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Non-favourable travel trends in Malaysia have emerged due to the tourism and hospitality sector losing over 80% of its business since March 2020. The Government has imposed strict movement control orders curbing rapidly increasing COVID-19 cases.

Since March 2020, Malaysia’s tourism and hospitality sector has lost over 80% of its business due to strict movement control orders imposed to curb the rapidly increasing COVID-19 cases.

Domestic travel was allowed from June to September last year as Malaysia eased lockdowns nationwide. However, this did little to help the flailing tourism industry.

Apart from regular promotions and offers, some businesses in the travel and F&B industries have sought creative ways to keep their brands at the top of their minds and keep them interested in their respective sectors.

Download the whitepaper and read more.

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In a post-AI world where misinformation spreads faster than facts, trust in leadership has hit an all-time low. According to the latest Edelman Trust Barometer, we are witnessing a steep decline in how much the public trusts CEOs and institutions. So, how do leaders rebuild that capital?

In a recent webinar hosted by Isentia, we explored the critical role of authenticity as the pathway to trust. Moderated by Paik San, Head of Insights (Malaysia & Emerging Markets) at Isentia, the panel featured Kim Dy, Head of Brand & Communications for UnionDigital Bank, and Malathi Pillay, Director of Brand Equity & Communications at Malaysia Rapid Transit Corporation Sdn Bhd. Together with Isentia’s Prashant Saxena, VP, Revenue and Insights, SEA they unpacked how brands can navigate a low-trust environment by being human, consistent, and genuinely empathetic.

Here are the key takeaways from the discussion.

1. Authenticity is currency and trust is wealth

Prashant Saxena kicked off the session by grounding the abstract concept of trust in a practical framework. He noted that while trust is the ultimate "wealth" a brand possesses—protecting it during crises, authenticity is the daily "currency" one must invest to build that wealth.

Isentia’s data suggests that many leaders suffer from an "Authenticity signal poverty"—posting content that lacks social proof, information credibility, or cultural fit. To combat this, communication must rely on the "Three Ps":

• Proof: Is the information accurate and verifiable?
• Place: Does it resonate culturally with the specific audience?
• People: Is there endorsed trustworthiness?

2. During a crisis, "glossy" narratives fail

One of the most powerful insights came from Malathi Pillay at MRT Corp, who manages the reputation of massive public infrastructure projects, emphasized that trust isn't built in big moments, but through the consistency of day-to-day behavior. Her advice for staying authentic is to avoid the trap of "motherhood statements", words that don't really resonate with the common audiences.

She explained that stating a vision like "transforming mobility" is often lost on the audience. To make the brand promise authenticity, one must provide context.

"We always try to support our messaging with specific examples... We talk about that university student that lives in Kajang, who is now able to get to his university in Kota Damansara in one smooth ride within 45 minutes." — Malathi Pillay.

By grounding the narrative in specific, relatable human benefits, like saving time or creating local jobs, brands can bridge the gap between corporate goals and public reality. She also mentions how misinformation does not always have to be dealt with bold statements. Quiet corrections also go a long way in maintaining consistency in our media comms.

3. The "human compass" in tech and banking

Kim Dy from UnionDigital Bank addressed the challenge of humanising a traditionally cold and intimidating industry: banking. For a digital bank where customers may never speak to a human, the brand voice must do the heavy lifting.

Kim introduced the idea of a "human compass"—a framework ensuring every notification, app interface, and social post is helpful, clear, and optimistic.

"People trust people, not logos. Authenticity means speaking the language of your customers, and staying away from jargon in an industry that is unwelcoming and very intimidating." — Kim Dy

She shared a real-world example where a deepfake of a brand ambassador surfaced promoting gambling. Instead of hiding, the bank acted with speed and transparency, proving that trust isn't built in good times alone, but is earned by how you face problems head-on and when audiences actually see the steps taken to better the brand's reputation and earn back trust.

Both panelists agreed that the role of a leader has shifted. In the past, authority meant firmness. Today, authority requires empathy.

• From the public Sector: Malathi noted that when leaders address concerns (like project costs), they must validate the public's anxiety first before diving into technical explanations. "Empathy must always come before explanation," she advised.
• From the private Sector: Kim argued that authority doesn't mean being the loudest voice; it means being the most responsible one. She encourages leaders to move away from corporate scripts and share personal reflections to cut through the noise.

4. Balancing AI speed with human sincerity

As the panel concluded, the conversation turned to the role of AI.

Prashant highlighted a "speed vs. sincerity" dilemma facing modern communicators. His solution was to let data provide the authority, but let leadership provide the empathy. Malathi added that while AI is a tool we all use, leaders must have the discipline not to let it replace human judgment.

In her closing remarks, Paik San summarises that the secret to building lasting trust is coherence. It is the alignment of what you say, what you do, and how you make your audience feel over time.

Whether you are managing a digital bank or the infrastructural capabilities of public transport, the rules of engagement have changed. In a noisy world, the most cutting-edge strategy a leader can employ is simply being human.

---

Interested in viewing the whole recording? Watch our webinar here.

Alternatively contact our team to learn more insights into authenticity, leadership and why trust is on a decline.

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Ngaire Crawford, Director of Insights, ANZ

In leadership meetings across the industry, a single question has become unavoidable: "What is our AI strategy?" Behind this question is often the unspoken hope for an "AI Easy Button": a mythical, one-click solution to our most complex measurement challenges. As someone who spends a large portion of my time designing these new frameworks, I'm infinitely more excited about the blueprints and the foundations than what colour the house is painted.

For the first time in my career, we have the tools to stop using proxies and start building what we've always wanted: true, at-scale, sophisticated measurement. The real opportunity isn't in automation, which lets the AI decide;  it's in the architecture and design of systems for the AI to follow. For decades, I’ve been frustrated by proxies. I’ve watched organisations use metrics like Impressions and Share of Voice as proxies for impact and influence. Too many people have been measuring the loudness of their voice, not whether anyone was actually listening.

Much of the history of communications measurement has been a story of 'good enough' data. And in some cases, data that wasn't even good at all (*cough* AVEs). 

Why a blueprint still needs an architect

But before we can harness the potential of AI, we have to be honest about the technology and tools we're working with. As anyone who's ever used a "smart" tool knows, they can be... well, confidently wrong.

The new challenge isn't just "Garbage In, Garbage Out." The new challenge is that the AI has become a high-speed, frighteningly convincing echo chamber. When a machine delivers a flawed insight, it does so with the resolute certainty of a supercomputer, laundering that flaw into a "fact."As architects, our job is to audit the blueprints and stress-test the materials before we build the house. When my team and I test these models, we're not just looking for what they do right. We're methodically hunting for where they go wrong.

Where we continue to see a critical need for human intervention and expertise:

• Context Blindness: AI is a brilliant pattern-matcher, but it has limited real-world context and struggles to identify the intent of what’s being analysed. It can miss the nuance of language, the authority of a source, or whether something is fact or speculation.
• Language Bias: This is my personal favourite and takes a few forms. AI is trained on text, but it isn't (yet) trained on human subtext. This can look like missed nuance for slang used by younger audiences or emerging shifts in the meaning of language. Models are ultimately impacted and biased by their training data, so this can also mean larger systemic biases are amplified and not appropriately interrogated.
• Viewpoint Collapse: While AI can sometimes get locked into a perspective based on its training, it can also collapse multiple, distinct viewpoints (like a speaker's sarcastic intent vs. the literal text) into a single, flat monolith. This drastically changes the outcomes of your analysis and ultimately the understanding of your audience.

This is the methodical, behind-the-scenes work that often goes unseen, and it is the crucial due diligence needed. It’s not as flashy as writing a press release faster, but it’s the only way to build a tool you can actually trust to make a strategic decision.

New tools, same bedrock principles

This testing isn't just about finding technical bugs or funny hallucinations. We’re testing these new AI models against the foundational, hard-won principles of communications measurement that our industry has spent years formalising.

AI is an incredibly powerful new tool, but it doesn't get a free pass. It still has to follow the rules of good measurement.

• Measure outcomes, not just outputs: This has always been our goal. An AI-driven approach that only counts outputs (like mentions or sentiment) 1,000 times faster is still just a faster measure of noise. It doesn't tell you if a single mind was changed or a single action was taken.
• Demand transparency: A metric is useless if you can't explain how it's calculated. This is my biggest critique of the current "plug-and-play" approach to AI. If a vendor provides a proprietary 'Reputation Score' of 7.2, and they can't (or won't) tell you the formula, it's not a metric. It's marketing.
• Link activity to business objectives: This is the most important rule of all. The only reason to measure is to inform a strategic decision that ladders up to a business goal. A tool that just produces data, but no clear insight linked to your specific objectives, has failed.

When we stop seeing AI as a magic box and start seeing it as a powerful, scalable engine, one that we must build and steer based on these principles, then it becomes truly transformative.

The payoff: the tools are finally catching up to our ambition

A new frontier of opportunity is here. Such as the capability to move from being reactive to being predictive, and it takes careful design to get this right. Our traditional analysis has been brilliant at explaining what has just happened. Now, as architects of these new systems, we are building and testing AI models that can scan the horizon for the faint signals that precede a major narrative shift.

We can empower movement from broadcasting and the old spray and pray approach; to precision, deliberate engagement of stakeholders and audiences. This is another area where the craft of measurement design is essential. AI gives us the power to see the micro-communities and specific, high-authority voices that actually shape opinion. The work is in designing the models that can identify them accurately.

Finally, we can (at last!) move from quantifying to qualifying at scale. For me, this is the most exciting and complex challenge. For 20 years, I’ve had to choose: a large-scale quantitative study (which missed nuance) or a small-scale qualitative review (which couldn't be scaled). As architects, we can now design frameworks that don't just give a "positive" score but confirm that a specific strategic message landed, with the right audiences, and in the intended context.

That is the opportunity. It's not magic. It's the methodical, patient engineering we've been waiting for. It’s the difference between a "plug-and-play" gimmick and a truly strategic asset. The real payoff isn't just faster reporting, it’s about fundamentally upgrading behaviours and expectations of measurement. This isn't an overnight shift. As any research leader will tell you, a new methodology takes time, testing and refinement to get right.

The future we've been waiting for

For my entire career, we’ve been strategic thinkers working with tools that could only show us the past. We were forced to be historians, meticulously analysing what had already happened to predict future behaviour. The key to using this new, complex technology effectively is; strong communication, articulation and critical human thinking. The power of any AI is unlocked by the quality of the question you ask it. It's a system that rewards clear, precise, and strategic language.

This is a massive homefield advantage for communicators, who have spent their entire careers honing the exact skills required to be the architects of this new era. The AI we are using today is the worst it will ever be. It will only get better, faster, and more capable from here. This is what's so thrilling, and it's just the beginning. This new generation of AI driven approaches doesn't replace our intuition, it amplifies it. As communicators (and researchers!) this is the moment to level up. We get to be the explorers and the strategists who connect communications directly to business, policy and societal outcomes. 

We're not just building better measurement and deeper insights; we're leading a more intelligent, more responsive and more impactful profession. What an incredibly exciting time to be in this industry.

Ready to be the architect of your own measurement strategy?

To learn how to build the right KPIs and tell a compelling story with your data, register for our live webinar:

• Topic: Making Communications Count: Build your KPI confidence and storytelling"
• Date & time: 12 November, 11am AEDT/ 2pm NZT
• Hosted by: Ngaire Crawford, Director of Insights for ANZ, Isentia.

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