Opening Malaysia’s eyes

Masked behind all the buzz and colour, the growing night market phenomenon or commonly known as “pasar malams” in Malaysia pose a real problem to many global brands. Known for the availability of counterfeit products, sold through pigeon-hole-like stalls, these night markets are now starting to mar the image of global brands.In a conversation with Advertising + Marketing Esther Seah (pictured), Johnson & Johnson Vision Care’s marketing manager for the ASEAN region, explained these night markets can occasionally be a problem for legitimate brands such as Acuvue.In countries such as Malaysia and Thailand, there is a growing night market trend where global brand names simply get stuck onto unauthorised products. While many of these counterfeit products may not be a healthcare threat for consumers, the situation is very much different for vision-aiding brands such as Acuvue and even some of its close competitors.Many a times, contact lenses sold in the night markets streets are not sealed or certified. This has, over the years, led to a rise in the number of eye infections among consumers in Asian markets. Moreover, this problem is also not just isolated to the night market-visiting community. In Malaysia, there is also the problem of non-certified optometrists who sell contact lenses to the public.“A shop might be there one day and gone another. When this happens, it does not create a proper image of our brand. Almost anyone is able to simply slap on the Acuvue name to the non-certified lenses. These products are usually beauty brands and sold at a cheaper price,” Seah says.Curbing the problemTo curb the problem, Seah explains Acuvue has taken several steps to work with the right eye care professionals. It directs consumers to specific eye care professionals and ensures it does that clearly on its website and in campaigns. Directions and names are splashed across its print campaigns, websites and on social media pages of Acuvue’s trusted partners.The brand was also quick to realise that, for Malaysia, communication has to start from the basics. While in mature markets such as Singapore the goal is to promote high standards of living, the objective in Malaysia is more basic and is to push safe standards of use and basic education of products, explains Seah.To do so, the brand had to actively build relationships with the Association of Malaysian Optometrists to educate not only the public, but also eye care professionals on what their role was in the community.Acuvue brought in foreign experts to rally Malaysian optometrists together to help curb unauthorised sales of contact lenses. It also helped optometrists carve out business strategies and points of differentiations that would help them in their long-term business strategies.“We brought in experts to explain what the loss is to the optometrists themselves if they let every patient buy contact lenses off night markets or unauthorised dealers. We wanted to also highlight to them what the impact is when people don’t see these optometrists as professionals because they didn’t bring their expertise across to their patients.”However, for the brand, the biggest help in curbing the problem has been the Malaysian consumers themselves. According to Seah, because the Malaysian market is so engaged with the brand on social media, more often than not they “become the eyes and ears” of the brand and list the stores which may be selling counterfeit products.“Being a big brand we can definitely leverage on the various mediums such as print, TV or OOH. But we have been extremely heavy on digital, upping our spend to nearly 30% to 40% of the marketing mix. This is because the Malaysian consumers are very much reactive on social media and we have a lot of conversations online. Once we start conversing with them, they are very responsive.”While KL is no doubt a focus market for the brand, it’s very much the peripheral states which are now up and coming for the brand. Most of its grooming opportunities, says Seah, come from areas such as Penang and Sabah where consumers are getting more sophisticated and well-educated. With the increase of affluence, consumer choices of brands are also getting more informed.Reaching out to youthsMeanwhile, to drum up more publicity for its brand, in July Acuvue partnered with MTV World Stage for its “Dare to Be” campaign.The campaign challenged youths in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand to pursue their passions with its “Dare to Be” campaign. Following a series of dares, the biggest for the campaign asks youths to “dare to become an MTV VJ”.Ultimately, the campaign resulted in 70% brand awareness and 80% brand recall among its 18 to 24-year-old age group. It had almost 90,000 people participating in the MTV campaign in Singapore and Malaysia, and this figure includes submission of contest entries and the total number of votes. It also reached about two million people in Singapore and Malaysia.While the numbers proved the campaign a success for the brand, for Seah the real win came when more young women indicated they were now aware of the dangers of purchasing contact lenses through online distributors or unauthorised retailers.“There has been a lot of increase in eye contamination across the SEA markets so we wanted to reach out to the youths and the MTV World Stage was a good platform to do so.“Ultimately, as a marketer you have to ask yourself – do you want to be just a sales person? Or do you want to be an influential brand marketer that makes a change in people’s lives. That’s always shaped my philosophy.”[gallery link="file" ids="69238,69559,69560"]