This is the cultural point that I mentioned. MR D.I.Y.'s 2025 Deepavali campaign is a good example. A film originally produced in Hindi for India was dubbed into Tamil and released in Malaysia. It drew criticism because many felt it did not reflect the Malaysian Indian experience. Public sentiment around the campaign was reported as 75 per cent negative.

That is a useful reminder that localisation is not simply about language. It is about understanding the people you are trying to reach and the context they live in.

For brands already operating in Malaysia, what are the warning signs that their communications strategy is not keeping pace with their growth?

I usually notice it when the business has changed, but the story has not. The company may be bigger, selling to new customers, or moving into new areas, but the messaging still sounds the same. That creates a gap between what the business has become and what the market understands.

I would also look at whether sales, marketing, and PR are telling the same story. If sales constantly has to explain the business from scratch or correct misconceptions, communications probably isn't doing enough work upfront. When a business is trying to scale in a new market like Malaysia, confusion can slow down progress, and that can get expensive.

Growth also brings more attention and more scrutiny. Therefore, the business needs to keep pace with that through stronger spokesperson preparation, issues management, and crisis readiness.

PR and communications should also be reviewed regularly against commercial priorities, not just coverage or content output. Questions like these should be raised:

• Are we reaching the right people?

• Are we helping sales conversations?

• Are we building trust where it matters?

That is what keeps communications useful to the business, rather than becoming activity for activity’s sake.