Mamee Monster brings back the nostalgia for Malaysians with retro packaging

Mamee Monster has released limited edition retro design packs in commemoration of its founder, Datuk Pang Chin Hin’s passing in November last year. The release is part of the brand’s new campaign titled "The Mamee monster’s world of Nowstalgia". In a statement to the press, the company said the campaign is aimed at leveraging childhood nostalgia and turning it into something modern and new while retaining the charm of Mamee’s old monster packs.

An ode to the 1970s version of Mamee Monster’s packaging, the brand will be plastering the iconic Mamee Monster on its family pack bags starting this month. Together with the snack, the packs also come with stickers as a nod to the surprise items Mamee Monster used to include in its packs.

The brand first made its debut in 1974 after Datuk Pang’s eldest son, Mamee Double Decker’s executive chairman, Tan Sri Pang Tee Chew was inspired by rubber tappers eating uncooked instant noodles. The father-son duo then decided to steer noodle production in a new direction by pre-seasoning them before selling them.

Ever since, the noodle snack has been a quintessential Malaysian childhood snack, says How Yuan Yi, chief marketing officer of MAMEE-double decker. “We have the late Datuk Pang to thank for that and this Mamee retro campaign is our way of paying tribute to him and celebrating his life, his creativity and many contributions,” she added.

Datuk Pang is also credited with the creation of other memorable childhood snacks, ranging from the Double Decker prawn crackers, to Corntoz corn snacks. How shared Mamee’s hopes for its new campaign to “give consumers a chance to relive their childhood.” “In fact, we’d like to bring back some of those great memories to share with everyone and we’ll be rewarding consumers for that too,” she added.

With the 70s memory transported to today’s world, the brand aims to remind people that even in today’s fast-moving, ever-evolving world, there is always room for simple pleasures, akin to the Mamee Monster snack.

In spite of being in the business for over 50 years, Mamee remains a popular snack. With the evergreen vision of creating 'Asia's most exciting and diverse snacking experience,' Mamee is no stranger to reinvention.

Pierre Pang, now Mamee's group CEO, shared at MARKETING-INTERACTIVE's Content 360 virtual conference in 2021 that the brand went about reinventing itself by breaking all rules.  Mamee decided that it needed to inject excitement and experience to have a relationship the brand had with the customers. The experience had to go beyond just putting the physical product in the mouth. It needed to be holistic from when consumers hear about the campaign to when they buy product, consume and share it on social media.

"What we learnt along the way is that playbooks of the past might not be as relevant to consumers today and what we learnt might need to be thrown out. In the past we worked with media companies to push our messaging to consumers. But today, we want to create a platform for engagement for consumers and allow them to push the message they want to and take the brand where they would like to," he added.

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