Malaysian Media Awards Winners Showcase





2011 | |

First Ever Reality Show On Print

Advertiser: New Straits Times Press
Brand: New Straits Times
Creative Agency: Universal McCann
Credits: Ramakrishnan C.N (Executive Director), Marry Tai (Media Supervisor), Nina Jayatileke (Media Planner), Zuraida Mohamed (Marketing Director, New Straits Times Press), Leslie N Jebaretnam (Brand Manager, New Straits Times Press), Michelle Wong (Brand Executive, New Straits Times Press), Fareed Izwan Shah (Admin Assistant, New Straits Times Press)

Challenge
New Straits Times was going through an intense makeover of its content and wanted to communicate to its readers about this and increase stickiness of its readers with the paper. With almost no budget we had to come up with a strategy to utilize the existing assets and create talkability.

Solutions
Health and wellness was the hot topic amongst NST readers and the Biggest Loser Asia was getting a lot of attention. We decided to bring the concept to print and create the first ever reality show in newspaper called the “NST Body Makeover Challenge”. A 18 part series with two overweight teams fighting against each other for a makeover. Personal stories of the contestants would engross the readers across different sections of NST.

Execution
We bartered a deal between NST and the largest fitness chain in Malaysia “Fitness First” which utilized the assets of FT to conduct the ‘show’ right from auditions to training. NST covered the stories every week including the personal life of the contestants tied up with the various sections in the newspaper. For eg. Lifestyle covered how the contestants used social media to gain support, health covered their health quotient, etc.

Result
The response was overwhelming. The show touched close to 5 million people resulting in the increase of awareness to P7D readership to 33%. With almost no investment the Brand Equity Index Scores grew by a phenomenal 8% during the period. NST is planning for a second season this year.