Malaysian retail brand wants consumers to get 'Jholly' this Christmas

Malaysian retail brand A Piece of Malaysia (APOM) has taken a jab at Malaysian financier Jho Low with its latest Christmas collection. Its Jholly Christmas Collection, which comprises item such as tote bags, t-shirts, coasters and mugs, features a cartoon in Low's image and phrases such as "Jho Jho Jho", "Tis the season of giving back", "Spend it like you stole it" and "Drink it like you stole it".In a statement to A+M, co-founder Kelvin Long said APOM looks to find the witty and humorous side of what's happening in Malaysia and turn it into interesting and unique products. Since Christmas is around the corner, APOM wanted to produce something special and tongue-in-cheek that would resonate with Malaysians."As we all know, there is a very famous fugitive on the run who stole billions from Malaysians. We thought it would be great to remind Malaysians of how he lived lavishly and hopefully use this campaign to remind people he is still out there," Long said.[gallery link="file" ids="242114,242115,242116,242117,242118,242119,242120,242121,242122"] As the team was working on a limited marketing budget, Long said the team knew it had to create promotional items with engaging and funny lines that would attract consumers' attention and have them share pictures of the items on social media."We got the whole team to brainstorm ideas and only those that got everyone excited and laughing were produced," Long told A+M. Made up of 10 individuals, APOM currently works with Lucideas.According to statistics from Digimind, the number of mentions about the Jholly Christmas Collection peaked on 18 November and some of the key trending topics were “naughty santa”, “pengasas apom”, “menghasilkan barangan”, “peryaan krismas” and “apom founder kelvin”.Meanwhile, Meltwater's data showed that 65% of the online sentiments were positive while 21% were negative. Key trending topics identified by Meltwater included “1MDB personality”, “fugitive Jho Low”, “jholow thanks” and “gift shop”.