Archives




2010 | |

MAS Conquering Global Search

Advertiser: Malaysia Airlines System Bhd
Brand: Malaysia Airlines
Creative Agency: -
Credits: Sharmin Parameswaran (Business Director), 
Sanchit Sanga (Regional Search Director, GroupM), Vishal Jacob (Business Director, GroupM), Jerry Lim (Search Manager, GroupM)

DIGS - MAS Conquering Global Search

Challenge
The travel category in the search sphere is one of the most active as more consumers turn online to research, compare and purchase travel solutions. In this complex cross borders environment, Malaysia Airlines (MAS) was not at ‘top of page’ 
and top of mind.

Solution
Recognising the increasing importance of search in gaining market share, we embarked on one of the most comprehensive Search strategies ever undertaken in the sector, covering 25 markets and 10 languages and all managed centrally from Malaysia. We launched three simultaneous strategies. Firstly, to connect with in-market consumers actively searching for ‘travel’. Secondly, we tracked consumer interactions with search words straight through to conversions. Thirdly, we managed MAS image and reputation by including brand search.

Execution
We conceived a robust campaign structure where relevant ads highlighting fares and products for destination and origin cities were assigned to each keyword group.
The final set up included over 1,000,000 keywords and 50,000 ad copies. We adopted an intuitive web based Search Engine Marketing (SEM) software designed exclusively for managing, measuring and optimizing all forms of search traffic. More importantly, we tracked and optimised keywords direct to MAS’s bottom line profits.

Results
Ticket sales sold through global search engine origins alone increased by 450%. Visitor website volume improved through creative copy optimization. The campaign beat its closest competitor to win Gold at the Asia Pacific Digital Media Awards 2009.

2010 | |

The Midas Touch

Advertiser: AirAsia Bhd
Brand: AirAsia X
Creative Agency: Carat Media Services 
(M) Sdn Bhd
Credits: Darren Yuen (Group Account Director), Maggie Chong (Media Director), 
Justin Murugaya (General Manager, iProspect Malaysia Sdn Bhd)

DIGITAL SEARCH - Midas Touch

Challenge
Upon launching its first long haul flight to London, AirAsia X needed to bring the 2 countries closer to each other. Search was challenged to be the key media in creating long-term awareness and fill seats from both destinations. With the global financial crisis, ‘travel’ seems far from people’s minds.
Solution
Insights showed that despite the economic downturn, people still needed to unwind, and by acknowledging Malaysia as a gateway for the rest of Asia, our communication platform was built. 
These circumstances pointed us to identify keyword groups beyond branded ones that worked towards using the poor economical situation to the brand’s advantage. Creating ads that inspire, and analyzing the competition and seasonality periods to ensure ads stood out and remained highly relevant.
Execution
Combining branded keywords with Asian destinations and having presence when users searched for AirAsia’s competitors proved instrumental in garnering leads. Clicks were filtered through three layers to ensure qualified traffic. We aimed for value positions that brought the best ROI by having outstanding copy and an evaluation process of quality score for every keyword. More than 130 ad variations were deployed and daily tested to cater to seasonality factors such as Easter and other public holidays.
Result
For every US$1 spend, AirAsia X received US$165 in revenue. The results went beyond expectations as we tabulated the numbers from Google and DoubleClick which reported 15,699% return-on-investment! 
In less than 5 months the campaign received 113,201 qualified clicks. Over 9 million impressions and the highest recorded CTR of 19.13%.

2010 | |

BMW Tees Off to a Hole-in-One with Search

Advertiser: BMW Malaysia Sdn Bhd
Brand: BMW Malaysia
Creative Agency: Carat Media Services 
(M) Sdn Bhd
Credits: Vivian Tah (Account Manager), Fan Chen Yip (Group Account Director), Au Jenny (Media Director), Justin Murugaya 
(General Manager, iProspect Malaysia)

DIGITAL SEARCH - Midas Touch

Challenge
The Malaysian leg of BMW International Golf Tournament needed massive PR support to ensure maximum newscoverage and participation from golfers, but old-fashioned Press Conferences and Press Releases hardly guarantee actual coverage, and also started to be increasing irrelevant in engaging our digitally saavy journalist and affluent golfder segments successfully.

Solution
We researched our materials for the best soultion. More than 1 million Malaysians read and/or search for News online daily, and 92% of journalists researched for news material online. From this insight, we innovated a FIRST in Malaysian PR strategy, be at the first source that these segments search digitally for news through Search Leverages PR by embedding our News Releases in Search.

Execution
We analyzed an entire year of gold/sports related search results to create a database of Search words that resulted in top listing in these sites and create a prefictive funnel to filter and estimate likely words that will deliver the same results for our campaign. We then embedded our Online Press Releases with these words, and further augmented them with deep links that ensure searchers are immediately re-routed to our official site.

Results
Our Press Releases hit first page rankings! Google, Yahoo and bing, on the very first day and remained there for a month. Google analytics tracked 1,200 page views of our Press Releases were served, and 71,225 page views reporting about the event were read online. The tournament was also completely booked out.

2010 | |

Gaining Awareness by Going ‘Click-less’

Advertiser: CIMB Bank
Brand: CIMB Prime Plan
Creative Agency: Vizeum Media Services 
(M) Sdn Bhd
Credits: Tan Soon Liang (Associate Digital Director), Saurav Bhowmik (Strategic Resources Director), Wong Tse San (Client Services Director), Joanne Yau (Associate Media Director), Ruby Subramaniam (Junior Digital Planner), Melissa Chan (Vice-President, CIMB Bank), Kenneth Teh (Assistant Vice-President, CIMB Bank)

Challenge
Prime Plan is a new product that is targeted to the lower mass affluent consumers who were looking out for a rewarding lifestyle experience. Google Search was incorporated in the campaign to reach the audience in a subtle manner – allowing them to first familiarize themselves to a new product.

Solution
We used our econometric learning and identified that the highest conversations happen after a threshold level of impressions have been served to the consumers. So instead of using a relevant range of ad groups which is a standard approacch in Search, our strategy was to serve “click-less” impressions to garner higher visibility. This meant that users had high exposure and were familiar with the ad before clicking, leading only quality traffic to the website.

Execution
“Click-less” positions are the areas within a search result page where users were looking at but not clicking. Our text ads were purposely positioned in those areas so that, although users wouldnÆt click on them, we still achieve visibility. This meant free impressions or advertising for us. Once a desired level of awareness was achieved, the text ads were rephrased and moved to better positions which lead to a higher and more qualified click-through.

Results
The campaign budget lasted longer than ancipated, achieving a huge number of free impressions that icnreased awareness for the product. This out-of-the-box strategy delivered impressive results: Average cost per click was 35% lower than planned. Campaign achieved 75% more clicks than planned; driving high traffic to the microsite.

2010 | |

Search for the Right Loan

Advertiser: HSBC Bank Malaysia Bhd
Brand: Personal Financing-i
Creative Agency: -
Credits: Vishal Jacob (Business Director, GroupM), Natasha Sebastian (Manager, GroupM), Jerry Lim (Search Manager, GroupM)

DIG - Search for the Right Loan