Malaysian Media Awards Winners Showcase





2018 | |

Hotlink making Malaysians happy, one (Happy) Hour at a time!

Advertiser: Maxis Communications
Brand: Hotlink
Creative Agency: -
Credits: -

The Challenges
Hotlink FAST is about delivering the FASTEST Prepaid internet experience in Malaysia. Our communications were so successful that we started attracting high ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) customers. This would have been great… except that we started shunning the low-mid ARPU segments.They perceived Hotlink to be expensive and low value for money, which then benefited our competitors. How do we win back the hearts and pockets of the low to mid ARPU segments?

Insight, Strategy and the Idea
There’s a lot of dead-time (waiting time) and down-time (times of boredom) within the life of a Malaysian youth. Actual research indicates that Malaysians are stuck in traffic 53 minutes and a further 25 minutes to find a parking space, daily! There is also waiting for food, waiting for friends, waiting to reach your destination in public transports. All these waiting and boredom can make one frustrated and agitated. So why not turn these frustrating times into happy times – or more specifically into ‘Hotlink Happy Hour’, where customers enjoy FREE 1GB of high speed internet daily, doing whatever that makes them happy! By identifying these dead & down times, through our media strategy, we were able to demonstrate and encourage users to stream their favourite Korean drama in the LRT, karaoke to their favourite song in the taxi, or even play mobile games non-stop while waiting for horribly late friends.

Media Execution
GEOTARGETED DEAD TIME & TIME-TARGETED DOWN TIME PLAYED AN IMPORTANT ROLE IN OUR DIGITAL MEDIA BUY ACROSS SOCIAL MEDIA & PROGRAMMATIC DISPLAY 1)Geo-targeted dead time areas ie. LRT/bus stations, mamaks, shopping malls (think boyfriends who have to wait for their girlfriends to be done shopping!) 2)Time targeted heavy traffic hours (morning and evening peaks) – with Dynamic Creative Optimisation where we served specific creatives against each dead/down time targeting (LRT stations > watch Korean drama in the train). RADIO COMMUNICATION FOCUSED ON MORNING/EVENING DEAD TIME Understanding that people get stuck in daily morning and evening traffic, we made their journeys happier by reminding them to ‘turn-on’ their Happy Hour, with the communications to “Keep Calm & Hotlink Happy Hour!” REMINDED BORED CHANNEL SURFERS ON ASTRO TV TO TURN-ON HOTLINK’S HAPPY HOUR DURING DOWN TIME Working with Astro, we introduced the first ever advertising format on its EPG (Electronic Programme Guide) in Malaysia. Basically, each time one changes the channels on Astro, the EPG will appear on the bottom half of the screen, along with our Hotlink Happy Hour ad. Infact, the more channels surfed, the more Hotlink’s ads were seen, enabling us to ‘Retarget’ effectively. You just couldn’t miss it!

Results and Effectiveness
Across multiple mediums, our campaign won back the hearts and pockets of the low to mid ARPU segments- 1)Maximum exposure & impact, as search queries for Hotlink Happy Hour hit record high (double vs Hotlink FAST’s launch), driving down average paid search CPC from RM0.69 to RM0.13 2)40x incremental reach versus a conventional TV commercial campaign with the EPG format 3)ARPU increased 11% vs same period YOY 4)Hotlink FAST experienced 3x subscriber growth YOY 5)YOY Hotlink prepaid revenue +2.9%