We're an expert digital agency in Phnom Penh. Services include strategic marketing, branding, web design, social media, advertising, PR, & event planning.

A business website is more than just the first point of contact for potential clients. A successful website clearly communicates what your company can do, what sets you apart from the competition and shares the ideals, goals and big-picture vision that drives your company. While this may sound a bit daunting, there are a few important things to remember when designing  –  or redesigning – your website. 

First, it has to be visually appealing and easy to use. Whatever your business or industry, your website reflects the care and attention to detail that will be conveyed to clients. So if your website is cluttered and difficult to navigate, you shouldn’t expect new offers to come flooding in. Next, showing off past projects or successful campaigns that give visitors a glimpse into your team’s expertise and ability to get the job can help seal the deal for potential new clients. Finally, clear calls to action alongside fresh, high-quality content should drive engagement, offering visitors new insights into your industry that will keep them coming back. 

An example can help illustrate some of these essential elements. 

With more than a decade in the industry, when Phnom Penh, Cambodia-based Brains Communication decided it was time for a new look, we knew it all started with our website. As a 360-marketing firm offering comprehensive services ranging from social media campaigns and website development to print publications and live events, demonstrating the creativity and vision of our teams was essential. 

To accomplish this, our in-house web development team began building an SEO-friendly page that was dynamic and upbeat with an emphasis on easy navigation and an intuitive user interface. Given the nature of the tech landscape, optimising for mobile and desktop users is essential and was taken into account during development. 

The homepage welcomes visitors with an eye-catching banner featuring snapshots from Brains’ TV ads while highlighting the core tenets of “creativity, empowerment and expression” that guide our work. This type of page is a great way to give a lot of information in a short amount of time and communicate the dynamic nature of your team. Visitors can dig a bit deeper into Brains’ work on the portfolio page.  Inspired by Instagram’s wildly-popular layout, once again vibrant images are used to grab visitors’ attention and introduce some of our most successful projects. 

On the “About Us” page, photos of the Brains team let visitors see the faces behind the work as well as give them another path to reach out to individual team members. From the editors and writers creating our content to the digital marketing team and in-house graphic designers putting it all together, letting your clients get to know your team is a great way to push engagement. 

But at the end of the day, keeping visitors coming back to your page is one of the most important elements of any website development. For our website revamp, this comes in the form of the appropriately titled “Exchanging Insights” page. This is where our thought leadership provides readers with articles on some of the latest trends in the sector as well as the latest news shaping the landscape. Continually updated, dynamic and offering insights from experts across industries, this content gives visitors a reason to pop back in, driving user engagement as well as website traffic through SEO-friendly production.  

In today’s digital world, your website is the first thing that potential clients see and it is a direct representation of the attention to detail and quality of services they can expect from you. Giving visitors an engaging, well-designed introduction to your business is worth the time and investment. While there is no one-size-fits all solution when it comes to website development, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t certain strategies and elements that can be applied to every digital doorstep. 

For more information on what we did and how we did it, reach out.

The verdict is in. Whether you're looking at the Asia Pacific content marketing trends or the global social media engagement rate of your business; nothing captures audiences' attention like short videos.   

Tiktok, ByteDance’s dedicated short-form video app, has seen massive growth recently, surpassing 1 billion users in late 2021. And other platforms are taking notice. In the past couple of years, Facebook, Youtube, and Instagram have all released their own short-form video offerings, looking to cash in on the wild popularity of this type of content.

The world of marketing is also keenly aware that the popularity of short-form videos can be leveraged to great effect. According to industry experts, 66% of internet users say video is the most engaging content they see and 54% of marketing firms believe that short-form video is the most effective way to reach their social media marketing objectives. 

But not all videos are created equal. Here are a few tips that will help your team make the most eye-catching and effective short videos to hook viewers, no matter what your target audience or specific industry. The first thing to do is create an attention-grabbing hook that gets people interested. Whether this is for listicles (Number 3 will SHOCK you!), food videos (Would YOU eat this?), or fashion content (Will this be THE SUMMER TREND?) getting viewers’ attention is essential. Incorporating the latest trends and hottest topics is also a great way to get audiences to watch your content.

The next thing to consider is the length of your video. Keeping things under 90 seconds is ideal. This is short enough that people will pause scrolling to engage with the content without losing interest but still long enough to get your important points across. This brings us to the real point of your video. The call to action (CTA). This is where you give audiences the opportunity to further engage with your business, whether it's to buy a product, visit your website, or share a video. Your CTA is generally most effective when placed at the end of the video and should be catchy and give audiences clear instructions on what they should do next.

In Cambodia, Brains Communication used to align short-form videos to significant effect for its Oktoberfest 2022 campaign. Cha Cha, our local influencer, was enlisted to create several videos showing off the event space, live music, and party atmosphere of the annual libation celebration. A great example of the medium's effectiveness, Cha Cha’s signature attitude was on full display as she grabbed attention, communicated key details of the event, and closed with a clear CTA that told audiences where to go next. The video clocked engagement from more than 100,000 unique viewers in a short span of time and contributed to the event’s resounding success. 

@chagonebad1604

♬ original sound - Chacha-ឆាឆា

At this point, it’s safe to say short-form video content isn’t going anywhere soon. Quite the opposite in fact, this medium is spreading across nearly all platforms. So if your team is looking for new and effective ways to drive engagement, spark interest and find new audiences, incorporating these quick, attention-grabbing videos should be on the agenda at your next meeting. 

To see more of our work with video production and influencers at Brains Communication, click here.

Reference: 

Instagram Engagement Report 2023; Sprout Social: Social media video content ideas to fill your content calendar, Social media video statistics marketers need to know for 2023, The TikTok algorithm explained; TikTok Global Community.

New look, new you. A fresh style can change the way people see you, help get you noticed and leave you feeling like a whole new person. This is just as true for the world of media and marketing as it is for personal fashion, making rebranding a great way to reignite interest in your company or business. 

But rebranding is so much more than just updating a logo or redesigning a website. Your brand is one of the most important and valuable aspects of your business, representing a synthesis of tangible elements like visual design, logos, and corporate mottos with more intangible things like the perceived quality of products, social responsibility and history in the industry. When taken together, your brand becomes how the world views your business and, importantly, how they identify with it. 

Take the world-famous watch brand Rolex, for example. Initially charged with producing trench watches for soldiers fighting World War I, the brand became synonymous with high-functioning quality when it became the first producer of water-proof watches in 1926 and later, in 1931, when it patented a self-winding mechanism that revolutionised the industry. It was only thanks to this history of quality and reliability that the company could grow into the unparalleled luxury brand that it is today. 

In this context, it’s no wonder that branding is such a massive part of business strategies. If your potential customers can’t connect with your brand –  and the ideals it represents –  they’re unlikely to pursue a business relationship. On the other hand, if these connections can be made, through forethought, strategy and consistency, a company can create lifelong clients dedicated to the brand. 

This is also why when companies are looking to reach new audiences or reinvigorate existing customers, rebranding is such a vital strategy. 

Cut to Cambodian Eats, a collection of videos, written articles and photo galleries that take audiences off the beaten path to enjoy regional Cambodian delicacies in locations around the country. Looking to update its brand to better align with the ideals of adventure, food and environmentalism that are at the heart of the series' message to audiences, Cambodian Eats turned to local firm Brains Communication. 

Central to the rebrand, visual elements were first on the to-do list. Incorporating playful imagery that communicates what the show is about, Brains Senior Graphic Designer Navet Tab, got to work reimagining the logo. 

“I wanted these elements to represent an adventurous journey to taste and try-out Cambodia’s  signature regional cuisine,” she said.  “The design also communicates the love of the environment and the clear blue skies and abundant rivers and sea where this delicious food comes from.” 

But it wasn’t just design work that went into Cambodian Eats’ rebrand. Brains’ in-house teams also produced, directed and edited Cambodian Eats on-location videos and created social media content to engage new audiences and capture the heart of the series.  Combining fun photographs of wet markets and locals holding produce and showing off their work attire with teasers for the latest videos, these social media posts leveraged the popularity of Facebook and Youtube in Cambodia to spread the word about the new and improved Cambodian Eats brand. 

More than reinventing the core principles that shape the content of the series, the Cambodian Eats rebrand was about better aligning the visual aspects of the brand and using social media to build relationships with audiences. Sharing the sense of adventure, love of travel and appetite for Cambodian cuisine with people around the world, the vitalization of the Cambodian Eats brand is a great example of just how important this strategy is for businesses big and small. 

Watch Cambodian Eats! Season 2 episodes here

Read more about Cambodian Eats here and see our coverage on socials here.

From safe driving and alcohol consumption to cutting out tobacco and littering, influencing human behaviour is always a tough challenge. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. There are solid strategies that experts have devised through years of research and analyses that offer a path to shaping human behaviour in ways that can benefit communities and society.  

The Social Ecological Model (SEM) is a prime example.

Developed in the late 1970s by psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner, the SEM framework dictates that human behaviour is shaped by multiple levels of influence: individual, interpersonal, communal and societal. At each of these levels, goal behaviours are selected, barriers to achieving these goals are identified, and interventions necessary to motivate change are developed. The model was a recognition of the complex range of factors that shape the way humans behave and the nuanced approach necessary to influence them. 

So when global non-profit Population Services International (PSI) was launching Bloom, a social behaviour change (SBC) campaign to promote healthy lifestyles and combat rising cases of noncommunicable diseases in Cambodia, it's not surprising they utilised SEM to guide their efforts. 

To get started, PSI had to dig into the reasons behind the rise in noncommunicable diseases like diabetes and hypertension in Cambodia. One key finding was the high consumption of salty foods and other unhealthy eating habits leading to high sodium levels in the local population, a driving cause of hypertension. This led to identifying the goal behaviour of stopping people from adding salt to dishes while cooking while individual and family attitudes about taste and appropriate salt levels were barriers to change, and increasing knowledge of the correlation between salty food, high sodium levels, and hypertension was the intervention. 

Avoiding fatty foods, eating more fresh produce, and getting more exercise were all elements of the SBC campaign. Once PSI identified goal behaviours, barriers and interventions for each of these health targets, the group developed a variety of different strategies to reach its audience and share information that would lead to healthier behaviours and habits.

Through pre-testing with questionnaires focusing on the target audiences that measured comprehension, acceptability, believability and persuasiveness of potential messages, the most engaging and energising ways to drive behaviour change were developed. 

Given the massive role of Facebook in the Cambodian landscape, the platform was central to the education efforts at the heart of the Bloom campaign. Similarly, putting faces to the healthy behaviours PSI was trying to inspire in the public was vital to driving change, making high quality video stories depicting everyday people the audience could relate to eating healthy meals and exercising was a perfect choice. Also, by leveraging the cultural cache of local influencers as trusted sources, Bloom’s messaging worked  to convince people to drop detrimental habits in exchange for healthy lifestyles.

Finally, community events were organised in high-foot traffic locations such as local markets and public parks where successful communication was again key. More than simply informing people of the importance of healthy habits through pamphlets and dialogue, these events engaged audiences with fun activities like aerobic challenges, spinwheel quizzes and healthy cooking expos. 

Influencing something as complex as human behaviour is always a challenge, but the SEM model provides a clear strategy that can be tested, analysed, refined, and improved, making campaigns like Bloom some of the most promising ways to help people and the communities in which they live. 
If you’re interested in PSI, Bloom, and the work that Brains Communication did on the campaign, get all the information here.