What would Lau Yin May do with a free elephant?

On 15 November, 35 inspiring marketers were celebrated for their outstanding achievements during the CMO Awards 2019. Curious to find out who they are beyond their accomplishments, we emailed our winners five simple questions to answer. We’ll be publishing their answers in this mini series we’ve decided to call “What would this marketer do with a free Elephant?” 

First up in our series is Group Chief Marketing & Customer Experience Officer of Malaysia Airlines, Lau Yin May, who won the award for Best Marketer in Customer Experience Marketing.

What do you wake up every morning excited to do?

 I get up feeling excited to not-knowing but eager to discover what new things I will encounter in the day! On working days, I look forward to having fruitful engagements with my team to come up with some really funky, first-in-the-world or rather first-in-the-galaxy kind of marketing ideation, or to simply find solutions to issues as it gives a sense of achievement and fulfilment.  

If you woke up one morning and found yourself in a perfect world with no limits on budget and resources, what is the one marketing campaign you would make happen?

I’ll relate this to Malaysia Airlines as I have a deep passion in the airlines industry. It would be to give the opportunity to EVERY SINGLE Malaysian to fly with Malaysia Airlines, to their destination of choice and experience the memorable end-to-end Malaysian Hospitality throughout their journey. And to extend Malaysia Airlines into their daily lifestyle and not just limited to flying.

What is something you would never change about your team?

Their REAL selves. Everyone should ALWAYS be who they are wherever they are, be it at work or at home, with colleagues or with friends and families. The REAL them without the need to project an image, or to pretend, or to say or not say certain things, but to allow the real them to shine – as everyone is beautiful in their own way.

Please complete this sentence:

As a marketer, you must know… the sky is not your limit. Creativity has no limit. Just go for it ’cause YOLO!

Tell us something quirky about yourself, not many people know.

I am extremely horrified of rats, I have jumped over people straight onto a bar top in a restaurant in just a split second at just the mere mention of a rat suspected running around.

You’ve been given an elephant. You can’t give it away or sell it. What would you do with the elephant?

I’ll train up this elephant to be a ‘Smile-R’ – read as smile-er… ie a giver of smiles – defined as someone, or in this case, an elephant, that goes around bringing smiles to whomever it meets, wherever it goes. To spread the joy and happiness around, create an environment of harmony as everything can be done in a harmonious manner.