CREATION NATION

TitleCREATION NATION
BrandCELCOM AXIATA BERHAD
Product / ServiceFESTIVE - MERDEKA (MALAYSIA INDEPENDENCE DAY)
CategoryG07. Corporate Purpose & Social Responsibility
EntrantCELCOM Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA
Idea Creation M&C SAATCHI MALAYSIA Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA
Media Placement MINDSHARE MALAYSIA Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA
Production PASSION PICTURES Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA
Additional Company EARTH HEIR STUDIO Selangor, MALAYSIA

Credits

Name Company Position
Darren Lee M&C Saatchi (M) Sdn Bhd Executive Creative Director
Azeril Bin Johari M&C Saatchi (M) Sdn Bhd Associate Creative Director
Gary Chuah M&C Saatchi (M) Sdn Bhd Senior Art Director
Sophia Grace Esmeralda Dyer Bray M&C Saatchi (M) Sdn Bhd Copywriter
Ee Huey Ng M&C Saatchi (M) Sdn Bhd Designer
Li Kher Khor M&C Saatchi (M) Sdn Bhd Art Director
Sara Azrin M&C Saatchi (M) Sdn Bhd Junior Designer
Evelynn Tan M&C Saatchi (M) Sdn Bhd Executive Producer
Ting Lee M&C Saatchi (M) Sdn Bhd AV Producer
Christopher John Clayton Watermelon Production Sdn Bhd Creative Videographer cum Editor
Poh Li Lee M&C Saatchi (M) Sdn Bhd Digital General Manager
Wei Nee Lee M&C Saatchi (M) Sdn Bhd Senior Account Director
Ryan Alexander Blaydes M&C Saatchi (M) Sdn Bhd Account Manager
Mirza Afiq Beg bin Mirza Md Tariq Beg M&C Saatchi (M) Sdn Bhd Senior Social Account Manager
Tia Suriya Abd Hamid M&C Saatchi (M) Sdn Bhd Social Executive

Why is this work relevant for Brand Experience & Activation?

Rallying Malaysians together, one masks at time. For 30 years plus Celcom’s brand truth is to advance society with technology and connectivity. The 'Mereka Merdeka' campaign gave the brand an opportunity to live up to its mission during a pandemic-stricken Merdeka. Central to this campaign is an open-source platform created by Celcom that brought Malaysians together to express their pride, and creativity through the act of designing their own face masks. This innovation is a win for the brand as it showcase the role it played in challenging times.

Background

With a legacy brand like Celcom who has been central figure in advancing Malaysia’s journey towards becoming a more connected society the brand knew it had to support Malaysians during challenging times. Every year, without fail, when it comes to festive advertising especially during Merdeka, Celcom along with others with run campaigns to promote the fuzzy feeling of unity. But in 2020, the 63rd Merdeka is unlike others we’ve ever experienced. Cognisant of the challenges Malaysians are going through, Celcom knew that it can’t create another typical ad that offer the usual message - It can’t be one that SAYS we care, it needs to show that we do. Our objective is simple but new to Celcom – How do we rally Malaysians together around one common goal: helping each other through trying times?

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

CREATE together with purpose. “Mereka’ translated into English means ‘Create’, it is a theme that spoke the circumstances of Malaysians who we are seeing already on the ground creating unconventional services to help those in need during the pandemic; from everyday citizens, civil servants to businesses. This pandemic ignited a spirit of unity and selflessness, where everyone rolled up their sleeves and did their bit to help one another. And ‘Merdeka’ means Independence but it’s true essence means the coming together as one nation for the greater good of the nation and its people. The campaign ‘Mereka Merdeka’ is an unconventional call-to-arms to Malaysians to come together to create with purpose. No better platform for Celcom to demonstrate its brand purpose of how technology and connectivity can advance society and its people.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

The pandemic sees no color, age, race, or income. It targets in mass and the impact has been devastating and unfathomable. Most of the segments in Malaysia are effected but unfortunately they are some who were hit the hardest - first jobbers, students, business owners and everyday employees. We knew this was an opportunity to showcase Celcom’s tech and innovation leadership by giving these segments access to an open-sourced platform with accessible design tools, allowing them create and monetise their creativity. And there is no better way to express creatively the meaning of being Malaysian and togetherness during a pandemic-stricken Merdeka, on one of the most polarising accessory of the year, the face mask.

Describe the execution (30% of vote)

We know that the platform was the hero but it also consists of several but crucial parts that made this campaign a success; 1.The Film - Inspired by events in 1910, we created a film that tells the story of a Malaysian doctor, Dr. Wu Lien Teh, who in 1910 created the first face mask (what we know today as the N95 Mask) to help people through the Manchurian plague pandemic. This film was the call to arms for Malaysians to participate. 2.The Right Partner – Earth Heir, a Fair Trade Certified Malaysian company was a fitting partner who not only was able to helped us produced the face masks but importantly shared our vision of helping those in the community. 3.Designers – We commission famous local artists (the likes of Alia Bastamam, Cloak..) from different creative sectors to design one-of-a-kind, collectable face masks that would kick the campaign off.

List the results (30% of vote)

Malaysians took to the Campaign; 1. Raised RM66,000 for the creators. 2. Received a total of 972 submissions from the public. Outperforming against the 200 submission KPI by 386%. 3. The film garnered a total of 4 million views and 22,231 clickthrough to the platform. Malaysians took to the Brand as well; Against 30 other Merdeka ads (Including our competitors Digi and Telekom Malaysia), ‘MeReka Merdeka’ came out top 3 in emotive benchmark: 1) “one of the BEST TELCO advertisement recently” : 78% against Benchmark of 62% 2) “It makes you FEEL GOOD about the brand” : 73% against Benchmark of 66% 3) “It makes me more INTERESTED in the brand” : 71% against Benchmark of 66% (Source: FiftyFive5 – Mereka Merdeka Campaign Performance Report, x̄ = 216, Dec 2020) Icing on the cake; Winner of the Youtube Works Awards 2020 for the Force for Good (COVID19 Edition) category.

Please tell us how the brand purpose inspired the work

Celcom has been a brand that has played an integral and fundamental role in building the nation towards becoming a full-fledged digital society. The brand purpose if we are to strip back everything, it is all about the ‘people’. It is the people that at the end of the day through Celcom’s technology and innovation are advancing. In this pandemic-stricken merdeka period, with unity being the central theme (like every year), we knew we had to show how Technology can help and unite Malaysians. By creating an open-sourced platform that enables Malaysians to come together and create for each other will give the brand and its purpose a much needed ‘human face.’

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