Astro Winning Partnership Series: Growing Brand Understanding through Entertainment

Even with its big achievement of turning four and winning various industry accolades, there is so much more that CUCKOO International (MAL) Sdn Bhd wants to do.

Even as it continues to expand its share of voice and increase its market penetration, the water and air purifier expert tapped onto Astro to ramp up its efforts; the primary objective here: to take its brand credibility to the next level.

To achieve this, CUCKOO selected Astro specifically for its content expertise and expansive distribution network.

This is how the two started working together on a customised extension of the already massive Astro Gegar Vaganza.

Overview

Just as it reached its fourth-year milestone, CUCKOO already has more than 2 million household users and over 70,000 agents nationwide.

In wanting to widen its brand outreach, it needed to work with a specialised platform – one that can attract more customers and agents.

Of course, it must also reinforce the strong foothold that it already enjoys, more so for the Malay market.

That is the main reason CUCKOO and Astro collaborated on that specific tie-up with the Astro’s Gegar Vaganza event.

Beyond being a trusted platform and service provider among many Malay communities, what Gegar Vaganza puts out is considered as a must-watch for that specific target audience.

Challenge

There have been 4 identified challenges that prompted the collaboration. The most critical is to raise CUCKOO’s brand awareness levels among the target audience.

This also includes educating them about its product strategies and quality assurances.

To achieve this, there must be a grand platform that can also act as an appropriate event to celebrate its fourth-year milestone.

Of course, the platform would also act as a motivation for future triumphs, hence adding in the concept of selecting a new brand ambassador or CUCKOO Friend.

Market

Knowing how the Malay audiences love the glitz, glamour, and star-power of the music industry, developing a bespoke extension of Gegar Vaganza made a lot of sense.

Tying it up with the search for a new Brand Ambassador that requires audience participation makes it an even better proposition.

It helps that the main event itself is drawing in a lot of interest so these tie-in collaborations help engage them further.

Strategic Fit

As Astro understands what the Malay target audiences wanted from Gegar Vaganza, putting together the ‘Konsert Gegaran CUCKOO’ and new brand ambassador hunt is easy enough.

This actively taps onto the interest of the primary market and get them involved on some level, both of which Astro is strong at.

In fact, Astro’s brand likeness is vital for the collaboration to properly take-off.

In providing these new levels of access to the audience, it gives them a sense of connectivity to the event that is personalised and immersive.

It creates a renewed sense of community and consumer relationship that is both impactful and influential.

After all, audience in the digital age expect some level of enrichment with the content they consume.

Objective

Create new events for Gegar Vaganza that raises its popularity and outreach to new heights.

At the same time, create relevance for CUCKOO with the audience and drive up brand recognition among them.

This goes hand-in-hand with CUCKOO’s pursuit of higher standards. The goal here is to create market leadership and larger share of voice among consumers.

The latter is used to enable fans and their families to choose the very best as the next event’s ambassador.

Content Strategy

The entire process to develop, plan, then execute these events takes an enormous amount of resources and time.

However, the materials are readily available, so it has always been more about what sort of content works to drive interest and passion.

In working on two highly-related events, it has always been about creating the right visuals and messaging to drive consumer understanding.

Results

Stronger Brand Visibility

With the collaboration campaign kicking off, interest in the CUCKOO brand spiked as its monthly website visits shot up by 17.9%.

Beyond empowering personnel and giving them opportunities to grow and become closer as a family, social engagement within the company and among the general public also grew.

The up-surge – 60% thereabouts – ensured there the brand conversation is constantly active and trending until the year-end.

Higher Sales Generation

The efforts of CUCKOO also saw high yields when it comes to brand understanding.

Besides the higher inquiries, it also generated a higher net-sales during the entire season Gegar Vaganza aired.

The official tally is 19.4% in growths and expectations are higher now to go even higher. This is something CUCKOO is confident it can achieve.

Motivation Boost for Staff

The increase in sales and brand recognition has pushed morale to new highs for all CUCKOO staff.

In fact, the success of this collaboration with Astro has positively impacted the motivation of the sales and services teams, internal staff, and those in related operations.

They are now encouraged to do more and strive to grow CUCKOO into a greater brand and rise beyond standards.