For heritage brands, longevity can be both an asset and a challenge. While legacy brings trust, recognition, and cultural familiarity, staying relevant in a rapidly evolving consumer landscape requires brands to constantly reinvent how they connect with younger audiences. Few understand this balance better than Leong Wai Yin.
As Chief Marketing Officer of F&N Beverages Marketing and a winner at the CMO Malaysia Awards 2025, Leong Wai Yin has played a key role in ensuring some of Malaysia’s most iconic beverage brands continue to resonate across generations. By blending cultural familiarity with digital-first strategies, creator-led storytelling, and consumer participation, she has successfully repositioned heritage brands for today’s fast-moving, socially driven audiences.
We interviewed Leong Wai Yin to understand how F&N continues to modernise legacy brands, rethink festive campaigns, and embed sustainability into its brand storytelling while staying true to its heritage.
Heritage is our advantage, but only if we reinterpret it meaningfully. For Gen Z, it is not about history, but relevance in their world today.
We focus on three levers in our brand communication. First, we reframe the brand’s role by shifting from purely functional to lifestyle-driven, moving from being “just a drink” to becoming part of everyday moments, identity, individuality, and self-expression.
Second, we meet them where they are by adopting a social-first approach through storytelling, creator collaborations, and real-time content.
Third, we design for participation by creating not just campaigns to watch, but moments consumers can engage with, share, and co-create.
Our recent festive activations are a strong example of how we approach this. We take deeply rooted cultural moments and reimagine them through modern formats.
For instance, in our 100PLUS Chinese New Year and Ramadan/Raya campaigns, we moved beyond traditional advertising into digital-first brand building, including live commerce, creator-led storytelling, and digital-first experiences.
Activations such as our TikTok livestreams did not just celebrate tradition; they made it interactive, immediate, and shoppable. The result is a seamless blend of cultural authenticity delivered through contemporary platforms and consumer behaviours.
Five years ago, festive marketing focused primarily on large-scale campaigns and broad reach, with heavy reliance on traditional media.
Today, our focus is on precision, relevance, and conversion, guided by a Digital-First Brand approach.
As a result, we have shifted in three key ways: from mass storytelling to occasion-based micro-moments, from one-way communication to engagement and participation, and from awareness to measurable outcomes across the funnel, including e-commerce.
Festive periods remain critical as they represent our biggest sales window and highest commercial opportunity. However, it is no longer just about showing up. It is about winning in the moments that matter most to consumers and shoppers.
Sustainability is no longer a side narrative; it has become central to brand credibility.
Our approach is to keep it authentic, tangible, and relevant to consumers’ daily lives. Instead of making broad claims, we focus on clear actions across sourcing, packaging, and production, and communicate them in simple, relatable ways.
By grounding sustainability in practical impact, we ensure the message feels meaningful and genuine while strengthening consumer trust in the brand.
Under Leong Wai Yin’s leadership, F&N continues to prove that heritage brands do not need to choose between tradition and innovation. By reinterpreting legacy through a modern lens, the company has successfully built campaigns that remain culturally rooted while resonating strongly with a new generation of consumers.
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