Malaysian Media Awards Winners Showcase

The Challenge
Size matters: with a media budget several times bigger than Ubermen’s, Gatsby was the leader in the hairstyling gel category. Furthermore, Gatsby and Ubermen’s gels had the same value proposition. Therefore, we had to make the small fish (Ubermen) eat the big fish (Gatsby).

The Solution – Insight & Idea
INSIGHTS:
Ubermen Aqua Fix Gel’s propositions were WET, HARD and LONG LASTING: highly suggestive words in themselves
Our target market (15 – 24 year old urban Malay men, full of youthful hormones) thinks mainly about one thing: the opposite sex
STRATEGY: We decided to create content that was sufficiently “sexy” so that they were drawn to our brand, creating pull rather than push.
IDEA: We created a “fake” reality show with content that presented “double meanings” based on sexual innuendos, where the value proposition of the gel resembled the one of a “men sexual performance” product. This was a category first.

The Execution
FAKING IT TO MAKE IT: Agency created a “fake” competition, Pertandingan Paling Keras, to find the “hardest” man in Malaysia. We developed the event’s Facebook page with relevant content, prompted conversations with hashtags such as #yangpalingkeras, pasted posters inviting people to see the competition, and launched video blogs of early rounds where “participants” shared their experiences. Activity mirrored a reality show, building up excitement to the climax. THE REVEALING CLIMAX: We released multiple videos showing “finalists” carrying out several hilarious challenges, putting their hair to the test in the Wet, Hard and Long-lasting categories. Only at the end of the video did we reveal the brand behind the “competition”: Ubermen.

The Results
Reach: 2.4m via Facebook and on-ground. 4,565 engagements, phenomenal engagement rate of 51%. 50,500 purely organic YouTube views. Brand awareness rose 8 times, from 10% to 80%. Sales grew 20% during campaign, eating into Gatsby’s market. Talking dirty provided a sales climax!