URALA International

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Marketing Director of Ence Marketing Group in Singapore.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire URALA Communications, and what were your goals?

We partnered with URALA on the Japanese operation of the global marketing campaign for The Zayed Sustainability Prize, which is the UAE’s global award in sustainability and a tribute to the legacy of the late founding father of the UAE, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. The campaign had both digital and offline elements.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

URALA is an established integrated advertising agency in Japan with a large and passionate team. We have worked on projects both in Singapore and Japan, and from Japan. Their team has always been reliable and communicative and we enjoy working with them because of the good communication we have both ways and a great deal of old-school trust, where we each support each other beyond just business. This is an important aspect of doing cross-border, cross-cultural business. Trust is a commodity that cannot be bought and only earned.

The team has earned our innate trust over the years as they have consistently put in the effort and passion to deliver, even when the going was tough. URALA has worked with Japanese municipal governments, Singapore trade associations and on other cross-border projects, so we know that they are familiar with managing cultural nuances and have the flexibility to stay clear and focused on the objectives that need to be met and will work with us to deliver on them. The team is also resourceful and has the maturity of understanding and connections to make things happen.

Describe the scope of their work in detail, including any steps and the final deliverables.

We worked with Zayed across 7 countries in Asia to promote the contest/award. The objective was to promote the ZSP (Zayed Sustainability Prize) to relevant companies in sustainability that could take part in the contest through public awareness such as broadcast, print and online media, with influencers and through social media. We also have to directly build a database of specific companies that could and wanted to take part in such an award. This included working with Japanese organisations, tertiary institutions, venture capitalists, trade associations and consultancy firms such as KPMG.

We organised a series of webinars in Singapore, Japan and Korea with each garnering about several hundred attendees to educate them on the entire application and award process. Ultimately, we managed,to surpass the submissions target in our contract, and also garnered good on-ground publicity for the ZSP brand for all 7 countries, Japan being a key contributing factor, with URALA's help.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

A group of 5 comprising of:

• an account manager
• webinar manager
• partnership manager
• two assistants

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

URALA contacted over 200 organisations, collecting more than 20 submissions within a very short timeframe. Around 60 Japanese media and 10 influencers published the press release, which garnered at least 100k in page views. We also partnered with 12 groups and associations which are related to the sustainability industry. Two webinars were attended by over 800 people each time.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

Very effective despite the time pressure. We were in constant touch with ongoing weekly meeting, Whatsapp chats and emails. Despite the time difference, we worked seamlessly and managed the process well. All in all, I would say it was a very smooth working partnership we had - very focused, and very clear on the objectives to get the job done and what would get us the results efficiently.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

URALA Communications has an international team with a good understanding of the local market. They are able to suss out the important points quickly and set up a project team with a deep understanding on how to work together to achieve those targets swiftly as well. We were also able to resolve any questions and improve on the processes throughout the working partnership very quickly and easily. This shows a very clear-minded team which is dedicated to getting the job done well - no complaints, no stalling, no finger-pointing. Each member of the team was responsible, and had a personal commitment that made this project so much easier to manage as good ideas and processes were quickly implemented.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Not that I can think of!