Malaysian Media Awards Winners Showcase
2013 | Gold | Best Use of Social Media
Advertiser: Telekom Malaysia Brand: TM Creative Agency: Rally (Part of IPG Mediabrands) Credits: Neeraj Gulati (Executive Director–Social Media&Digital Inte), Azri Haidar (Social Media Specialist), Susan Lim (Media Manager), Abhishek Bhattacharjee (Associate Director Digital), Joshua Ong (Social Media Specialist), Horina Yusop (Associate Director), Aizat Mazni (Media Planner)
Challenge
“Owning sports” to connect with youth has been a part of all the major brands’ strategy. Every brand fights for the rights of limited sporting events, raising the sponsorship price to astronomical levels for a little logo space. TM wanted to own the sport without being just another ‘official sponsor’.
Solution
We realised that sports had two major components, the Sport itself and the FANS. Sports was only broadcasted on TV, but was lived amongst the fans, on teh tarik tables, office corners, living rooms,and everywhere they went. Sports was lived in a fan’s heart. Media Agency recommended to collaborate with fans to create a “Fan’s version of Olympics” thereby owning fans instead of the sport, and to establish TM’s philosphy: ‘Connections Make Anything Possible’.
Execution
We launched a unique Crowd sourced Social Sports Channel called “Team Malaysia”, it was a social media sports fan community. Team Malaysia recruited superfans on Facebook and Twitter, who collectively covered London Olympics. The coverage was realtime and participatory, and included everything from heartwarming stories of Olympians, to the joy of victory, and the pain of every loss. ‘Team Malaysia’ enabled Malaysians to witness Olympics from a unique Fans’ perspective.
Results
Malaysians united in their love of the sports, as Facebook community added 300k fans. The coverage was faster than any other news or sports channel. Average engagement rate of 21%, 110 times higher than average. Other brand shared our posts. Channel reached 6.12 million people, higher than any TV Channel.
