With Merdeka passing and Malaysia day just around the corner, and as to be expected, many local marketing will target this big day to show their support for our country… and to sell some stuff.
Yeah, yeah. The cynic in me is showing. Is it truly sincere if the whole thing is a ploy to gain more for your business? However, silver lining, there are some real good messages that can be found in a variety of ad campaigns, and these messages play a role in highlighting the significance of Malaysia Day, and what it means to us as a nation.
What important messages? Well, I can think of three.
The first is rather obvious, and it’s the celebration of unity. What does it mean to be united? What does it mean to have unity in the country and in our personal lives?
Secondly, Malaysia contains all walks of life both in West and East Malaysia. We celebrate that we live in harmony together, and face challenges as one—despite the variety in tradition and culture within the same nation.
The third? We celebrate what it is to be Malaysian. We celebrate what makes our country special. From our food, our clothes, our lifestyle, our scenery, show off what makes Malaysia, truly Asia.
Create a heart-warming message with your content/ad to feature the beauty of unity.
Source: Petronas
Petronas usually hands out absolute bangers when it comes to celebrating Malaysian events and culture, and even able to take us back in time with set pieces and costume designs, but one notable example goes forward rather than backward. The 2019 Malaysia Day ad from Petronas titled “Uni” (a fun play on words) focuses on future generations and the importance of unity.
When it comes to directly addressing racial unity, RHB’s 2019 ad about seeing colours and race hammers home the importance of unity and racial harmony. Great visuals with zero dialogue.
In conclusion, sometimes marketing does a solid job bringing out important messages. Obviously, there are LOADS more examples that are really cool, too. But this is just to showcase examples, so don’t get too tied up on it. The campaigns I mentioned don’t even really bring up their own businesses, but focus on the topic at hand… except ads from Milo because, to be fair, a cup of milo ais is just integral to Malaysian culture at this point.
So the next time you see an ad that makes you stop and think, ask yourself, WHY did it work? Or perhaps you have a memory of an ad you saw from years before that is ingrained in your mind, ask, HOW did it work?
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