Every year, during Merdeka (Malaysia's Independence Day), many brands (including Celcom) ran campaigns promoting the fuzzy feeling of unity. But in 2020, the 63rd Merdeka is unlike others we've ever experienced. Cognisant that all are affected, some are hit harder – young adults and solopreneurs. They literally saw their income grinding to a halt. Celcom saw the need, and offered its resources to help by delivering an inspiring message that is welded to an actionable solution. The objectives are not lofty, and does not intend to save the nation, but to humbly lend some help.

1) Raise funds for the young adults and solopreneur segment. (The projected fund of RM 57,500 (USD 14,173.04 equivalent) was intended to cover the expected basic living expenses for participants)

2) Rally Malaysians for their support

3) Contribute to brand love

Firstly, the face mask was our creative canvas because this polarising accessory has become part of our daily lives and will be part of it for the foreseeable future, so why not embrace it. Secondly, the message during ‘Merdeka’ festivities tend to always be about coming together as one nation for the greater good of its people, so there is no better opportunity for Celcom to showcase unity with something tangible. The combination led us to create, ‘Creation Nation’, a platform that rallied the nation to be creators by giving them the opportunity to monetise their creativity. The platform gave the public access to design tools to create their fashionable face masks and the opportunity to generate a side income from the sales of those masks.

What was evident during the pandemic is that, despite the circumstances, we saw the intrinsic value of all Malaysians coming together as one. This pandemic (despite all its negativity) sparked a spirit of selflessness and unity; everyone rolled up their sleeves and did their bit to help one another get through this period of uncertainty. We saw unconventional routes taken to create new services by tapping on the gig economy and digital platforms to help themselves and others stay afloat. Tapping into this attitude allows Celcom to deliver a meaningful platform to multiple audiences; One that lends a supporting hand to the hard-hit segments and empowers the public to participate.

Three key components that made up the campaign

1: A Film that INSPIRES; 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.

2: A Platform to ENABLE Malaysians; The open-source platform invites multiple audiences (The hard-hit segments and the wider public) to create their Mask designs and the opportunity to generate income from the sales of those masks.

3: Opportunity to CONNECT with right partners; Collaborate with a local partner in Earth Heir to produce our face masks. We also commissioned famous local artists from different creative sectors to design one-of-a-kind, collectible face masks designs.

Additionally, we leveraged on paid and owned channels, e.g. media outlets, tapped onto online personalities, social channels, print and DOOH to help us drive awareness and participation.

Malaysians took to the Campaign;

Objective 1: Funds Raised

- A total of RM79,000 (USD 19,472.52 equivalent) was raised for the participants from mask proceeds. The amount raised exceeded our projected amount by 37.39%

Objective 2: Drove Participation

- Our ‘call to arms’ effort pulled in 972 mask submissions. Outperformed against the 200 submissions KPI by 386%

- The main film over the course of a few days was able to garnered a total of 4 million views and 22,231 clickthrough to the platform.

Objective 3: Contributed to brand love

- A post campaign research was deployed to monitor the campaign’s impact on the brand

a) “one of the BEST TELCO advertisement recently” : 78% against Benchmark of 62%

b) “It makes you FEEL GOOD about the brand” : 73% against Benchmark of 66%

c) “It makes me more INTERESTED in the brand” : 71% against Benchmark of 66%