For a long time, the working assumption in marketing communications felt solid. Build something credible, explain its value clearly, and people would eventually respond. That assumption is under real pressure now.
The idea that attention itself, not information, is the scarce resource isn’t new or unique to this region; it’s been true globally since before social media existed. What’s specific to Southeast Asia is the mechanics: which platforms actually carry that scarcity, which cultural codes reward or punish participation, and how fast the constraint is tightening here relative to more mature digital markets.
Short-form video, livestreams, creator content and brand messages fight continuously for the same limited moments of focus. It is now less about simply communicating, and more about earning a pause.
The platforms that dominate digital behaviour in the region tend to reward content that interrupts the scroll: something that sparks curiosity, invites a reaction, or slips into a conversation already underway. Content that only explains or sells often travels less far.
Content that only explains or sells often travels less far.
A clear recent example is Indonesia’s “aura farming” moment. An 11-year-old boy dancing on the bow of a traditional racing boat during the Pacu Jalur festival went viral worldwide within weeks; athletes and celebrities as far as the NFL started copying his stance. What resonated was not his technical skill, but presence. The conversation became the product.
I watched a version of the same pattern play out closer to home this year, and it’s worth being precise about how it actually happened, because the real mechanism is more interesting than the tidy version. In May 2026, MR.DIY installed a Malaysian billboard with its yellow reusable bag blown up to billboard scale as part of its “Satu Beg, Seribu Cerita” campaign.
People photographed it and shared it online, which is where most brand case studies would stop the story. What actually made it a movement was a single netizen who started generating AI images of other brands “responding” with their own billboards and witty one-liners. Real brands — Mydin, Watsons, ZUS Coffee, Tourism Malaysia, Aeon among them — only joined afterward, adding their own versions to a joke the public had already started without them.
View on Threads
Nobody at MR.DIY built that second layer. A stranger did, for free, because the original idea gave them something worth building on. That’s a meaningfully different thing than a brand orchestrating a cross-brand campaign, and it’s the more honest version of what “earned attention” actually looks like when it works.
However, for every moment like this that works, there are many attempts that misread the room entirely: a meme joined a beat too late, a cultural reference that reads as appropriation rather than participation, or a brand inserting itself into a conversation that was never an invitation. The examples above are the ones that worked. The ones that didn’t rarely get written up, which makes the strategy look more reliable than it actually is.
What gets missed when the lens stays urban
Everything above describes the same audience: digitally fluent, young, urban, plugged into TikTok and Threads in real time. That’s a real and commercially significant slice of the region, but is not the region.
Outside the biggest cities, and among older or more traditionally oriented consumers, attention still gets earned — just through different mechanics, not through less digital ones. Smartphone penetration has grown fast even in smaller towns and rural areas across the region, but the platforms and pace differ: Facebook and WhatsApp tend to carry more weight than TikTok or Threads, word of mouth through family and local retailers still shapes what gets trusted, and community or religious networks move information at their own rhythm rather than a platform’s.
A campaign built entirely around winning one platform’s algorithm can leave this audience completely untouched, not because they’re offline, but because they’re online somewhere else.
Creator partnerships have shifted in parallel
Audience size still counts, but the ability to generate real engagement has become more valuable in many situations I’ve worked on. Smaller and mid-tier creators often deliver stronger relative participation because their content sits closer to the communities they serve; although that’s not automatic, and brand safety, measurement, and the operational load of managing many relationships remain real constraints, especially for reputation-sensitive or regulated clients.
The diaspora layer still gets under-weighted
One dimension that purely domestic analysis tends to miss is Southeast Asian diaspora communities. Indonesian, Malaysian, Filipino, Vietnamese, Thai, and Singaporean communities living abroad form active digital networks, and they don’t behave as one. Some accelerate content that starts at home, while others are more fragmented by host country, generation, or language. Hybrid-identity content — material that mixes cultural familiarity with life abroad — can perform strongly within certain circles, where authenticity tends to matter more than polish.
One dimension that purely domestic analysis tends to miss is Southeast Asian diaspora communities.
Conversations that gain traction in these networks can influence consideration and cultural relevance back home. The effect is neither automatic nor consistent. Treating “the diaspora” as a single strategic asset oversimplifies it. Treating it as another genuine surface for earned attention, approached with real specificity, is closer to the truth.
What this means in practice
None of this reduces the importance of substance. Credible products, consistent delivery, and genuine capability remain the foundation. Without them, attention is temporary and can turn into a liability. But substance alone is frequently not enough to cut through.
The more useful question is often no longer only “how do we tell our story?” It is “how do we participate in the conversations that matter to the people we need to reach –including those that move across borders, identities, and generations — without forcing entry or misreading local dynamics?”
Attention in this region isn’t won with a bigger budget but by an organisation willing to read the room specifically enough to know which conversation is actually worth joining.
Farrell Tan is Founding Director of Kuala Lumpur-based Orchan Consulting | Asia.
