Joshua helms the creative agency, The 8gency operating in the heart of KL, with plenty of experience under his belt having worked in publishing, PR, production, advertising and having a strong foundation in digital and social marketing. The 8gency offers an array of services from digital and social media advertising and marketing, public relations consulting, events, branding consulting, video production, influencer marketing and more.
Has this MCO changed you?
My wife and I are pretty much homebodies so it wasn’t really a big transition for us, aside from the fact that we were working side by side for a couple of months. Other than that, I spent a lot of time cooking because I like to cook, so it gave me a lot of leeway to try new recipes. Personally, it was more of self-improvement. I actually took up to building a website, learning how to do that, I also used to play music so I spent a lot of time in my studio at home. It actually gave me an opportunity to clear out the studio and start working on new material.
How is the business side of things?
From a business perspective, it did hit us a bit hard as we’ve been very heavily reliant on PR and events. So when
the COVID-19 pandemic happened, there was a lot of planning on how to adapt to the whole situation. A lot of the events planned were either cancelled or postponed. Since we have our media platform MASSES as well as Sneakerlah, we spent a lot of time working on content for social media, as we felt like more people were basically on it all of the time.
Did you see your engagement & audience increase?
On the social media front, it started slow and got better because we couldn’t do a lot of video content, we did a lot of Instagram Live content. Once it kicked off, we could see on a weekly basis the audience growing, so at the same time it was important to get someone who could also pull in the crowd.
What has MCO taught you from a business perspective?
From a business perspective, the one thing that keeps popping up in my head is digital is the most important thing. My game plan has changed, right now I’m really pushing for more digital retailing and projects because at least if something like this happens again we can still do work. The MCO was sort of like a reminder we’ve got to start focusing on the digital aspects of things.
Joshua is wearing: Denim jacket and knit sweater by Gucci; Shirt, trousers and boots, his own; Breitling Avenger Automatic GMT 45 in stainless-steel case and bracelet