Malaysian Media Awards Winners Showcase

The Challenge
How many loyalty cards do YOU carry? For most people, that number would range between four and four hundred. Whist we may be exaggerating a little, Malaysians do have knack of collecting rectangular shaped objects. In this sea of plastic sameness, we sought to increase top-of-mind and sign-ups for the Watsons VIP Card.

Insight, Strategy and the Idea
We did have one silver bullet in the chamber; the Watsons VIP Card offered a huge array of dining privileges, a much-desired benefit for hungry Malaysians. But who would ever think that a health, beauty and personal care brand would have anything to do with dining?
Insight: Not is our culture obsessed about food, they also love talking and reading about it! In fact, ‘what-to- eat-ah?’ and not ‘Hello’ is most common greeting amongst Malaysians.
Strategy: Fuel the conversation around food.
The idea: the BIGGEST food review in Malaysian loyalty card history!

Media Execution
All foodies know that the TASTE section of Star newspaper is arguably the most influential of Malaysian food reviews. With forty years of saliva inducing food reporting, TASTE is to food reviews as Vegemite is to sandwich spreads, which needless to say is pretty darn good. So when we collaborated with TASTE to review the Watsons VIP card dining privileges we ended up with a massive food journal spanning SIXTEEN pages across four issues! Over thirty merchants were reviewed, with dishes ranging from dim sum at Grand Harbour to baumkuchen at Komugi and everything in between. To boost usage, each review offered a special dining reward for Cardmembers. In addition, we also interviewed several celebrity cardmembers on their Watsons VIP Card dining preferences.

Results and Effectiveness
Burp! Success! – Card sign-ups increased by 28% – Over 90 merchants joined the partnership within 8 months – Many merchants experienced 600-1,500 card redemptions per month.