Malaysian Media Awards Winners Showcase

Objective & Challenge
MILO is a strong heritage brand in Malaysia and has grown to be the brand that every Malaysian has grown up with and love. With an extremely high in-home penetration and a loyal consumer base – MILO’s challenge was to increase consumption occasion to drive volume. The two major challenges for the brand were school closures and not being able to host events/sports activations threatening the brand’s bond with consumers during prolonged COVID restrictions over the last two years. We intend to protect the core by strengthening nutritional and energy credentials of MILO. But how do we maintain penetration and increase consumption incidence of the brand during CNY?

Insight & Strategy
The year of the Tiger symbolizes bravery and strength, something MILO needed to show during the competitive period of CNY. As MILO is a Malaysian household brand, the public already had some pre-conceived images of the brand which might be a blind spot. The idea: To show the MILO spirit of Huat and Kuat unexpectedly. Showing the Huat starting from the MILO tin: Through the years, MILO has always been synonymous with the color Green and it’s sporting values. This year, MILO decided to go bold by producing the GOLD limited edition tin for CNY. As the color GOLD symbolizes the color of wealth and prosperity, the idea was to give people more reasons to buy a can of MILO GOLD. Visual 1 – Showing the Kuat through a story that did not feature an established athlete: The story of MILO’s Goodness and Energy was told through a story created by a content creator (about a girl pursuing her Taekwondo dream) to capitalize on Malaysians’ appetite for long form content during the festive season. The heartwarming story fostered the emotional bond amongst Malaysians to reignite the brand love for MILO. Visual 2 – Bonding with Malaysians through AR: Disrupting the predictable, MILO stands out this Year of the Tiger by merging the physical and digital worlds together with an easy approach: scan the QR code on the limited-edition gold MILO tin to Play and Win. This was our way of bringing the ‘sporting’ event to the people during the pandemic.

Execution
The execution of the campaign was planned and executed on various touchpoints i.e. TV, DOOH, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, TikTok and Twitter to deliver: reach, relevance and reaction from the target audience. Visual 3: Co-created a video with famous YouTuber Jinnyboy – To break-thru the clutter of yet another CNY ad, we created a story to showcase the story of Hui Hui pursuing her Taekwondo dreams and finding the passion and energy to make them come true despite having to come face to face with her greatest obstacle – her parent’s dreams for her to be a pianist. This was aired on YT and amplified on social media. Above ATL execution was also supported on BTL by impactful POSM and displays to drive product visibility and increase offtake. Branded capsules with famous Hong Kong Feng Shui expert Mak Ling Ling – In an unlikely move that worked to build more relevance with the Chinese community during CNY, we used Feng Shui to talk about ‘goodness and energy’ and encourage Malaysians to get the GOLD MILO as an auspicious gifting element. This was aired on high affinity Astro Chinese channels: Astro AEC, Hua Hee Dai, Quan Jia, Shuan Xing and TVB Jade. This content was further amplified on digital via XUAN, MY and MELODY FB pages. Visual 4: MILO GOLD tin that unlocks an AR Game – MILO added a digital spin to the classic with a one-of-a-kind approach to tie in a Play To Experience AR mini-game along with each purchase. Upon scanning the QR code, collectors unlock a never-before-seen game that grants you a chance to win limited edition collectibles by MILO. The addictive Chinese New Year-themed experience plays on the fitting character of a roaring tiger that welcomes you with the speed, strength, and power, letting 10 winners walk away with a limited-edition gold MILO truck collectors set. This was amplified by selected KOLs and content publishers to further engage audience in trying out the game by scanning MILO Golden special edition tins via augmented reality filters. Visual 5: Social Media Takeover on launch of MILO limited-edition Gold Tins -With the help of our MILO friends, we launched the MILO Gold Tins via different social media platforms, reaching out to different consumers and touchpoints.

Effectiveness
In our efforts to celebrate the Chinese New Year in the MILO spirit of Huat and Kuat, it has brought prosperity to the brand. YT brand film (14mins in duration) created by Jinnyboy and MILO managed to garner 146,300 views receiving about 50% more views than the usual and contributed mostly by new viewers of JTV’s channel. The audience retention is at about 14.4%. The film also sparked a conversation about how one should be bold enough to pursue their dreams and to encourage parents to allow their kids to do so. The campaign deployed with a holistic view covering both below and above the line and aired across all touchpoints to maximize reach across all audiences helped to surpass the projected scores that MILO wanted to achieve by 2x on all ad recall metrics. Most importantly, with the launched of the MILO limited-edition Gold Tins, market share was also hovering at an all-time high of 87.4% (YTD Jan 2022) proving that we achieved the objective we set out at the beginning – to maintain penetration and increase our volume.