Malaysian Media Awards Winners Showcase





2013 | |

BUDDYZ Never Apart – How DiGi Got The Generation Y Talking

Advertiser: DiGi Telecommunications
Brand: DiGi Easy Prepaid
Creative Agency: TBWA
Credits: Starcom Worldwide — Joanne Ong (Media Manager), Lua Yih Haur (Media Planner) / TBWA — Rachel Tan (Director–Brand Management), Mel Bong (Manager)

Challenge
Beginning 2012, DiGi’s affinity with the youth, their core prepaid audience, showed a worrying downward trend. Competitors offering attractive packages added on to this inclination. The challenge was to quickly reverse this trend and to solidify DiGi’s brand preference amongst the young people. 

Solution
Generation-Ys are masters of customization and self-expression. They are highly vocal about their needs and desires and everything is about “real” and “reality”. Knowledge and information empowers them. Intimacy with the digital world is one of their greatest strengths. Malay youths are more willing to express and contribute to the online space. DiGi created a digital self-expression platform for them express their “Never Apart” beliefs. 

Execution
Using a Twitter hashtag #BuddyzNever, DiGi provided a self-expression platform where the youth could express their personal beliefs of what being “Never Apart” meant to them. Digital banners and bloggers were enlisted to create awareness. Curated tweets were broadcasted on a special “manifesto” landing page and DiGi’s digital social properties. A sweetener was thrown in where the winner of the best “entry” was featured with superstar Lisa Surihani in the manifesto video. 

Results
DiGi and Generation-Ys are now closer. – >10,000 conversations was generated through #BuddyzNever! – 14,000 unique audiences were exposed just from the blog entries alone – Monthly active subscriptions hiked by 8% – DiGi’s brand preference shot by two folds to 4%; Malay youth’s climbed from 1% to 5%.