2014




2014 | |

100PLUS Face-Off

Advertiser: F&N Interflavine Pte Ltd
Brand: 100PLUS
Creative Agency: Publicis
Credits: UNIVERSAL McCANN — Chai Yen Yen (Business Director), Derek Tan Yeong Par (Executive Director),Kim Chew (Associate Director),Amy Yep (Associate Director), Cecilia Wong (Senior Buyer), Elsa Fong (Associate Director), Joey Tan (Senior Planner),Leong Wei Ian (Planner); F&N Interflavine Pte Ltd — Jennifer Lim (Marketing Planning Manager),Patricia Lee (Brand Manager),Michelle Teng (Assistant Brand Manager),Lorraine Tan (Senior Marketing Manager), Jenny Wong (Head-Regional Brand Development),Leong Wai Yin (Marketing Manager)

The Challenge
In keeping with times, 100PLUS decided that it was time for a change in terms of brand positioning as well as product design. But we did not want to just stock the products on the shelves quietly for consumers to realise that the product design had changed. It seemed impersonal.

The Solution – Insight & Idea
INSIGHTS: Successful brands are the ones that involve the consumers, which make them feel like they have a stake in it. And, 100PLUS’s dominant success is due in part to the brand’s push to drive continuous engagement, with communication that connects with our consumers. And,from being a Chinese preferred brand, today its core consumers are the Malays. STRATEGY: For 30 years, 100PLUS has had such loyal consumers. We decided that in unveiling our new product design, it was imperative that we involved as many of our consumers as possible and to get them to be part of our journey for the coming 30 years together. Usually brands invite celebrities to do the unveiling as it is a special occasion. But 100PLUS wanted it to be personal and decided to let their loyalists unveil the new look rather than holding a launch event with celebrities. IDEA: Hence, the media agency proposed to have the unveiling of the new product design in the No. 1 newspaper title in the country, Harian Metro. On the day of the campaign launch, we planned a special peel-off sticker that revealed the new product designed when it was peeled-off on the front cover of Harian Metro.

The Execution
In order to stand out, the revelation of the new refreshed 100PLUS look needed to be positioned next to the nation’s top newspaper headline on the front cover. This is to ensure maximum eyeballs in a highly targeted environment. Making it possible, we collaborated with Harian Metro, the top Malay title newspaper in Malaysia. To capture the attention of the consumers, the peel-off sticker was incorporated as part of the print ad’s creative. On the surface of the sticker was the 100PLUS’s old product design. Once the sticker was peeled-off, it revealed the new 100PLUS’s product design. All of these, with the intention of creating a face-off between the old and the new refreshed look, and to ultimately ensure that the announcement of the new, refreshed 100PLUS look is known and reinforced.

The Results
With just one peel-off, more than 3.68 million Malaysians had celebrated the unveiling the new 100PLUS product design together with us. 100PLUS Top of mind score increased by 5% to 33% whilst brand imagery score rose to 68%.

2014 | |

DiGi #confirmMalaysian print ads united Malaysians

Advertiser: DiGi Telecommunications
Brand: DiGi Corporate
Creative Agency: Naga DDB
Credits: Starcom — Joanne Ong (Planning Manager),Lua Yih Haur (Media Planner)

The Challenge
Merdeka/Malaysia Day is one of the noisiest period for advertisers. We were challenged to break the clutter; people are used to seeing one-pager print ads every festive and Merdeka/Malaysian day with only creative as differentiator. With a shoestring budget, the challenge is heightened.

The Solution – Insight & Idea
There are so many things that make Malaysians, uniquely Malaysians a.k.a. “Malaysianism”. For e.g. calling everyone a “Boss” (vendors call consumers “boss” and vice- versa), kids playing “one, two, jus” (rock, paper, scissors equivalent). Therefore a uniquely Malaysian theme “#confirmMalaysian” became the central message for DiGi’s Merdeka-Malaysia Day 2013 unity campaign. Newspaper medium was chosen as we needed a cost effective high reach medium that could reach to the mass Malaysian audience. Newspaper is also usually consumed by an individual and that one person usually will read not more than two languages of newspaper i.e. usually Chinese and English, Bahasa Malaysia and English or Tamil and English. We recognized an opportunity to celebrate DiGi’s unity message to our audience by bringing a different experience via print. The idea was to unite the different newspaper readers. Newspaper readers will need to engage with other vernacular language readers (that they don’t read).

The Execution
#confirmMalaysian campaign was Malaysia’s first quad-lingual press ad that allow readers to engage with other readers – when all four ads were pieced together forms one consecutive ad, this is also to symbolise the integration of language and races in being Malaysian. Four different versions of the ad illustrating a parade of Malaysianism. This parade was created to be divided into 4 parts. Each part has a different language and was published in their respective language newspapers on Merdeka Day, i.e. The Star (English), Sin Chew (Chinese), Harian Metro (Bahasa Malaysia), and Nanban (Tamil). Readers were encouraged to collect these 4 parts of the ad from their friends, families and colleagues in order to have the complete view of the Malaysianism parade. To encourage readers to be part of DiGi’s unity message, we asked Malaysians to join the #confirmMalaysian Instagram Malaysianism parade. Readers were asked to submit their patriotic poses e.g. the results of these entries were published in the Malaysia Day’s ads. This subsequently drove higher engagement between readers and the brand.

The Results
The unity campaign reached 3,700,000 people and the unity message was brought to life by encouraging Malaysians to engage the different vernacular newspapers. This uniquely Malaysian campaign was well received by marketing blogs and websites. The campaign also attracted 2,100 of #confirmMalaysian tweets and Instagram photos who are now part of the bigger Malaysianism parade.

2014 | |

Science Makes Headlines with Chickens, Cow Eyes & Spaceships

Advertiser: Petrosains
Brand: Petrosains
Creative Agency: dnaCOMM
Credits: Zenith Malaysia — Chan Yuet Wah (General Manager),Melissa Yeoh (Media Planner); Petrosains — Julian Ooi (Head, A&P, Marketing Department), Azura Daud (Head, PR & Communications, Marketing Department); The Star — Star Publications (M) Berhad

The Challenge
Petrosains, the CSR arm of PETRONAS was created to create wonder for the learning of science. To inspire wonder of science, Petrosains organised the first Petrosains Science Festival in Malaysia. The challenge was to ensure that there were visitors rushing to the event, despite the association of science being boring.

The Solution – Insight & Idea
Newspaper has always been a reliable source of learning. Editorials are more trusted than plain old ads. However, science was thought to be boring and scientific. It was a challenge of how to make it “unboring” in the newspaper landscape which is so text heavy. How do we promote Petrosains the wonders of science in a medium such as newspaper? We needed to stop readers in their track in the name of science. We needed to change the normal science of our newspaper buy. Instead of pure ads, we used the power of editorial as persuasion to give the consumers the reason to go. The editors were our weapon. We focused on more editorials, instead of merely ads. Not just any editorials, but editorials that do not bore the readers with boring science. But first, we needed compelling headlines and pictures, to stop readers, to lure them to reading the articles. And place these discoveries of science into the Main Paper Front Half, to reach more readers, instead of the usual secluded Metro where events are usually placed in. We also had to look at how to drive anticipation of the 1st Science Festival prior to the 1st day.

The Execution
As one of top urban newspaper, TheStar was chosen as “The Official Newspaper” for the Science Festival. Our role was to collaborate with them to bring science alive through newspaper. Instead of just merely providing press releases and photos to editorial team, they were also on ground during the Festival to experience science with fellow Malaysians. And with the hands-on learning and discovery experiences, the editors were able to craft out compelling headlines such as “Don’t be a chicken, come have a blast” and “A feeling that is out of this world”. In articles itself, the wonders of science discovery were weaved into the writings. Eg Defusing a bomb is risky business, how to dissect a cow’s eye and how to build a spaceship. We had one such article every day for the 6 days. These were also replicated into www.thestar.com.my – Main News to support digital content. To increase anticipation, countdown tickers were placed prominently next to TheStar’s masthead and www.thestar.com.my’s Welcome Page, days prior. Event was also promoted in paper’s Twitter and Facebook.

The Results
Over 42,000 people turned up. 5% above the target. As official newspaper partnership, the media ROI was at 3.0x more. More than 2.9 million readers of TheStar were educated on the wonders of science. TheStar editorial team had an exciting time being part of the Festival. Everyone had a blast with science.