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Name: Elaine Ewe
Origin: Ipoh, Malaysia
Places lived/worked: Ipoh and Selangor, Malaysia; Perth, Australia
Pronouns: She/her
CV:
All because I was squeamish about blood and I couldn’t do math fast enough. Coming from an Asian household, I was brought up to be either a doctor or an accountant, but because of those limitations, I decided to pivot into other fields.
I really love reading fiction and watching movies, but I couldn’t imagine myself writing the Great American novel—or in my case, the Malaysian equivalent—and nor a screenplay. So, I resorted to just writing. First, entertainment news. Then, content that would influence people. From there, [my writing career] naturally evolved into writing strategy for brands. In some ways, being a strategist made perfect sense to me because I see it as a way of turning my perceived “weakness”—overthinking—into my career.
That would be Sunway Medical Centre Velocity. I pitched a strategy based on the insight of how consumers are often caught off-guard by emergencies, mainly because they cannot believe that this is happening to them, which results in a slight delay calling for help.
The big idea was ‘Seriously? Seriously.’ I wanted it to serve as a two‑parter: the first part is when something bad happens, the first thought we have is ‘seriously?’ The second is, as a brand, we wanted to tell them ‘seriously, that’s how you should take emergencies.’ It’s kind of like a witty repartee between consumer and brand.
This strategy came with three different anchor ideas. It made me happy that the client loved all three of them and made space in their budget to execute two. The first was a micro drama series, and the second was a jingle; the jingle was also incorporated into the micro drama, so it was ubiquitous.
In line with the big idea, our approach for the micro drama was to create something different yet memorable for A&E services; in this case, it’s injecting humour into everyday scenarios as the twist.
This is a hard one. There’s a lot of good stuff out there that I love, but since you’re making me choose... I would say it’s the 'Always’ #LikeAGirl' campaign by director Lauren Greenfield. The campaign was built upon a strong insight: how gender stereotypes are so ingrained in our culture they are even part of the language, and the phrase ‘like a girl’ is often used as an insult.
With just one piece of content (video) and hashtag, the campaign challenged the negative use of ‘like a girl’ and transformed the phrase into an empowering expression. It served as a truly powerful testament that proved it could withstand the test of time—the campaign came out in 2014 and still feels relevant today. Ultimately, it inspired me to be the kind of strategist who could come up with work this good, always.
I used to be a huge fan of Hozier. So much so that I bought myself tickets to his concerts THREE times in places I’ve never been to—Ireland (his home country); Copenhagen, Denmark; and Sydney, Australia—and I flew there solo every time. I'm still a big fan, but my fangirling has been toned WAY down).
The highlight of my life was in Copenhagen, when I met him at the hotel lobby that was connected to the concert venue. It was after his show when me and two other girls heard news that he was going to be in the lobby, so we waited there and managed to get his autograph and take a photo with him.
I really want to see the Northern Lights in Norway and own a Shiba Inu someday.
I’m not sure if it’s my OCD, but I can tell when there’s a foreign object in my food before I eat it, and I’m not even looking for it. I can tell when something is crooked or not in its usual place, so that’s how I spot cockroaches or random cracks.
I also have a pretty good memory when it comes to movies or things people say, especially if they tell it like a story. So, if someone tells me a story or if I read a good piece of fiction, I can retell the whole thing to someone else (with minor deviations).
A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett. Given the saturated market of whodunnits, it’s refreshing to see an author diving into this (this is Book 2 in the series) while bringing something new to the table. Imagine Knives Out but set in the world of Attack on Titan. It really blew my mind how the author managed to build a new world with a unique power system (bio-augmentation) without sacrificing pacing and revelation of information that is essential to any mystery novel.
To be honest, at this point I’m just getting tattoos when I’m bored. Currently, I have 13 tattoos, and all of them are artistic representations of me as a person or just something I really liked at some point of time in my life. A lot of people have asked me whether I would regret getting them, but what’s life without regrets? Whether I have outgrown that particular interest or not, I cannot deny that it had once made an impact on me and shaped me into the person I am today, but now you get to see it on my flesh.
Feminism, always. I’m a strong believer of how feminism can be good for both men and women. The fact that we think that men have to be strong is in itself a form of patriarchy, and I aspire to see a world where one day where women will not choose to be stuck in the forest with the bear.
I’d like to think I’m both, but I’m also fearful that I wouldn’t be able to care for them the way they should be cared for. Not to mention I’m pretty picky about how cute they should be.
Always. But life is not a game where we can delete our save files and start a new game, so... we live, we learn, and we do better.
Source: Campaign Asia-Pacific
May 11, 2026
April 30, 2026
June 15, 2026
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