5 brands in Malaysia that dazzled in customer engagement

There are three major themes marketers should keep an eye on this year in the area of customer engagement. Firstly, confidence in customer engagement is paying off and the industry is entering the era of zero- and first-party data. Also, data management is now the top challenge for brands, outranking all other concerns.

According to the 2022 Global Customer Experience study by Braze, 98% of companies that ranked their customer engagement efforts as excellent or good exceed their revenue goals. Of those that didn't, only 65% met revenue goals. At the same time, 94% of brands rated their practices as excellent or good, up from 88% last year.

To accommodate changes in the deprecation of third-party cookies by Google, 96% of brands plan to increase their marketing budgets, with 42% boosting the number of channels they use and 38% putting more emphasis on zero-party and first-party data collection methods. Brands also listed customer data platforms as a top area for increased investment this year. Meanwhile, digital transformation brings more data and new challenges for brands. According to the study, the top concern for brands in 2022 was collecting, integrating, and managing data (32%), followed by applying data to business decisions (31%).

The deprecation of third-party cookies, digital transformation, and COVID-19 are all changes that brands have had to adapt to in the past two years. Customer leads and revenue were no doubt impacted as a result of restrictions and lockdowns. As a result, several brands took to redesigning their marketing and sales campaigns, by offering various types of virtual experiences that diverged from the norm, and would lock in positive customer experiences and client engagement.

To find out which companies impressed with their customer engagement plans, the A+M team looked at our Marketing Excellence Awards Malaysia 2021 results to identify the top five winners that have won over our independent judging panel. The winners are listed alphabetically below.

1. BMW Malaysia

With the Movement Control Order impacting BMW Malaysia’s highest converting sales channel, its showrooms, the company took to implementing web augmented reality showrooms in light of the pandemic’s strict restrictions in 2020, re-engineering the typical customer experience to fit it to present times to market the launch of its new BMW X5 Plug-in Hybrid, a leading model.

According to the company, 64% of Malaysians are affluent in mobile technology and media consumption, with COVID-19 forcing many to become more digitally fluent in their daily life. The digital transformation propelled consumers’ expectations for a new type of customer experience, where new, unique and entertaining experiences are key to pulling customers in.

BMW’s AR showroom sought to achieve four things:

1. Quintupling consumers’ interest in the X5;
2. Encouraging drivers to engage with its showroom and spend time;
3. Garnering earned media for maximisation of media budgets and impact; and
4. Receiving five times more booking and converting five times more sales.

While in-person engagement with products such as cars are unparalleled, BMW took steps to ensure that its online showroom would offer the same experience. Using its three-gear showroom strategy, BMW enabled potential clients to immerse themselves with the car through the webAR app. This would involve them during every consideration touchpoint at present, where people could investigate the X5 more. Lastly, clients would be able to initiate bookings through hyper-remarketing tailored messages, based on each audience's deal breaking factors, such as financing and warranties. 

BMW, together with Entropia, part of Accenture Interactive, delivered 3D models of its cars on its webAR app which enabled a 360° rendering of various car models. This enabled consumers to better immerse themselves in the viewing experience, where they can adjust the position, colour, size and viewing angle of X5, while also explore the car’s unique features by holding onto hotspots that test drive performance and review the car specs.

The campaign engaged 94% of BMW’s audience, with the showroom itself garnering a 39.6 times earned media value across multiple publishers. Over 10,392 of showroom engagement was resorted and an increased interest in the X5 across SE platforms. BMW was also able to achieve number one and beat top rivals Mercedes with 52% market share for the first time in seven years.

2. Malaysia Aviation Group 

Airline companies were arguably hit the highest in the pandemic, with border closures all around the world stopping travel. In spite of this, many still missed the phenomenon of travelling, a problem Malaysia Airlines sought to remedy through their Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR), a kind of brain massage that offers a full-body experience.

Utilising the various motions that underscore a traveller’s journey, such as security checks, boarding gate announcements, take-off sounds, Malaysia Airlines leveraged on various social media platforms to bring a similar experience to life. Through "The Sounds of MH", a 30-minute audio recording of the thousands of sounds found in a typical globe-trotting journey on YouTube, the entire journey would come to life in the “theatre of your mind". One could then enjoy the hustle and bustle of travelling from their homes, which Malaysia Airlines saw as a much needed form of escape and happiness from the psychologically taxing lockdowns.

Aside from the 30-minute audio, 15-second teasers with short snippets of the audio track were released on Instagram Story, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube. TikTok and Instagram were also used for public engagement through user generated content. Malaysia Airlines released teleprompter challenges on TikTok where the public could give their rendition of an in-flight cabin crew’s announcement and were made in various languages to suit the demographics of Malaysians – Malay, Mandarin and English.

The campaign resulted in the company’s YouTube channel crossing the 100,000 subscriber mark, and average view duration going up by 54%. While TikTok was new to the brand, the teleprompter challenges led to the increase of new subscribers, starting at less than 500 and reaching 15,000 in the first four days of the challenge’s launch. The language flexibility feature also helped the brand receive over 1.8 million views and 9,749 participants across TikTok, Instagram and Facebook. Many celebrities also took part which led to free publicity.

Malaysia Airlines was also able to attain PR coverage from 33 news outlets locally and globally, leading to an increase in PR media value of RM3,426,690 and exposure through celebrities’ social media accounts, with almost zero budget invested.

3. Maybank 

In 2021, Maybank looked to bring its digital services to an older demographic, especially as COVID-19 buckled down on the region. While Maybank’s youngers consumers are more digitally affluent, Maybank revealed that amongst its senior customers, traditional banking methods were more favoured. This was an insight gained during seasonal events such as Hari Raya. Maybank thus created the MAE app, a super app and ewallet that would help Malaysians manage their money better, and that would even include seasonal features such as eDuit Raya during the festive season.

However, the app still only proved successful amongst young users, which the company then looked to change by creating campaigns that would both increase app downloads while boosting take up and usage of the app with older generations of Maybank users, who had yet to shift to digital.

Maybank took to inviting and creating a seamless shift through a festive campaign video. The video features the story of an old and traditional father figure who is rather stuck in his ways, and how he learns to adjust to a more modern lifestyle after coming to live with his daughter in the big city. With the consideration of creating an emotional appeal via a story of old ways versus new technology, albeit with a happy ending, film viewers would see older talent naturally warm up to modern conveniences, such as the features on the MAE app, rather than immediately becoming tech savvy, which might not be believable for audiences.

The rest of the campaign was designed with a phased approach for older audiences to gradually try out our digital services themselves, such as through an eGreeting card that users could try in the app, introducing them to a fun feature that could be enjoyed with loved ones at no charge. This provided an entry point to using the app with no strings attached.

Although Hari Raya Aidilfitri is a Muslim holiday and most relevant to the Malay market, to help the campaign scale the campaign materials were produced in English and Bahasa Melayu. This meant that items such as the main campaign video which included heavy Kelantanese dialect, would be subtitled in English.

Beyond the video, Maybank refreshed the MAE app to add to the home screen dashboard the campaign masthead, to make the user experience more seamless should they come into the app after viewing a campaign item. The eDuit and eGreeting also made the experience on the app one where families could bridge the gap between generations, as younger family members (much like the film) help their elders learn and perform their required transactions, while together enjoying a simple and rewarding game experience with each successful transaction performed.

4. Shiseido 

The beauty industry was also impacted by COVID-19 and Shiseido wanted to cut through the clutter in the digital space and remain on top of consumers' minds during the lockdown. Hence, it wanted to influence each stage of the consumer funnel.

The brand found that women form a large majority of casual gamers, contrary to popular perception and women outnumbered men for casual games by three to one. It was also clear that brands had to play a role when consumers wanted to be delighted and inspired. With social distancing and lockdowns in place, Shiseido's wanted to bring Tokyo to its customers during the pandemic. 

This led to Shiseido creating a magical virtual world in Ginza Tokyo where Shiseido had its first flagship store in real life. Done in collaboration with Ampersand Advisory's creative service unit, the interactive virtual world filled with various activities aim to educate about the third generation of Ultimune Power Infusing Concentrate. Various touchpoints in the virtual Ginza Street Tokyo were also used to drive product trial and sampling, as well as promote eCommerce.

The KPIs included education and understanding of the product, create engagement to drive brand affinity, drive sampling, and drive purchase after understanding of the brand has been created.

Within two months, Ginza Street Tokyo VR was born and the whole VR experience was mobile optimised to load within seven seconds of the user clicking the link. The user journey was created such that when users visited the page, they would be introduced to the Ultimune Power Infusing Concentrate and the science behind the product before being encouraged to sample it. Thereafter, they could play the game.

It reached over a million people and exceeded sampling and eCommerce targets. The amount of time spent in the virtual world exceeded five minutes on average and there was also positive PR coverage worth over RM150k in marketing and advertising publications.

5. The Chicken Rice Shop Restaurants  

With COVID-19 sending Malaysia into lockdown, many Malaysians took to social media to help fellow restaurant owners and other retailers hit hard by the pandemic. The Chicken Rice Shop took a major hit in sales with the pandemic, with hundreds of outlets nationwide forced into closure, the company struggled with revenue, with most of its coming from dine-in prior to lockdown.

The Chicken Rice Shop was more than willing to turn this situation around with its Merdeka Day campaign that would reclaim its place as a beloved homegrown brand in the heart of Malaysians. According to The Chicken Rice Shop, the campaign had to be impactful, relevant and shareable, and most of all, completely independent of media investment as the brand had been forced to scale back on marketing investments.

The Chicken Rice Shop looked at social media trends to analyse and better understand public sentiment towards the country in the wake of COVID-19, where patriotism was evidently high. The brand thus wanted to highlight the spirit of patriotism that was rife among Malaysians, and inspire them to continue pressing on in the fight against COVID-19. This was done through a symbol that every Malaysian recognised and could rally behind, none other than the national anthem, the Negaraku.

The Chicken Rice Shop desired to create a moment that Malaysians could engage in, whether virtually or in-person through “Berdiri Bersama Untuk Negaraku", and experience every day. This was done via guerilla marketing, which enabled the brand to capture authentic responses and carry the campaign out through a cost-effective option that would maintain brand relevance and increase share of voice with inspiring and shareable content.

The brand then crafted a campaign where it would bring the Negaraku to its outlets, and through social media, to the hearts and homes of every Malaysian. Key outlets at times that tended to be visited by diverse people groups were identified, including school students, professionals and families of different races. The Negaraku was broadcasted through the outlets’ speakers and filmed the responses of patrons through hidden cameras. The activation was carried out only once per outlet.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=834445197092589

The campaign served to raise the attention of passing buyers, who would stop at the activation of the Negaraku. The Chicken Rice Shop collated the video footage and broadcast it before Merdeka weekend with the intention of inspiring Malaysians and inviting social media coverage. This overall resulted in the main campaign video going viral, attaining 4.2 million organic views and over 700,000 organic engagements with no media investment.

Malaysians across the nation viewed the video on the official The Chicken Rice Shop Facebook page, with users reposting the original video on Twitter, TikTok and WhatsApp. These were channels where the brand originally had no presence. Media outlets picked up on the video and reported it on their pages, further amplifying video views and engagement, and adding close to RM 1 million in media value to a video that had no planned media investment. Raja Permaisuri Agong also reposted the video on her Instagram account, “sealing the brand campaign with royal validation". Users also commented on the videos and Facebook page, expressing their pride as Malaysians through an array of positive comments.

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