PETALING JAYA: Brands need to remain strategically active in building brand equity, reframing value, and adapting their cohort planning and measurement practices, particularly in times of heightened consumer price sensitivity.
Darren Yuen, Omnicom Media Malaysia’s chief executive officer (CEO), said brands that adopt a passive approach in periods of economic uncertainty will risk becoming invisible at the very moment when consumers are re-evaluating their loyalties and purchase decisions.
“Brands that disappear during these periods allow competitors to redefine value, familiarity, and trust in consumers’ minds.
“Historically, the brands that emerge as the strongest are the ones that stayed visible, remained useful, and adapted their proposition while others pulled back.”
According to Omnicom Media, Malaysia’s fuel prices and subsequent economic effects have had a significant impact on consumer intent and behaviour.
Based on keyword search data, it found that each time the nation’s fuel price was restructured over the years, it resulted in substantially higher searches that reflect value-conscious intent.
Moreover, this suggests that consumers become more price sensitive after each fuel price-related event.
Notably, findings showed that after each event causes an increase in value-first searches, consumers never fully revert to previous levels.
“In the Malaysian market today, this is not just a temporary inflation story anymore.
“The baseline of price sensitivity keeps climbing with every economic shock,” Yuen said.
Categories that see an immediate impact on search intent include automobile, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), telecommunications, and food and quick-service restaurants.
As key categories see faster growth of volume over value, profit margins become increasingly squeezed.
In periods like this, long-term brand equity becomes crucial, the CEO shared.
“Consumers become more forgiving towards brands they already trust and recognise,” he explained.
“The Malaysian consumer today is not blindly chasing the cheapest option. They are increasingly asking whether a brand justifies the spend, defining what their value benchmark is.”
Through consistent investment in brand building, brands can retain stronger resilience if they effectively balance emotional relevance with functional usefulness in their communication.
“Equity today is built through consistency, usefulness, familiarity, and the ability to stay culturally and economically relevant to consumers,” he added.
Marketers should work to reshape how consumers define value, shifting from a “lowest price wins” mentality to one that focuses on “benefit per ringgit”.
This can be seen in consumer searches moving towards affordable value meals in restaurants, private labels and smaller pack sizes in FMCG goods, and fuel efficiency in automotives.
“Consumers will still spend if they feel the outcome justifies the cost,” Yuen said.
“The opportunity for brands is to reshape value around outcomes through longer durability, better efficiency, healthier options, reliability, or convenience.”
At the same time, consumers are increasingly differentiated by the intensity of value-seeking behaviour, financial confidence, and lifestyle adaptation patterns.
While some are immediately receptive to promotions and cashback mechanics, others only make a behavioural switch after prolonged economic pressure.
As value-seekers can drive volume, but are risky if they dominate the entire mix, an optimal balance is needed.
Marketers should therefore aim for more precise cohort planning by identifying key segments and adapting messaging and platforms to them.
They should also monitor and optimise these regularly to optimise impact.
“Precision today is not just about targeting the right audience,” Yuen added.
“It is about understanding the economic mindset consumers are operating in at that moment, and tailoring both the communication and media ecosystem around that reality.”
Finally, brands can also benefit from taking an always-on approach to their measurement practices.
Consistent measurement of impact allows brands to respond to behavioural shifts in real-time while they are happening, instead of reacting months later.
This has become especially critical in Malaysia as behavioural changes are no longer isolated but compounding across multiple fuel and inflation events.
As a result, search trends, purchase intent, category switching, and platform behaviours are constantly evolving.
“In volatile periods, consumer sentiment can move very quickly.
“Measurement as an ongoing practice allows brands to build playbooks backed by live business and media data,” the CEO said.
Always-on measurement methods that provide data-backed information and insights will serve to enhance budget planning during such ever-changing times.
“Speed and accuracy becomes a competitive advantage,” Yuen points out.
“Brands that have measurement frameworks such as marketing mix modeling, search intent monitoring, and platform-level optimisation are far better equipped to make faster, more precise investment decisions.”
