Isobar wins Malaysia’s only Gold from Spikes Asia
THE Gold award from the annual Spikes Asia Awards has eluded Malaysian agencies for the past three years, but not this year. Isobar Malaysia, a Dentsu Aegis Network agency, successfully brought home the top honours at the awards ceremony held in Singapore last Friday.
The feat also earned Isobar the coveted Malaysia’s Agency of the Year title at the same ceremony.
The award-winning work was Isobar’s campaign entitled “HoEeKi” (Let It Go in the Hokkien dialect) for Mudah.my, Malaysia’s largest online marketplace. Winning under the Online Fiction – Entertainment category, it was Malaysia’s only Gold award for the night.
Commenting on the achievements, Isobar Malaysia executive creative director Liew Sanyen said: “We had a lot of data-based insights that boosted the effectiveness of the campaign, but what really brought this work to life was the creativity that went into curating entertaining yet relatable content.
“We should never exchange creativity for data, but fuse the power of both. After all, great stories that move people, move business.”
Isobar Malaysia also picked up a Bronze award in the same category for another “HoEeKi” campaign, entitled “HoEeKi – Treadmill”.
Often dubbed the Cannes Lions of Asia, the Spikes Asia Awards is the region’s most prestigious awards for creative communications, celebrated as part of the three-day Spikes Asia Festival of Creativity, where the finest creative thinkers from the region and around the globe convene to celebrate advertising talents, debate the industry’s key issues, update their knowledge, network with industry professionals and be creatively inspired.
In particular, the “Entertainment” category award celebrates creativity that turns content into culture. The award is given to campaigns that demonstrate ideas that are unskippable; that is work which captivates in order to cut-through, communicate a brand message or connect with consumers in a new way.
In the case of “HoEeKi”, the campaign was curated based on the brief that Mudah.my has often been perceived as a second-hand marketplace of old and used items, which is something the Chinese tend to avoid during Chinese New Year.
Moreover, given the fact that pre-festive season is one of the most cluttered marketing periods in Malaysia, Mudah.my needed a way to break through the clutter to reach its Chinese audience during this festive period.
Chinese generally like to hoard due to their thrifty nature – they do not intent to let go of old items even when those items have diminished in value. Then came the brilliant idea – in a season of buying, focus on selling!
“Ho Ee Ki” was turned into a mnemonic phrase, delivered through a catchy original song and funny video that reminded people to let it go and receive greater blessings in return, targeting those who clutter the house with old items, and the people inconvenienced by this behaviour.
The relatability of the storyline and humorous song drove audience to repeatedly watch (over 5 million within a month) and share the video (over 22,000 shares), making the “Ho Ee Ki” phrase hugely popular leading up to Chinese New Year.
The campaign exceeded expectation as it resonated well with the Malaysian-Chinese community and managed to propel Muday.my in a way never before – 213% increase in “value for money” evaluation and listings went up by 7% versus 1.7% average monthly rate.
In April, at the 2017 Kancil Awards, Malaysia’s most prestigious advertising awards competition, the same campaign also picked up a Gold, a Silver, and two Bronzes, which contributed to Isobar Malaysia clinching the overall bestof-show Golden Kancil award.