If you spend enough time talking to marketers across Asia, as I do, a pattern emerges. Everyone insists their market is different. And yet, somehow, all of us are wrestling with the same questions about growth, measurement and the role of brand in a region that refuses to sit still.

That is exactly why I wanted to bring Rica Facundo, Managing Editor of WARC APAC and co-author of The Pace Principle, onto The CMO Office Podcast for Episode 8. Rica spends her days analysing what truly drives marketing effectiveness in our region, and she brings a rare blend of empathy, evidence and lived experience to the conversation.

And let me tell you now. She does not hold back.

Asia moves fast. But not too fast for brand building

One of the biggest myths I hear repeatedly in APAC is that long-term brand building does not work here. We are told our consumers are too pragmatic, too fragmented, too digital-first or too price sensitive to respond to the classic effectiveness principles.

Rica and her team at WARC have now shown, with data from across the region, that the opposite is true. When you combine long-term brand building with smart, measurable performance activation, you unlock what WARC calls The Multiplier Effect. And the impact in high-growth markets can be even more dramatic than in the West.

As we discussed in the episode, the challenge is not that Asia ignores the rules. It is that Asia tests them faster.

Culture is not a nice-to-have. It is a growth lever

One part of our conversation that really stayed with me was Rica’s view on cultural insight. Western brand playbooks do not simply plug and play in APAC. They cannot. Our region is too layered, too contradictory, too alive.

But that does not mean we abandon the fundamentals. It means we apply them with greater cultural sensitivity. Rica shines a light on examples across Asia where brands have built genuine emotional connection by grounding their work in local truths, not borrowed tropes.

And for those of us leading marketing in this region, she makes a compelling case. Culture is not just flavour. It is strategic advantage.

And measurement. Always measurement

You know that on this podcast, I will always bring the conversation back to measurement. And Rica was beautifully candid here. Too many marketers in Asia are still evaluating effectiveness through a short-term lens. That means they miss the delayed, compounding value of long-term brand building and underestimate marketing’s true commercial impact.

This is where modern MMM plays such an important role. Not the black-box models of ten years ago, but adaptive, always-learning commercial analytics that help marketers make the right call at the right time. If you are trying to build credibility with your CFO or COO, this is the evidence base you need.

A must-listen for marketers in Southeast Asia and beyond

I loved this conversation. Rica brings such clarity to a topic that is often muddied by opinion, trends and the myth that Asia is somehow an outlier. Spoiler: We are not. We are simply moving at two paces at once. And when you manage the sprint and the marathon together, the results can be extraordinary.

🎧 Listen to Episode 8 Everywhere

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Are you a CMO with a story to tell? Would you like to boost your personal profile on our podcast? Then for goodness sake, get in touch with me at nikki.taylor@analyticpartners.com.

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🎙️PODCAST: Marketing in Asia-Same, Same But Different? My Conversation with WARC Asia's Rica Facundo