Malaysian Media Awards Winners Showcase

The Challenges
There are 1million SMEs in Malaysia, however only 15% have embraced digital for business (source: National SME Development Council) – which gives us a HUGE 85% market opportunity. But while Maxis is proud to offer our end-to-end digital business solutions of “New Ways of Working”, our main challenge is low brand/product awareness.

Insight, Strategy and the Idea
Based on Maxis’ internal survey, the main reason why business digitalisation has a slow uptake despite the importance, is because… SME business owners have no clue where to start! As this is unchartered territory, they’d rather put it off for now than to pursue it. This reluctance might then translate to why Maxis has such low brand/product awareness – not many SME business owners are actively looking for digital solutions. The idea is for Maxis to drive thought leadership that business digitalisation is worth the perceived challenge, as it will eventually R.O.C.K. their business.

Media Execution
Firstly, Maxis will need to reach out to SME business owners – a hard and expensive task, as it’s a very niche audience. Instead of spending big amounts of media money in hopes to reach them, we created a forum where business owners would gladly sign up themselves! We strategically partnered BFM, a radio station which has long-standing credibility with SMEs – bringing to life Enterprise R.O.C.K.S. (Retail, Outlet, Commerce, Kiosks, Shopping), a conference where all retail SME business owners can receive advice & real life inspiration (speakers include Lazada’s CEO and Maxis’ very own Business Development Head, Senthil Balan) on how to to digitalise their business.

Results and Effectiveness
1) Small budget (RM100,000) with BIG impact (4.94 ROI)
2) Maxis Enterprise “New Ways of Working” strong brand positioning amongst right target audience (SME Business Owners) – with a huge event turnout, +56.2% versus planned 3) R.O.C.K.ing SME Business Owners – 95% responded favourably that the event met their expectations