Who says the best can’t get better?

Starting this week, MARKETING Magazine will be featuring the Bronze winners of APPIES Malaysia and Asia Pacific 2022 Marketing Campaign Awards by sharing the campaign stories.

FCB Shout swam the oceans with RHB to win 3 APPIES Bronze, enroute to Best Agency and Marketer in Asia Pacific 2022.

The judges were enthralled with their terrific live presentation that further led them to win the Bronze trophies under the categories of Best in Marketing Innovation, Best in Pro Bono / Festive / Govt / Entertainment and Best in Consumer & Business Services.

The campaigns won Bronze in three different categories.

As for OCEAN HARMONY – Bringing life back to the oceans, one card at a time won the category of Best in Marketing Innovation and Best in Consumer & Business Services.

Whereas, ALLY AGAINST ADVERSITY – Shining the spotlight on Malaysian resilience with the power of storytelling won the category of Best in Pro Bono / Festive / Govt / Entertainment.

In 2020, WWF pegged Malaysia as the biggest per capita users of plastic packaging in a region, responsible for over half the plastic litter in the world’s oceans. 

To court a new generation of customers, RHB decided to become the solution instead of the problem.

RHB collaborated with WWF to create a savings product that allows account holders to send their earned profits towards supporting Universiti Malaysia Terengganu’s (UMT) sea turtles research unit. 

The concept was then brought to life via the Ocean Harmony debit card, Asia-Pacific’s first recycled plastic debit card. By the end of 2021, 69,773 accounts were opened and RM42,000 was raised for UMT (the amount continues to grow). 

The pandemic gave RHB a problem – it would have to switch off its pre-planned brand-building activities to focus on helping Malaysians, whilst selling products that would sustain the bank’s business.

To claim success and justify what some would term as gratuitous spending, the work would need to maintain brand equity growth and deepen customer loyalty while generating deposit growth. 

So, instead of creating one big anthemic campaign, the agency created a series of smaller stories to uplift Malaysians during the most important occasions: Deepavali, CNY and Raya.

Each story shone light on real Malaysians who found progress in their own ways even in the face of adversity. This resulted in a significant increase in brand equity and business results.