Exclusive Interview With Malaysian CMO Award 2025 Winner, Alex Goh: Retail That Connects

In retail, consistency is often the hardest thing to sustain. For brands operating at scale, especially those with frequent campaigns, vast product ranges, and mass-market appeal, the challenge is not simply staying visible but staying relevant. Few brands in Malaysia have mastered this balancing act quite like MR D.I.Y..

Behind much of that momentum is Alex Goh, Vice President of Marketing and winner at the CMO Malaysia Awards 2025. Under his leadership, MR D.I.Y. has built a distinctive marketing playbook that combines cultural relevance, humour, accessibility, and commercial effectiveness, transforming everyday retail campaigns into memorable brand moments.

Known for its festive and high-frequency campaigns, MR D.I.Y. continues to stand out not just because of how often it shows up, but because of how intentionally it engages consumers. By focusing on strong creative discipline, relatable storytelling, and solution-led messaging, the brand has managed to remain fresh while consistently driving footfall and sales.

We interviewed Alex Goh to understand how MR D.I.Y. sustains campaign momentum, simplifies communication across a massive product portfolio, and turns humour into a serious brand strategy.

1. MR D.I.Y. is known for high-frequency, festive campaigns. How do you keep them fresh without creative fatigue?

At MR D.I.Y., frequency is not viewed as repetition but as iteration.

Every campaign begins with a clear cultural or consumer insight, which is then adapted and evolved across different formats, creators, and touchpoints.

Internally, the team maintains a strong creative standard by rigorously challenging each other throughout the development process. This includes detailed discussions and debates, even down to reviewing web film scripts line by line.

For Alex and his team, high-frequency campaigns leave little room for average work. In a fast-moving environment where consumers are constantly exposed to new content, only the strongest ideas are allowed to go live. This disciplined approach is what enables the brand to stay consistently fresh, relevant, and culturally connected.

2. What’s been your most successful campaign in driving both footfall and basket size?

Rather than identifying a single campaign, Alex highlights the importance of both promotional and branding initiatives in driving business outcomes.

While promotional campaigns directly contribute to short-term sales, branding efforts have also played a significant role in commercial performance.

A standout example is the launch of MR D.I.Y.’s mascot, PANDAi, which significantly increased the brand’s cultural visibility.

The campaign created strong awareness and brand recall while contributing to increased footfall and higher basket sizes in the months that followed.

For Alex, the relationship between branding and business is clear: when a brand wins culturally, it also wins commercially. Success is not just about driving store traffic, but about meaningfully converting that traffic into stronger consumer spend and engagement.

3. With such a wide product range, how do you simplify messaging for consumers?

With thousands of products across multiple categories, simplicity is essential.

MR D.I.Y.’s communication strategy shifts the focus away from individual products and toward solutions.

Rather than overwhelming consumers with endless choice, the brand organises messaging around everyday needs and use cases such as fixing, cleaning, organising, and celebrating.

This allows customers to more easily understand how products fit into their lives.

The philosophy is simple: do not try to communicate everything. Instead, focus on delivering the most relevant message clearly and effectively.

This solutions-led approach ensures communication remains accessible and actionable, while reducing clutter in an otherwise complex retail environment.

4. How important is humour and relatability in your brand storytelling?

Humour and relatability are not simply creative choices for MR D.I.Y.; they are central to the brand strategy.

As a mass-market retailer, the brand performs best when consumers can see themselves reflected in its campaigns.

Humour helps lower barriers, making the brand feel more approachable and emotionally engaging. It also increases memorability and shareability, helping campaigns travel organically across social platforms and conversations.

By combining functionality with entertainment, MR D.I.Y. turns what could be routine or transactional shopping into an experience consumers genuinely enjoy, remember, and talk about.

This balance between practicality and personality has become a defining strength of the brand.

Under Alex Goh’s leadership, MR D.I.Y. continues to prove that retail marketing is not just about frequency or promotions. It is about understanding culture, maintaining creative discipline, and building campaigns that make everyday shopping feel more relevant, relatable, and rewarding.