Results and Effectiveness

• Conversation online about Merdeka: rose 2000% and PETRONAS featured in 30% of it • Over 380 videos uploaded, including 10% filmed by users. Youngest participant was aged 1.5 years old! • Reach: 8.3 million via Facebook sharing • PETRONAS Facebook: 33,223 new fans • Over 60,000 video views and 22,000 votes • Twitter trending topic: #SayaSukaMalaysia • Earned media worth RM 500,000 (offline + online) • PETRONAS brand affinity: up 25% (buzz tracking online)

Creative Execution

We despatched camera crews to selected youth hangouts, asking consumers why they “suka” (like) Malaysia. Movie star Cheryl Samad, comedian Indi, and 988 DJ KK Wong accompanied cameras, thus creating interest. Hosts were selected to match the 3 largest Malaysian ethnicities. Crew locations updated “live” on Facebook drove further participation. We also invited users to film their own responses and send them in to us. Clips were uploaded to YouTube and PETRONAS’s facebook application. Respondents urged friends to vote. Twitter hashtag, digital media buys in Facebook, and banner ads embedding different videos every week were all pointed to Facebook, building critical mass for content-sharing. The campaign struck a chord: lifestyle bloggers came aboard to say Saya Suka Malaysia (and PETRONAS’ campaign). Through negotiations, Celcom, a government-owned telco with a similar CSR policy also “adopted” our campaign, and re-posted our videos in its own Celcom Facebook brand pages, further driving eyeballs.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

For youth, Merdeka (Independence Day) is merely a holiday, not a commemoration or time of reflection. PETRONAS is Malaysia’s national oil company, and part of its mission of nation building involves human development and knowledge transfer. At Merdeka, PETRONAS wanted to encourage patriotic fervour in the youth, and to create awareness about Independence. We would embed the brand subliminally. With 300 Facebook friends per user, Malaysians are the world’s most social people. Hence we decided to penetrate the Facebook ecosystem where consumers "Like" stuff, to place entertaining user-generated content. We asked consumers to say what they “Liked” about Malaysia, and get their friends to vote. Paid ads and banners would also help consumers find the content. As youth shared content we could create critical mass to embed both Merdeka and PETRONAS in their minds.