W Communications eyes expansion in APAC and Middle East

W Communications is expanding its presence across the Asia Pacific region, with plans to open multiple new offices over the next 24 months. The agency is also considering acquisitions to accelerate its growth in the region.

Currently, W Communications operates in markets including China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam through a combination of local teams and affiliate partners. Singapore serves as the agency’s central hub for APAC operations, while Vietnam has been used for agile content production via joint ventures. The firm plans to leverage Singapore’s market to build larger teams and acquire specialist agencies in social, digital, and influencer marketing.

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Outside of APAC, the agency continues to expand in the Middle East, with offices in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi covering the GCC region and maintains offices in New York and the UK to support global clients. W Communications is taking a market-by-market approach, working with on-the-ground talent to navigate the region’s diverse cultural and linguistic landscape.

“We're seeing very clear, achievable growth in APAC and Middle East. They're my two focuses at the moment,” CEO Warren Johnson told MARKETING-INTERACTIVE.

The agency has worked with global brands including Chanel, Marc Jacobs, foodpanda, McLaren, St. Regis, Maker’s Mark, and Carlsberg. Recent client wins span luxury hospitality, technology, finance, F&B, and retail, including Capella Singapore, Conrad Singapore Marina Bay, Geneco, Lam Research, Moet Hennessy Diageo, and SEON.

W Communications’ growth strategy combines organic expansion and acquisitions. “Now that we've sort of done the first decade in Singapore, we’re going to be a lot more acquisitive, investing more in Singapore and the region. We’ve got quite a significant war chest to make acquisitions, particularly in influencer, social and digital,” Johnson said.

Following the creation of W’s integrated communications arm earlier this year, the agency is expanding its creative capabilities, covering areas from insights to impact. Over the last 12 months, it has scaled its social media and KOL practice with production capabilities to meet client needs across APAC.

To further reinforce its content capabilities, W Communications launched a global joint venture with multi-discipline content agency Bellow. The partnership, called W Productions and led out of W Asia in Singapore, combines the strengths of both agencies to serve their collective client base and support W’s evolution from an earned-first communications firm into a fully integrated creative and marketing agency across B2B and B2C sectors.

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