Prudential takes to music to target youth

In a bid to promote financial awareness among Malaysia's youth, Prudential Assurance Malaysia has partnered with local indie band Busco to launch a music video contest.The "R U Ready" contest encourages Malaysian's aged 18 and above to upload either pictures or videos that best represents what is going on in their lives on the R U Ready Facebook page.19-25 year old is also the target age group for Prudential's "PRUlife Ready" insurance plan.According to Fiona Liao, brand and communications director for Prudential Assurance Malaysia, the company through the contest hopes to get the youth to 'start thinking about their life's game plan and prepare for it'."We were looking for the best way to communicate to the youngsters on the importance of getting ready for their life and that includes the financial aspects of it and we found music to be a powerful medium for us to connect with them," she said.The lyrics to the song ‘R U Ready' sung by Busco captures the transition that a young adult goes through. Winners of the contest will be decided after 26 September when the contest ends and will win RM1,000 and be featured in the band's first music video."We were looking for a platform that can offer long term engagement with today's youth that is why we chose Facebook," Liao told A+M.Stickers bearing no information except a QR Code with a R U Ready sign and the link to their Facebook page was pasted across Klang valley, Penang and Johor Baru which helped the brand garner over 2,000 'likes' before officially launching the contest.Accompanying the contest, an ad campaign will also run across multiple channels including print, radio, billboard, online, PR and on-ground activities.The creative agency behind the campaign is Naga DDB while Mindshare carried out media buying and planning. The digital components of the campaigning were done by Mindshare Interaction and Perception Management International was responsible for all PR duties.