Guess who's back

First day back from our break and going through a 1000 emails and alerts is never fun – but at least it gives A+M the chance to recap some of the unusual and interesting news bites from the last two weeks.

Making headlines over the last few days was the High Court’s decision to allow Catholic weekly, Herald to use the word “Allah” in its publication. Today, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Najib Tun Razak called for calm over the ruling.

The Star said the PM and the government was “quite aware about the feelings of Muslims in the country and would deal with the matter as soon as possible.”

Those opposing the High Court’s decision to allow Herald to use the word “Allah” believe it could lead to confusion among Muslims – and the word could be exploited.

On a lighter note, the Daily Telegraph reported the story of how a Malaysian teenager’s name and an Icelandic TVC had turned her into a Facebook sensation in Iceland.

Why all the fuss?

The 19-year-old girl from Port Klang is named Essasa Sue which sounds very similar to “Essassu” (Icelandic) or “Is that you?” (English) and was the catchphrase used in a popular Vodafone commercial.



Also, if you've seen our report on the Malaysian backed Lotus F1 Racing there was less positive news on the team from The Malaysian Insider. The Petronas move to sponsor the Mercedes Formula One team next season is seen as a blow to govt supported Lotus F1 racing team - it could also have political consequences for its chief executive.

"While Petronas's decision may have been the right one commercially — Mercedes's superior brand name and its experience in F1 racing — it could have political consequences for Tan Sri Hassan Merican, the oil firm's chief executive whose contract expires in February.

Tan Sri Hassan does not have a great relationship with Datuk Seri Najib, his immediate boss, especially after the oil firm's board rejected the premier's request to appoint one of his candidates to the board."

It certainly was a big decision for the state's oil and gas company to make. It cost RM1 billion a year to sponsor a Formula One team, luckily for retail giant Parkson it will cost them considerably less to go ahead with its sponsorship marketing idea.

Parkson has inked a one year deal with the winners of the Ford Supermodel of the World Malaysia 2009 competition to be brand ambassadors.

Ok, so that's the quick recap done. A+M year two can officially get going now.

The short goodbye

We shut our Malaysia office today for the Christmas break. We’re back at work on the 4 January 2010 to start a new year with more breaking news and industry issues mixed and packaged together in true A+M style, and delivered to you in a (cross my heart) timely fashion.

It’s been a challenging year for everyone in business – media wasn’t spared. But as a young new brand which is still finding its footing but nimble enough to roll with the punches, we have a lot to look forward to next year.

Next year on the magazine front you will see a combined December / January issue to start 2010. It will hit desks in mid-January complete with new columnists and more content as well.

After that its back to the monthly format while A+M Daily returns on 4 January 2010.

2010 means we’re one year older but it also means we’ve got one year of local knowledge under our belt.

In the past year we’ve experimented with live blogging of news on marketing-interactive.com and our Twitter (MarketingEds) account is still going strong. Expect to see more video from us and more.

If you’ve been reading magazines like Wired and Esquire you would have noticed the emergence of ads in augmented reality code – our very own October edition featured a nifty coded ad done by Arachnid to thank clients for voting it Digital Agency of the Year.

Cool stuff.

Speaking of cool stuff, today also marks the 20th anniversary of The Simpsons. Amazing. Its glory days may be long past but 20 years running on TV is a long time in anyone’s book.

So, on that note I’d like to wish you all happy holidays and look forward to meeting and writing about you for many years to come (D’oh!).

Cheers!

On the road

Please forgive us if we haven’t been answering the phones today or have been responding to email slowly – Advertising + Marketing is on the road (bus) to Singapore to make it in time to celebrate our company’s Christmas party tomorrow.

L-R: Pamela, Anita, and Excell

Not to fret, there will still be A+M Daily arriving in your inbox today and tomorrow. For me personally, I am just glad to get out of KL this weekend. It’s been a hellish 24 hours for me personally. I arrived home late last night after Web Wednesday’s networking (drinking) session to find Tenaga Nasional had cut off the power to my apartment.

Eh? Sudah Potong?#@! Why!?

So after spending the next hour arguing and shouting at any staff I could find working in my building (who were of no help), I then went defeated back to my place to take the coldest shower of my life (which I repeated again this morning).

Thanks Tenaga Nasional for cutting off my power without any warning. Yes, I did get your warning slip dated one week ago – thanks for giving me so much warning time by slipping it under my door the same day you kicked me off the grid.

Classy.

Powered up! Happier times on the bus

Politicians join the party

Sarawak’s Housing and Urban Development Minister recently said Facebook had now become an important mechanism for him to receive feedback from the people – and in doing so joins the growing list of politicians on social media.

Already we’ve seen Malaysia’s most prominent politician, Dr Mahathir Mohamad try his hand at blogging which on the surface looks like he’s doing a good job of. My Bahasa is way too rusty to actually judge the content for myself but his last five posts averaged over 227 comments which is significant – it’s not easy to a) Keep a blog going and b) Convert readers from lurker mode into commenting mode.

Reportedly, when his blog first launched it got 1 million hits in just 30 days. What was the motive behind the move online? Well, according to a documentary I watched on cable TV last month it was driven by his desire to be heard again because mainstream media was now apparently ignoring him post retirement.

Dr M is also on Facebook but somehow his blog seems more like a window in to his thoughts than his Facebook account which feels more like a PR machine.

The minister on Facebook intends to use his Facebook account to ultimately improve his service to the community but a politician’s blog never quite feels like it was set up to do that.

Yesterday, I was a moderator of a session at the Marketing Chapter event organised by AdExcel which talked about social media and the outlook for advertising in 2010. It was here the topic of blogger transparency came up again. And it was clear from the panel that although they might all like bloggers to become more accountable, audiences in Malaysia didn’t (as long as the post was entertaining) seem to mind as much currently as compared to the West.

It was in the second session where Aegis’ David Ho said one day bloggers in Malaysia would “turn away” because blogs would no longer be neutral.

Over to you guys.

15 ways to engage with youth

CSR and mission statements aside, its a rare sight to see an organisation develop a project which actually works in encouraging young people to express what they are passionate about in an entertaining way.

15Malaysia is one of them. This short film project ended with Joshua Chay, UCSI University’s Film and Television student from the School of Mass Communications bag first prize beating 27 others.

Joshua’s video was titled Mama Leong (who is the elderly woman who talks about her life during the time when the Japanese ruled Malaysia in the video).



The clip is well shot and the scene at Jalan Pudu - Bukit Bintang is compelling not least because I know now that our office is located around the corner from where Mama Leong witnessed the Japanese beheading protestors.

Other clips from 15Malaysia project that captured my attention was Meter by Lim Benji and Potong Saga by Ho Yuhang. They were very viral and hilarious. Meter even featured Khairy Jamaluddin, a politician, highlighting issues of language (education) among others, in this country, and the importance of embracing them.

Potong Saga, on the other hand grabs your attention with its message about a Chinese guy who goes through an unnecessary circumcision to get himself eligible for an Islamic bank account because of misguided information regarding the application from three Chinese old chaps.

The films from the 15Malaysia project also made it to the 14th Pusan International Film Festival, giving the filmmakers more exposure than they could have ever dreamed of.

You can watch the films here.

Battling the drink

So it looks like the state Environment and Public Health Ministry is considering conducting a campaign to curb alcoholism in Sarawak – and it could be similar to the way Malaysia’s anti-smoking campaigns have been done in the past.

In August, I blogged about the state of Indonesia’s cigarette advertising scene which resulted in a good conversation going about our government’s latest Tak Nak anti-smoking campaign.

Similarly with the issue of smoking numbers, the government is not going to have much success tackling the problem of alcoholism if all they do is fund a cleverly crafted communications campaign. The grassroots support is vital and according to the Star there are currently no specific institutions for the rehabilitation of alcoholics in Sarawak yet.

Sarawak recorded 87 admissions for alcohol-related illnesses last year and 27 from January to June this year – although reportedly there is currently no specific institution for the rehabilitation of alcoholics in Sarawak and patients are advised to consult psychiatrists at various government hospitals.

Malaysia is a very different alcohol advertising market compared to most of its neighbours in Asia Pacific. Alcohol brands here are not free to market themselves as freely as they would like but I don’t buy for a second that a country with stricter rules on alcohol marketing equals less alcohol abuse.

There’s literature out there which supports the idea of a relationship between alcohol advertising and consumption – I just haven’t seen any studies which can significantly prove this.

Russian president Dmitry Medvedev recently ordered tough new restrictions to try to curb alcoholism in Russia which he described as a national disaster.

He wants to allow local authorities to ban the sale of alcohol in specific locations at specific times of the day and have jail time replace fines for anyone who sells spirits or beers to people under the age of 18. He also wants to ban liquor advertising but I honestly think the first two regulations are what are going to help curb the problem in Russia – and not the lack of alcohol ads.

In fact, if the Malaysian government wants to get really serious about the problem of alcoholism in Sarawak, maybe they shouldn’t make an anti-drinking ad. I can’t remember the last good alcoholism ad I’ve seen – they usually come and go so quickly it’s hard to tell.

My colleague Ben Burrowes did point me to a movement in New Zealand which on the surface looks pretty promising. I’ve put a poster execution from one of their campaigns in this post.

When’s the last time you saw a good anti-alcohol ad? There’s been a few good anti-drink driving ones from Australia while I was studying there and who (SNL fans) can forget this Dennis Leary spot from years ago.

Maxis adds Facebook et al

Maxis has acknowledged Facebook’s impressive growth in Malaysia over the last year, with the launch of a new service called fb2mobile.

The company had previously launched the Friendster Alert service in May 2009 which gave subscribers the ability to receive updates on their Friendster account via SMS. And with the launch of fb2mobile, Maxis now says it is the first mobile communications service provider in Malaysia to provide a full range of mobile services to Facebook, Twitter and Friendster.

Maxis can now connect its mobile subscribers to Facebook and Twitter via SMS and MMS.

It’s not exactly earth shattering news but is another example of the social media craze taking over… everything. Did you know a company called NetProfitQuest (NPQ) is now conducting a "Certificate in Social Media Marketing" programme? It’s supposed to help companies bridge the gap between business goals and the technicalities of social media implementation. (Sounds like something your media agency should be doing).

Anyways, back to the Maxis fb2mobile news. The company says it is also looking to include other major social networking services such as Yahoo and MSN Messenger as well. And anyone who subscribes to fb2mobile alerts get free monthly subscriptions until 28 February 2010 (After that then it’s a monthly charge of RM2).

I guess the last word on this would be it’s good for consumers that a player like Maxis is encouraging, making it easier and cheaper for us to use our mobile phones for something other than making a phone call.

Over two months ago, Aegis (Carat) brokered a deal with Maxis and three leading dailies. It allowed readers of Utusan Malaysia, Sin Chew Daily and The Star to have free access to news via the mobile internet on the Maxis network until 31 October 2009.

Still waiting to hear back from Carat on what the uptake numbers were performing like during the ‘free’ period. Come on, Roy. Share!