Malaysian Media Awards Winners Showcase





2014 | |

DiGi made Conventional TV into Social TV

Advertiser: DiGi Telecommunications Sdn Bhd
Brand: DiGi Easy Prepaid
Creative Agency: TBWA
Credits: Joanne Ong (Planning Manager), Lua Yih Haur (Media Planner)

The Challenge

The mobile industry is in a phase of intense change with smartphone ownership growth of 27%. The exploding demand for data has resulted in DiGi Prepaid to aggressively acquire & increase its data subscriptions. In order to thrive competitively, we needed to examine the multi-screen entertainment behavior driving data usage.

The Solution – Insight & Idea
Television remains a key entertainment space for youth; however, they no longer passively watch television. 57% of TV audience supplement their TV viewing habits with their smartphones. The agency saw an opportunity from this insight to drive immediate data usage, i.e. revenue for DiGi. DiGi was already embarking on Buddyz Season 2 on TV. Instead of the same old branded content for the TV idea, why not make Buddyz, a social TV activation? Here we could use technology to enable conversations and social interaction in the context for our TV audience who were already consuming Buddyz Season 2.

The Execution
First we secured a prime slot on Astro Ria to air the weekly 16- episode mini-series. During every episode, we created a “cyber living room” enabling interaction around the episodes via the audience’s second screen (smartphones or tablets) in the social space. The audiences were able to interact with the cast through their mobile devices. The TV audience were able to tweet to their favorite cast member, live, making the episodes more engaging. Buddyz’s cast such as Shaheizy Sam, Alif Satar, Eliza Razak and Wawa Zainal tweeted during the episodes getting their fans to participate in the conversations.

The Results
Buddyz Season 2 was watched by 2,400,000+ viewers across 16 weeks on television and drove 150,000,000+ exposures on social space. •The social TV activation helped pushed 70% of the audience to recall DiGi’s offer •DiGi Q3’13 vs. Q3’12 mobile- internet revenue +5.8% •Q3’13 vs. Q2’13 Prepaid subscriptions +3% •75% of the Malay youth could name the programme title correctly •Youth Q3 Brand Preference +6% •Malay youths started using #buddyz #digibuddyz across social conversations.