By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
Marketing In Asia
  • Marketing
    • Viral
    • Expert Opinions
    • News & Trends
    • Research
    • Market Podcasts
    • Market Videos
    Marketing
    This category deals with best news and updates on marketing and branding news and events.
    Show More
    Top News
    Sangeeta Mudnal
    How conversational commerce benefits marketers
    1 month ago
    Andrew Monu, VP of Marketing, LinkedIn
    Marketing in Asia Presents an Exclusive Interview with Andrew Monu, VP of Marketing, LinkedIn
    1 month ago
    Ankita Thakur
    Marketing in Asia Presents an Exclusive Interview with Ankita Thakur, Group Head of Marketing, MoneyHero Group
    2 months ago
    Latest News
    Marketing in Asia Presents an Exclusive Interview with Cris Tan, Associate Director, Publisher Development (SEA)
    1 month ago
    Time for ASEAN to Rethink a Single Currency Amid Global Trade Tensions
    1 month ago
    Marketing in Asia Presents an Exclusive Interview with Carine Chin, Head of Corporate Marketing, Etiqa Insurance Singapore
    1 month ago
    Marketing in Asia Presents an Exclusive Interview with April Tayson, Regional VP INSEAU at Adjust
    1 month ago
  • Startup
    • News from Startup world
    • Startup Stories
    • Trends and Opinions
    • Startup Podcasts
    • Startup Videos
    Startup
    News and articles from startup and venture investment world
    Show More
    Top News
    Japan’s Evolving Booze Culture: A Market in Transformation
    Japan’s Evolving Booze Culture: A Market in Transformation
    9 months ago
    text
    Safe Space™ announces partnership with National Healthcare Group as it continues to boost employee support and wellbeing
    9 months ago
    Sakshi Kalani Founder & CEO of Savy Click and Jaipur Unfolded
    AI-Powered Analytics: Sakshi Kalani on Influencer Marketing in 2025
    10 months ago
    Latest News
    Byron J. Fernandez: Minimize the stress of business crises with strong CX
    7 months ago
    Vedant Mahajan Acquires Stake in Flite: Transforming Event Technology with Innovation
    7 months ago
    Navigating the Digital Economy and Tax Challenges for SMEs
    7 months ago
    sehatUP Launches India’s First Integrated Digital Health Clinic, Pioneering Holistic Healthcare
    8 months ago
  • Business
    • Feature Stories
    • News
    • Business Podcasts
    • Business Videos
    Business
    News and press releases from business world of Asia
    Show More
    Top News
    Andrew Monu, VP of Marketing, LinkedIn
    Marketing in Asia Presents an Exclusive Interview with Andrew Monu, VP of Marketing, LinkedIn
    1 month ago
    Ankita Thakur
    Marketing in Asia Presents an Exclusive Interview with Ankita Thakur, Group Head of Marketing, MoneyHero Group
    2 months ago
    Mary Reschar, Head of Product Marketing, Fluent Commerce
    How retailers can prepare for the rise of Gen Zalpha
    2 months ago
    Latest News
    Marketing in Asia Presents an Exclusive Interview with Cris Tan, Associate Director, Publisher Development (SEA)
    1 month ago
    Time for ASEAN to Rethink a Single Currency Amid Global Trade Tensions
    1 month ago
    Marketing in Asia Presents an Exclusive Interview with Carine Chin, Head of Corporate Marketing, Etiqa Insurance Singapore
    1 month ago
    Marketing in Asia Presents an Exclusive Interview with April Tayson, Regional VP INSEAU at Adjust
    1 month ago
  • Society
    • Inspiration
    • Destinations & Travel
    • Food & Gourmet
    • People
    • Young Voices
    • Society Videos
    • Society Podcasts
    Society
    News and articles from and for societies around us
    Show More
    Top News
    Smashers Sports Acquires Delhi Franchise of WPBL: A Game-Changer in India’s Sports Entertainment
    Smashers Sports Acquires Delhi Franchise of WPBL: A Game-Changer in India’s Sports Entertainment
    7 months ago
    Resorts World Cruises Sets Sail from Dubai with New Luxury Gulf Voyages
    Resorts World Cruises Sets Sail from Dubai with New Luxury Gulf Voyages
    8 months ago
    Australia luxury property
    Australia’s Luxury Real Estate Market Soars as Affluent Buyers Seek Waterfront Dreams
    8 months ago
    Latest News
    From Taboo to Triumph: How Malaysians Are Transforming Their Intimate Health Journey
    3 months ago
    Top 5 Misconceptions About Antibiotics Malaysians Need to Stop Believing
    3 months ago
    Eagle Eye Reveals Impact of Loyalty Programs on APAC Retailers
    3 months ago
    Elevate Your Haircare in 2025 with Jung Beauty’s Luxurious Camellia Edition Treatment
    6 months ago
  • Press Release
  • Awards
    • MIA Impact Circle Stellar CxO 2023 Malaysia
    • MIA Impact Circle Stellar CxO 2023 India
    • MIA Impact Circle Stellar CxO 2023 Philippines
    • Australian Women in Business Excellence Awards
    • MIA Impact Circle Stellar CxO 2024 Singapore
    • Mia Impact Circle Stellar Cxo 2024 Hongkong Award 
    • Mia Impact Circle Stellar Cxo 2024 Indonesia Award 
Search
Technology
  • Hot
  • Trending
  • Editor’s Choice
  • NSFW
  • Reactions
  • Authors
  • Viral on Internet
Other Pages
  • My Bookmarks
  • Customize Interests
  • About Marketing In Asia
  • Business Register & Login
  • Web Stories
  • Videos
  • Disclaimer
  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Policy
© 2024 Marketing In Asia Sdn Bhd. All Rights Reserved.
Reading: Get To Know Khairah Rahim, Co-Founder Of Independents
Share
Sign In
Notification Show More
Latest News
Clare Yardley
Enigma key creative hires continue as Clare Yardley joins as Head of Creative Services
Press Release
Christmas In July
What to Eat, Drink, and Cheer at Christmas in July Festival
Press Release
Mei Ling Yeow_Archetype APAC_Head of, Strategy and Innovation
Archetype APAC appoints Mei Ling Yeow as Head of Strategy and Innovation to drive service innovation and strategic transformation
Press Release
DoubleVerify
DoubleVerify Uncovers ShadowBot Scheme Involving 35 Million Spoofed Mobile Devices
Press Release
Guiness- Hiring
Guinness Is On the Hunt for Malaysia’s First-Ever ‘Chief Pint Officer’ (CPO)!
Press Release
Aa
Marketing In Asia
Aa
  • Hot
  • Trending
  • Editor’s Choice
  • NSFW
  • Reactions
  • Authors
  • Viral on Internet
  • My Bookmarks
  • Customize Interests
  • About Marketing In Asia
  • Business Register & Login
  • Startup Register & Login
Search
  • Marketing
    • Viral
    • Expert Opinions
    • News & Trends
    • Research
    • Market Podcasts
    • Market Videos
  • Startup
    • News from Startup world
    • Startup Stories
    • Trends and Opinions
    • Startup Podcasts
    • Startup Videos
  • Business
    • Feature Stories
    • News
    • Business Podcasts
    • Business Videos
  • Society
    • Inspiration
    • Destinations & Travel
    • Food & Gourmet
    • People
    • Young Voices
    • Society Videos
    • Society Podcasts
  • Press Release
  • Awards
    • MIA Impact Circle Stellar CxO 2023 Malaysia
    • MIA Impact Circle Stellar CxO 2023 India
    • MIA Impact Circle Stellar CxO 2023 Philippines
    • Australian Women in Business Excellence Awards
    • MIA Impact Circle Stellar CxO 2024 Singapore
    • Mia Impact Circle Stellar Cxo 2024 Hongkong Award 
    • Mia Impact Circle Stellar Cxo 2024 Indonesia Award 
Have an existing account? Sign In
Follow US
© 2023 Marketing In Asia Sdn Bhd. All Rights Reserved.
Marketing In Asia > Blog > Society > People > Get To Know Khairah Rahim, Co-Founder Of Independents
People

Get To Know Khairah Rahim, Co-Founder Of Independents

profile
Last updated: 2022/07/29 at 4:48 PM
Kartina Rosli
Share
11 Min Read
get-to-know-khairah-rahim,-co-founder-of-independents
SHARE

The rapid growth in digitalisation has resulted in hyper-localised and more frequent marketing campaigns and asset production of smaller budgets. This has resulted in many businesses working with fragmented marketing service providers in pursuit of more effective, viable and cost-effective marketing solutions. Today, the market is seeing opportunities for agencies and professionals to offer specific solutions for clients to fit their specific marketing needs. They include areas such as brand strategy, social media marketing, web development, content curation and so on.

However, for SMEs and micro business owners, the decision to choose between agencies or independent marketing professionals can be mind-boggling as they struggle with budgets and the quality of services. This challenge has brought three professionals to come together and adopt data algorithms to match the right marketing and creative talents to business owners as well as heads of marketing according to the needs and budget they can afford.

To find out more about this new start-up, MIA speaks with Nur Khairah Abdul Rahim, one of the Co-founders of Independents.

1. Hello Khairah and welcome to Marketing In Asia. I am excited to find out more about your platform. I understand that it was set up by three professionals. Share with us more about this power team, your team’s background and your passion.

Hi Tina, pleasure is all mine – thank you for all that you do to enhance the awareness and education of marketing within our Asian region, and for this opportunity to introduce Independents!

My 2 co-founders; Jit, Weina and I met in a startup accelerator programme where we connected over this similar problem that we’ve experienced on different fronts. As a marketer on the client-side, I’ve felt the pain of working with uninspired agencies and freelancers – who couldn’t deliver the value that I sought. On one hand, agencies are expensive – and even after you’ve decided to spend that money for their services, you may get assigned a junior team compared to their larger more renowned MNC clients with bigger budgets.

Working with freelancers from various marketplaces on the other hand is more affordable but takes up too much time for recruitment and there’s a shortage of high-quality talent and teams who understand the local market nuances that I was targeting.

 Jit, my fellow cofounder comes from an advertising background and has worked with top advertising agencies for over 20 years and most recently as Creative Director. He saw how agencies’ creative teams were increasingly down-sized, over-stretched, and not empowered enough with technological developments that could help them deliver more value when it comes to marketing. Till today, despite working with hundreds if not thousands of creative talent, there wasn’t a universal objective way to track, measure creative performance and talent as most of them are still maintaining a pretty manual approach to identifying suitable talent (whether it’s full time or part-time talent).

When we met our fellow cofounder, Dr Weina Du, who is a data scientist who has built and applied machine learning algorithms in institutions such as OCBC, Rakuten and A*STAR, and most recently applied such an algorithm to solving employment matching opportunities, something clicked. What if we could solve the problem of better measuring creative talent potential based on past performance, skills and team dynamics? This was an opportunity – given the increasing trend of fragmented marketing specialists and freelance talents in Southeast Asia and Asia.

Independents Founding Team

With Independents, we’re hoping to be the go-to platform for Asia’s Top Creative and Marketing Talent on-demand

 

2. Tell us about Independents, its aim and the target audience you are reaching out to.

Marketing today is evolving at a faster speed than ever before – this complexity is heightened by the effects of a pandemic that has upturned media consumption habits and made the need to adapt quickly quintessential.

At Independents, we offer a solution for every time-pressed marketer whilst still keeping quality and value high. Whether you’re a regional marketer who’s looking to create customised regional or local assets for Asia, or ahead of marketing at a fast-growing start-up, or a business owner who needs access to strategic advice, and the best team to make it a reality.

Here are 5 ways are how we hope to provide unparalleled value when it comes to doing marketing in Asia:

  1. High-Quality Assurance: Top talents curated for every project’s needs. Our unique matching algorithm scores talents based on skills, industry experience, awards won, portfolio design/copy style match based on your brief, and team dynamics score for the best match that fits your budget!

  2. Proven Track Record: On average, our talents have 7 years of experience, and 60% have advertising agency experience including top ad agencies and worked on over hundreds of brands in Asia – both big and small.

  3. Fast: Data-centered quality talent matching is done within 48 hours of receiving the brief

  4. Local talent: Work with talents who won’t just understand your local market nuances but who are within your same time zone!

  5. Flexible on-demand hiring: In-house team is stretched but you still have many urgent campaigns and assets? We understand. We offer flexible on-demand talent for your ad hoc marketing needs. Pay as you go, or enjoy greater long-term savings with our long-term credits-based solutions, Creativity as a Service (CAAS) which offers flexibility to work with the preferred group of talents, with no expiry date!

 

3. How do you market yourself as unique or different in the industry?

We provide unparalleled access to top-quality talent across the region. Want a logo designer who’s talented at hand-drawn logos? Want a content writer who can write localised blog content for Indonesia? Or a growth digital marketer experienced with e-commerce social media campaigns?

 

4. Who are your clients and which services are more popular among them?

Our clients include MNCs, SMEs, startups and even large advertising agencies. Some of these include DBS, Griffin Kinetic, Vivo, Waitrr and Mullen Lowe.

The most popular services are writers, designers, video content producers and digital marketers.

5. We have seen the growth of outsourcing over the years. Where do you see Independent’s growth in the industry in the next 5 years?

We foresee a continued strong trajectory of growth and hope to be in Indonesia and Malaysia by 2022, and 3 other Asian markets within 5 years. 

 

6. What are the top three challenges you face in this business?

Good talent especially in Asia come and go – they switch from freelancing to full-time employment, thereby reducing the chance to keep working with some of them over the long term.

 Although we’re growing and now have over 300 curated talents on our platform, we’re barely keeping up with the growing demand for good talent – although one can say that is a happy problem!

 Our platform is still in the beta stage – whilst features like the talent scoring algorithm are completed, it is not completely automated yet and we’re halfway done with our full list of project management tools but rest assured, we’re working on this for the best project experience.

 

7. How do you talent scout your professionals and how do you ensure that they are the best fit for your clients?

Our onboarding platform collects detailed information such as

  • experience in the industry

  • Portfolio samples that are reviewed by a council of creative directors

  • skills

  • awards won

  • personality test scores that are complemented by

  • thorough data points from 360 degrees Net promoter score surveys by clients and talents

This is fed into our machine learning models – to better understand each talent’s strengths, and suitability for project matches.

 

8. How do Independents market themselves?

At this point, we’re relying heavily on word of mouth referrals. However, we’re looking to grow, and will be driving greater awareness with B2B digital marketing campaigns. Thank you for the opportunity to share more with fellow marketers too.

 

9. Based on your experience in helping companies and professionals who are looking for an outsourced team, what are your top three advice for them in terms of requirements and expectations?

 As a marketer, there are a few key considerations when it comes to marketing campaigns:

  • What are the outcomes you seek and why?

  • target timelines for content deployment and

  • budgets you can work with

The clearer you are about the above, the easier it will be to start working and driving the results you seek. Also, a good brief always includes as much relevant information and context – no small detail is too much when it comes to building remarkable creative work that will stand out. Take the time to share your hopes, your learnings and leanings, and then trust the team of specialists assigned to your project to do the magic and deliver the results you seek.

 

10. How can our readers reach out to you and your team, Khairah?

They can reach us via our website: www.independents.ai

 

You Might Also Like

Enigma key creative hires continue as Clare Yardley joins as Head of Creative Services

What to Eat, Drink, and Cheer at Christmas in July Festival

Archetype APAC appoints Mei Ling Yeow as Head of Strategy and Innovation to drive service innovation and strategic transformation

Guinness Is On the Hunt for Malaysia’s First-Ever ‘Chief Pint Officer’ (CPO)!

Dotdigital Group plc Acquires Influencer, Affiliate and Referral Marketing Platform Social Snowball for USD $35m

MIA
Get Latest Job Updates on Whatsapp and Telegram
SCIKEY Logo
Whatsapp
Telegram
TAGGED: agencies, agency, freelancers, marketing, publicrelations

Sign Up For MIA Newsletter

Be keep up! Get the latest updates about the Marketing world delivered straight to your inbox.

    By signing up, you agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time.
    Kartina Rosli July 29, 2022 November 23, 2021
    Share This Article
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Copy Link Print
    Share
    What do you think?
    Love0
    Happy0
    Joy0
    Surprise0
    Sad0
    Angry0
    Cry0
    profile
    By Kartina Rosli
    Follow:
    Kartina is Marketing In Asia's Editor for Singapore. She is also the Founder of Tin Communications. A media specialist with over 20 years of experience in both public and private sectors, she helps SMEs grow their business through strategic media and marketing plans.
    Previous Article gamefi-aims-to-disrupt-existing-practice-in-gaming-and-finance-industry GameFi Aims To Disrupt Existing Practice In Gaming And Finance Industry
    Next Article [infographic]-how-to-do-content-marketing [Infographic] How To Do Content Marketing
    Leave a comment Leave a comment

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

    You must be logged in to post a comment.

    9.5k Followers Follow
    3.4k Followers Like
    1.1k Followers Follow
    214 Followers Follow
    208 Subscribers Subscribe

    Latest News

    Clare Yardley
    Enigma key creative hires continue as Clare Yardley joins as Head of Creative Services
    Press Release 2 days ago
    Christmas In July
    What to Eat, Drink, and Cheer at Christmas in July Festival
    Press Release 2 days ago
    Mei Ling Yeow_Archetype APAC_Head of, Strategy and Innovation
    Archetype APAC appoints Mei Ling Yeow as Head of Strategy and Innovation to drive service innovation and strategic transformation
    Press Release 2 days ago
    DoubleVerify
    DoubleVerify Uncovers ShadowBot Scheme Involving 35 Million Spoofed Mobile Devices
    Press Release 2 days ago

    PropertyGuru

    property guru

    You Might also Like

    Clare Yardley
    Press Release

    Enigma key creative hires continue as Clare Yardley joins as Head of Creative Services

    2 days ago
    Christmas In July
    Press Release

    What to Eat, Drink, and Cheer at Christmas in July Festival

    2 days ago
    Mei Ling Yeow_Archetype APAC_Head of, Strategy and Innovation
    Press Release

    Archetype APAC appoints Mei Ling Yeow as Head of Strategy and Innovation to drive service innovation and strategic transformation

    2 days ago
    Guiness- Hiring
    Press Release

    Guinness Is On the Hunt for Malaysia’s First-Ever ‘Chief Pint Officer’ (CPO)!

    2 days ago
    //

    Get Asia to Notice You

    Quick Link

    • Contact
    • RSS Terms of Service
    • Policies & Standards
    • About Us
    • FAQ
    • Disclaimer
    • Terms Of Service
    • Privacy Policy

    Top Categories

    • Marketing
    • Startup
    • Feature Stories
    • News
    • People
    • Inspiration

    Sign Up for Our Newsletter

    Subscribe to our newsletter to get our newest articles instantly!

      Marketing In AsiaMarketing In Asia
      Follow US
      © 2024 Marketing In Asia. All Rights Reserved.
      • Disclaimer
      • Terms of Service
      • Privacy Policy