Malaysian Media Awards Winners Showcase





2015 | |

VELOCITY FOR VIRALITY ! (or driving views to create Malaysia’s most viewed commercial, A Walk Through Time)

Advertiser: PETRONAS Group
Brand: PETRONAS Corporate
Creative Agency: -
Credits: -

The Challenge
PETRONAS, known for emotional, thought- provoking commercials, sets the festive mood. PETRONAS invented the genre, but now others were copying the “PETRONAS formula”. Our Hari Raya ad achieved 4 million views. Could we out- perform ourselves for Merdeka’s “A walk through time”?

Insight, Strategy and the Idea
INSIGHTS:

Analyzing previous campaigns told us audiences greatly anticipate PETRONAS webfilms, expecting storytelling excellence. We needed to leverage that anticipation. However, with copious content online, competing for attention, we needed to stand out.

STRATEGY:

We created IRRESISTABLE DIGITAL VELOCITY, impetus driving consumers to watch it NOW. We had a short windows of time, before Merdeka, to arrest fleeting interest. IDEA: We focused our performance efforts into DIGITAL VELOCITY ZONES. In this zone, we would optimize by the hour, with close tracking, targeting tweaks and budgeting variations. Velocity would drive Virality. Consumers would see the ad and share it.

Media Execution
VELOCITY TACTICS:

MILESTONES:

Overall goal: 5 million views. But we had to hit 2 million in 4 days, for VELOCITY. We achieved that in 3.5 days. BUDGET TWEAKING: Daily budgets and bids not fixed, but optimized to match milestone goals and daily traffic trends.

TARGETING:

Film’s story depicted triumphant national moments: Merdeka declaration, winning Thomas Cup etc. We targeted diverse content genres on YouTube: history, entertainment, sports, Malaysian content etc. Analyzing each genre’s performance we optimized between them appropriately.

TIME-SPECIFIC:

Focused on peak internet usage times, usually 8pm-12am, outbidding other advertisers, gaining higher share of voice, views. SOCIAL SURROUND: Research showed consumers move between Facebook and YouTube frequently. We executed Facebook performance buys, creating surround sound effect, driving views.

Results and Effectiveness
5.7 million views, highest ever for a Malaysian Commercial (Google) Cost per View: RM 0.07. Over 101,000 likes, share, re-tweets, comments. 6000+ new subscribers. PETRONAS became #1 brand channel on Malaysian Youtube for 2014. Velocity had created record-breaking Virality!