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2022 | |

When Your Beer Becomes Your Mentor

Advertiser: Heineken Malaysia
Brand: Tiger Beer
Creative Agency: Naga DDB Tribal, Chariot
Credits: Hemanth Jayaraman - dentsu X Malaysia, Partner, Head of dentsu X Sean Loh - dentsu X Malaysia, Business Director Joanne Wong - dentsu X Malaysia, Planning Director Cassandra Chan - dentsu X Malaysia, Planning Manager Jaclyn Hwang - dentsu Malaysia, Senior Executive, Biddable Sylvia Hew - dentsu Malaysia, Manager, Implementation Rachel Lim - dentsu Malaysia, Senior Executive, Trading Operation

Objective & Challenge
Tiger Crystal is positioned to be a drink for youngsters because of its light and refreshing taste. To tap into the younger audiences and dialup their relevance with the brand, we introduce the brand narrative by establishing passion points and mentors associated with the brand. Due to the pandemic, we have to look for innovative ways to recruit participants to register for the passion points and execute the mentor classes with the limitations of not being able to do the physical classes.

Insight & Strategy
Tiger Crystal is seen as an inferior product to Tiger regular due to its lower ABV & being perceived as “watered down” Tiger Beer. While Tiger Crystal has yet to realize its full potential in driving the overall growth of the mother brand, it has a relatively high awareness & trial score and is gaining traction among the younger consumers. Brand strategy & proposition: Focus on driving penetration among the millennials/ GenZ via new emotional benefit and cocreation initiatives.

Execution
Tiger Crystal Fire Starter is a KOL fronting campaign. We started off the campaign by identifying four main passion points: Jumprope, Skateboarding, Photography, and Craft, and we have shortlisted four mentors for the respective passion points. As the mentors were the faces for the campaign, they were featured in the brand film, and they were required to craft out a 4weeks course outline based on their respective passion points. Every week, the four mentors shot their own 10 to 20 minutes of tutorial videos based on the course outline that they had crafted. The tutorial videos were uploaded to the microsite as content for their followers to consume. On top of the tutorial videos, the mentor of skateboarding had one on ground physical class, whereas the mentors of jumprope, photography and craft had one live tutorial session as an alternative solution due to the pandemic. Towards the end of the tutorial videos and the classes, the mentors consumed Tiger Crystal and repeatedly called out how Tiger Crystal uncaged their inner fire. Apart from that, the four mentors also came out with their contest mechanics and proposal for contest prizes for the campaign to encourage participants to sign up for the classes to learn and master the skills for the passion points. Furthermore, to amplify the campaign, we also engaged micro influencers who are active in the respective passion points to join the squad in supporting the mentors. Besides driving awareness and engagements, we also ran social, programmatic and rich media to drive signups for the classes.

Effectiveness
325 signups for the classes Brand Power Score 19.7 (+1.0 compared to the previous quarter)

2022 | |

Wanderlust vicariously with AtukKepci’s #HolidayBucketList

Advertiser: QSR Stores
Brand: KFC
Creative Agency: Reprise Digital
Credits: Rina Low - Universal McCann, Managing Director Clarice Lee - Universal McCann, Business Director Lum Lai Kuan - Universal McCann, Senior Media Manager Ooi Jee Hoe - Universal McCann, Senior Planner Lynette Lim - Reprise Digital, Business Director Zima Azmi - Reprise Digital, Account Manager Yee Ling Feng - Reprise Digital, Social Media Specialist RZ Chew - Naga DDB, Senior Account Director Brian Khoo - Naga DDB, Associate Account Director Dalina Annuar - Naga DDB, Manager

Objective & Challenge
The year-end holidays are here but unlike the previous year, some travel restrictions were lifted as new cases were on a downturn towards the end of 2021. Time for everyone to start planning their year-end holidays after a long hiatus from the lockdowns and state border restrictions. This time of holidays is the perfect time to celebrate with KFC’s annual Holiday Bucket – positioned to bring family and friends together around a chicken favourite group meal. This was a perfect time to embrace the holiday bucket as Malaysians were buoyant to meet up again with family and friends, as the previous year’s celebrations was muted due to the pandemic spike. As the challenge of travel remained, we set out to inspire the feeling of holidays and this ambition of wanderlust. We looked to tie these special moments of holiday travel and inspire happy moments through the Atuk Kepci Dream Holliday campaign. Our objective: to ensure that Malaysians continued with the longstanding tradition of celebrations with KFC’s Holiday Bucket.

Insight & Strategy
According to the NextVacay platform, a flight deal alert service, Google searches for travel videos jumped 350% in 2021. We took these insights to heart and planted our strategy firmly to ride on the buzz of holiday planning. To fill that wanderlust, we wanted to inspire Malaysians on a journey around the country with the adventurous “Atuk Kepci”, together with his favourite Holiday Bucket. Since international borders remained closed, KFC inspired consumers to travel and celebrate domestically with Atuk Kepci, our local fan favourite version of Colonel Sanders as he fulfilled his “Holiday Bucket List” with the help from Malaysians from all walks of life. We leveraged the must-have tool for travel inspo – Instagram. Through Instagram, Malaysians get to recommend, decide, debate and vote where Atuk Kepci should go, and what he should do, as if it’s their own holiday! While he ticked off activities and destinations on his #KFCHolidayBucketList, ONE thing he always brings along on his trips to share with his fans – the KFC Holiday Bucket.

Execution
For the uninitiated, the celebrity chosen to personify “Atuk Kepci” is Izzue Islam @IzzueIslam on Instagram. In short, you will know him as our local Colonel Sanders. Our “Atuk Kepci” not only has a strong 3.1mil followers, he is a true KFC fan, taking us through the 3 stages of holiday planning. Here’s how Atuk Kepci led Malaysians to fulfil their wanderlust and live vicariously through him… DREAMING: To travel is to dream. It’s to envision yourself in a place or space, doing something you love. Atuk Kepci kick-started the dreaming phase of the campaign by announcing that he needed ideas. This set off a flurry of activity from fans who pitched in their thoughts on where he should go and what he needed to do for his holiday. PLANNING: To travel is to plan. It’s about making those dreams concrete to see how it will all take shape from the mind to in practice. In this phase of planning, Atuk Kepci took over KFC’s Instagram to showcase beautiful places in Malaysia. This encouraged engagement from fans as they all weighed in via polls to vote on his next holiday activity. This was pushed with urgency through a countdown-post, reminding Malaysians to view KFC’s Instagram Stories to vote and make the plan concrete! TRAVEL: To travel is to live! And live vicariously through Atuk Kepci is what Malaysians did! Based on fans’ suggestions, Atuk Kepci travelled all over Malaysia sharing and posting activities based on Malaysia’s votes. From beach getaways to taking selfies with horses and even archery! In the end, it was the simplicity of travel that was highlighted. What Malaysians wanted to do most was to connect. And through this engagement, the Holiday Bucket was the hero that brought Malaysians together to curate Malaysia’s top five bucket lists with Atuk Kepci.

Effectiveness
Atuk Kepci did not just share his holiday joys (and KFC Holiday Bucket) with those he met throughout his activities, he also shared how Malaysians were eager to fulfill their wanderlust, and excited to experience diverse activities such as horse-riding, kayaking and eBiking. More importantly, it was a gift of connection, to all to his 3.17millions followers, proving that living vicariously through Atuk Kepci and the #HolidayBucketList was a fan favourite! More than 6,000 votes were generated for AtukKepci’s #KFCHolidayBucketlist. The average engagement rate was 4.9x higher vs benchmark of 1.2%. And it achieved a good completion rate with an average of 87% and only 13% drop off rate vs. a norm of 79%.

2022 | |

Malaysia’s First Joy Squad – Turning Influencers into Delivery Heroes

Advertiser: Delivery Hero Malaysia
Brand: foodpanda
Creative Agency: Internal
Credits: Vanitha Selvathurai​ - Carat Media Services (M) Sdn Bhd, Partner, Head of Carat Chong Wei See - Carat Media Services (M) Sdn Bhd, Business Director Chang Lee Jia - Carat Media Services (M) Sdn Bhd, Assistant Manager

Objective & Challenge
After living with the pandemic for over a year, delivery services had become a norm for most households, bringing rise to many more brands fighting to get a share of the delivery services sector. While Grab remained a key competitor to foodpanda, other major brands like AirAsia and Maybank were emerging as new threats to foodpanda’s dominance. foodpanda had to retain its market share and position as the market leader. Going back and forth through MCO, EMCO, CMCO, had disrupted lives and created a lot of confusion and hardships to many Malaysians. Many businesses closed, people lost their jobs, and everyone was trying to find a way to survive and keep going. As a continuation of the successful ‘Unleashing the Simple Joys of Life’ campaign, foodpanda decided to take on a more socially responsible angle to bring positivity to Malaysians. The objective was for foodpanda to be seen as an empathetic brand that could touch the lives of Malaysians in positive ways measured on the following key metrics: – Achieve a total combined campaign reach of 8mil – Drive close to 250k engagements – Deliver 50k unique page views and 500k video views

Insight & Strategy
While all other delivery services threw promotions and discounts to the end users, we chose to do something different in order to stand out. We further emphasized sharing joy to give something to our end users to latch onto or associate with. The constant changes in SOPs, caused a lot of uncertainties and made Malaysians restless. We decided to take on the responsibility to remind Malaysians that there was always a simple joy that could be found in little moments and things around them that can be shared with their friends and loved ones. By using our proprietary panel data, we identified and clustered Malaysians between the ages of 18 – 44 into 3 distinct segments – the Providers, the Urban Millennials and the Young & Restless. The Providers had an index of 115 when it came to sharing everyday adventures with friends and family, the Urban Millennials identified their friends as the most important thing in their lives with an index of 117 and the Young & Restless stated that they regularly treated themselves to little moments of enjoyment with an index of 120. All 3 shared affinity for touchpoints across TV, Radio, Content Article. Hence, our strategy was to partner with Malaysia’s biggest media provider Omina Group to unlock joy to the next level through an influencer-led approach. Thus the Joy Squad (a team of 9 Key Influencers) was born to inspire Malaysians to act on spreading joy together.

Execution
The campaign was broken into Phase 1 (21st Jun to 24th July) and Phase 2 (25th July to 31st August). During Phase 1, in order to enhance the notes of joy in the campaign, we ran a contest for people to share their joyful moments and stand a chance to win vouchers worth RM1,000 from foodpanda and a pandapro subscription to foodpanda which unlocked all sorts of discounts for consumers. Each content portal and all the 9 influencers amplified the contest and through their very own social media accounts and had an interview at HOT, FLY and 8 FM to get more Malaysians to share their stories and take part together. At the same time, TV3 Buletin Utama and 8TV Mandarin News did a news coverage about this campaign and encourage Malaysia to join the movement together. In Phase 2, we identified two Malaysians and a charity organization and leveraged the power of the 9 key influencers and help them by sending essential items to them: 1. Uncle Jacob – a 60 year-old taxi driver who had lost his job since MCO started and had been struggling on daily essentials. He was staying in a government apartment where there was no water heater, kitchenware or even proper tables and chairs. The Joy Squad filled his home with essential items, together with bed a frame, mattress, table, chair, TV and a microwave. 2. Cik Aziana – a single mum who was raising five kids and was struggling since MCO started. One of the difficulties that she faced is she had only one mobile phone for her five kids to attend PdPR (online classes). The kids had to skip classes because this phone dilemma. The Joy Squad delivered tablets and foods for the kids. 3. Meefah Shelter – an animal shelter that was running low on funds to look after its 3,000 dogs, 60 cats, 20 tortoises, one pig and one monkey. The Joy Squad jumped in providing dog & cat food together with disinfectant/sanitizer sprays. Throughout Phase 1 and 2 of the campaign, we took over the Facebook and YouTube platforms of the 3 content portals – SAYS, OHBULAN! and VIRALCHAM (from the Cover Page to its Profile Picture) with the support of the 9 key influencers to convey messages of joy and to remind Malaysians to share their simple joys of life that they experienced. We posted carefully crafted content articles to spark the thoughts of joy among audiences across the 3 portals. We further extended it into the social media accounts of the influencers to reach their followers. Leveraging the power of the influencers to remind their followers of the simple joys of life they experienced and to share those simple moments with their loved ones.

Effectiveness
Total campaign delivered: – A total combined campaign reach of 9.4mil (Overdelivered by 1.4mil against target of 8mil) – Drove close to 285k engagements (Overdelivered by 35K against target of 250K) – Delivered 53k unique page views and 552k video views (Overdelivered 3K unique page views against the target of 50K and 52K video views against target of 500K respectively) The campaign generated overwelming positive feedback and goodwill for the brand. Overall, foodpanda’s pick-up service grew by 44% (contributing 15% share of the overall business) while foodpanda shops grew 56% (contributing 13% to overall business) and pandamart grew to 106% (contributing 14% to the overall business).

2022 | |

FOR THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE, WITH THE PEOPLE: How Coway’s CSR campaign starring 5 influencers drove record sales without featuring a product!

Advertiser: Coway Malaysia
Brand: Coway Malaysia
Creative Agency: Client, Grey
Credits: Lee Tse Yoon - Ampersand Advisory, Client Partner Soo Ken Liew - Ampersand Advisory, Sr Planning Director Mandy Liew - Ampersand Advisory, Planning Director Mandy Chan - Ampersand Advisory, Head, Performance Josephine Hendriks - Ampersand Advisory, Media Manager Chan Mei Yun - Ampersand Advisory, Media Manager Zack Wong - Ampersand Advisory, Sr Performance Executive Cindy Khoo - Ampersand Advisory, Media Executive

Objective & Challenge
What does an organisation do when hit with a once a lifetime Black Swan event like the Covid-19 pandemic? Most organisations would focus on cutting back advertising to avoid bleeding red. Coway saw the scenario very differently, and its objective was to help the nation at its difficult time.

Insight & Strategy
Some key insights: • Research (International Medical School) found that 70% of respondents suffered moderate to severe depression and 43.5% had mild to severe anxiety. • The Department of Statistics noted a 60% increase in unemployment. • Charities were unable to raise funding, traditionally acquired to F2F interactions. The nation was suffering. Strategy: The need was clear: a timely, optimism-fuelled campaign that showed how Coway stood shoulder to shoulder with Malaysians, and cared for them. The prevailing environment did not make it relevant to run a hard sell campaign. Instead of being seen as a sales-seeking heartless organisation it was important for Coway to be seen as a responsible member of local communities. Coway believed that this strategy would subconsciously drive sales as well. “We Stand As One” (WSAO) encapsulates this campaign. WSAO is a 360 campaign that targeted all strata of Malaysian society, using different media channels to engage different segments. Using a common theme to bring the campaign together with a wide variety of engaging content elements relevant to the different segments. We Stand As One as a campaign was not limited to being just a communication campaign but had actual intervention built in. WASO used on-ground initiatives to prompt further involvement and actions from other individuals and organisations to create a MULTIPLIER SNOWBALL EFFECT. Consumers are skeptical about brands chest-thumping about the good work they do: hence we took an alternative strategic approach. BY THE PEOPLE: the campaign was led by Malaysians, not the brand. Influencers would identify people in their community who needed help, and Coway would then step in to aid and support. FOR THE PEOPLE: the aim of the campaign was to do good and help people across the length and breadth of the country. There was no sales push or product hardsell at all: in fact the product did not feature in communications. WITH THE PEOPLE: Coway would go on ground with influencers and social media fans, to impact the communities and do its CSR work. Again the brand took a backseat to help the country. A rallying campaign song, We Stand As One (WSAO), was also developed to knit the country together.

Execution
Influencers: in a campaign during a difficult time, genuineness is very important. Influencers were critical to drive “by the people” feel, create legitimacy. We integrated media seamlessly for WSAO: a> TELEVISION including FTA and satellite TV to achieve the massive reach. Television used the song asset to accelerate reach and frequency to get attention quickly. b> DIGITAL MEDIA including social drove engagement and further discovery of brand activities, creating buzz. Allowing individuals to participate. Commenting and sharing was kickstarted by employees and partners of Coway. Platforms like NEWSWAV, THE STAR ONLINE, SAYS, REV MEDIA, NST etc helped generate more coverage and amplified the campaign, creating legitimacy and scale. Coway saluted Heroes of the pandemic in content. c>NEWSPAPERS drove credibility. d> Influencers: Innovative Engagement with Influencers rather than just using them as spokespersons for Coway. They formed the heart of the campaign. Influencers were picked to bring their own personal views and commitment to the campaign. Five key Influencers were invited and asked to pick relevant charities that they personally would want help during the period of the pandemic. With a free hand to choose the charity and the type of the engagement based on their own personal experiences, they managed the entire effort like their own personal initiative ensuring high level of authenticity in the engagement. This was perceived by their followers too, who then did their own initiatives and grew the campaign organically. For example, Mei Yan picked a very small orphanage located within a housing area rather than large orphanage as she felt strongly that during the pandemic, small orphanages will be neglected the most as they are the least known. e> On-ground initiatives to demonstrate the actual commitment of Coway towards the local community. Included donation of food, air-purifiers in high density locations like vaccination centers, recognition and aid for frontline workers etc. Choice of On-Ground Initiatives We chose initiatives to support needs of the local community and fit strategically with Coway. For example air-purifier donated at the vaccination centers were relevant for the needs of the community and also were relevant for growing the revenue.

Effectiveness
The campaign achieved a tracked media return of investment of 4.5X. Television reached 88% of audience with 1+ frequency, and achieved widespread reach. Digital achieved 147 million impressions, ensuring a high level of engagement, with 27 million video views. The view thru rate was high at 57% vs 15%-37% for most Malaysian video campaigns, indicating high level of engagement.. The campaign resulted in increased interest in participation resulting in 1.05 million click-through to the We Stand As One landing page, with the influencers driving this critically. Overall engagement at 25% for social media posts. Over 65% of target audience was aware of the campaign and felt more positive and saw the brand more positively after the campaign PR value from the campaign exceeded RM 7.78 million INDUSTRY RECOGNITION This campaign has won multiple awards (2 awards so far) in the last 1 month: MDA D-awards • Best Digital Platform: non-profit/pro bono • Best Integrated Media Campaign WSAO had a very strong impact on the brand, with NPS score for Coway growing by 21% during the campaign. Despite not having any hard selling of products in the campaign the campaign built a strong momentum for sales due to the relevance to the local community. In fact, while the client cannot reveal data on sales (confidential) it was the best performing quarter in terms of sales for Coway in their history!

2022 | |

Taking Malaysians on a ‘So Light, So Tasty’ Pizza Journey

Advertiser: QSR Brands (M) Holdings
Brand: Pizza Hut Malaysia
Creative Agency: Fishermen
Credits: Salim Mohamed - Carat Media Services (M) And Bhd, Head of Strategy, Carat Vanitha Selvathurai​ - Carat Media Services (M) And Bhd, Partner, Head of Carat Muhd Faiz Ismail - Carat Media Services (M) And Bhd, Performance Marketing Specialist Jaclyn Hwang - Carat Media Services (M) And Bhd, Senior Executive, Biddable

Objective & Challenge
Pizza Hut is well-known and popular among Malaysians as a wholesome family brand. Their pan pizza has been a household favorite for the last 40 years. However, Domino’s clearly has been winning with the young with their thin crust pizza and fast delivery. In 2021, Pizza Hut was ready to wow the palettes of Malaysians with their new Hand Crafted Pizza (HCP) offering. It is a specially crafted pizza using premium sourdough, airy inside yet thin crusty on the outside, unlike anything Malaysians have ever tasted before. Besides getting pizza lovers to change their pizza choice, we wanted to penetrate new customers and gain market share in the young adults/families segment. The objective was to clearly raise nationwide awareness and talkability around the new pizza, especially among the young adult audiences. The key media KPIs were as follows: Reach: Achieve a minimum of 30million impressions and 30% completed video views Buzz: Garner a 25% increase in positive mentions and engagement Sales: 3% uplift in overall sales

Insight & Strategy
“The world is not flat, your pizza shouldn’t be either”. This was our core though in bringing this new pizza to market. It was a product led insight which we wanted to bring to life tapping into contemporary cultural nuances. How do we build a brand imagery which portrays a modern pizza as the best-tasting new thin crust pizza in town? We wanted people to experience Pizza Hut’s new thin hand-crafted crust pizza that is not just thin but multi- sensorial texture with crisp on the outside, airy soft inside and yet equally light (“Ranggup di luar, Lembut di dalam / So Light, So Tasty”). We tapped into three aspects that was trending in poular culture: – The rise of local influencer comdeians – The need and desire to travel again which was evident in the search and video consumption data from social platforms – The emerging popularity of ASMR experiences Our media strategy was to ‘Activate a Sensorial Experience with a Comic Edge’

Execution
We chose Jenn Chia (SolmJenn) to be the face of the campaign for her down home local attitude, comic timing and popular persona of Aunty Siow. We collaborated with two more macro influencers who were popular among our key target audience of young urban Chinese and Malay adults. – Haziq Hussini – great and humorous content that engages the Malay audiences – Orange – multi-talented artist/host/singer/radio announcer that engaged with the nicher Chinese audiences Each of the influencers did their own rendition of Pizza Hut’s new “So Light, So Tasty” pizza launch video whereby characteristics of the pizza were magnified through the analogy of travel experiences through sound, narrative and sight to give viewers a sensorial stimulation. Through influener based content, we were able to engage with their fans/followers with content that were relevant and resonated with them. This helped in building Pizza Hut’s brand imagery amongst the young adults/families. We published the videos across Social Media platforms such as Facebook/Instagram and Youtube on both brand and the KOL’s channels to expand on our audience reach. The engaged customers were led to a spoofed air travel microsite developed to give the customers a full travel experience on their pizza journey. To enhance the experience, for 3 days, the first 10,000 passengers (customers) were given an RM1.90 “travel” (pizza) pass in the form of a mock-up boarding pass to redeem Pizza Hut’s new thin hand-crafted crust pizza.

Effectiveness
“So Light, So Tasty” campaign overall managed to achieve the following results: Reach: 33.2 million impressions (vs target of 30Mil) with a 50% completed video views on Youtube. Buzz: The collaboration with the selected influencers in long-form story telling content garnered Pizza Hut an increase of 58% positive mentions and engagements as the brand embarks in a new approach to build brand imagery of modern pizza. This gave us an exceeded target by over 30%. Sales: Overall, we managed to achieve a 4% increase in sales with 1% overachieving target.