#MARKiesAwards MY 2021 highlight: BEST's investment in social media turns its luck around

BEST Invest had just launched its app in Malaysia in 2020 when the pandemic hit the country that same month. With only a limited budget, BEST worked with Creative Unicorn to create a campaign that was simple to understand and without any jargon or hard-selling. BEST’s ability to turn the situation around, especially when things were not looking good for them, impressed the judges and secured it the silver award for Most Effective Use – Mobile at A+M's MARKies Awards Malaysia 2021. 

Challenge 

BEST wanted to drive app downloads, user sign-ups and generate transactions for its new investment app. However, the mobile app competition was tough in Malaysia, and its target audience - bottom 40% (B40) - was not internet savvy and had low financial literacy. To make things worse, the pandemic had hit Malaysia in the same month as the app's release. 

To top it off, BEST had to work with a limited budget while going against big names such as StashAway, Wahed Invest, and Raiz Invest; who had bigger marketing budgets, and much deeper pockets due to VC funding; among other things.  

Given its lack of budget for media ads, BEST wanted to create something that was simple, yet effective at a cellular level; relying only on organic communications. The campaign also had to drive interest on an emotional level to trigger a "download app" an "transact investment" action, while ensuring that it does not use any heavy investment related jargons. 

BEST worked with Creative Unicorn to launch BESTnya MELABUR. It was simple, easy to digest, and incorporated one of the most familiar conversational cues; not only among B40, but also Malaysians in general.  

The campaign also made the brand stand out from the rest. Unlike its competitors, BEST's campaign didn't have any investment jargons and had an open statement about investing that was common knowledge to everyone - that investing is good. 

The campaign also highlighted the app's name using wordplay, which BEST could use in copies. It would also be able to repeat the campaign across its communications to really hammer it into the audience’s psyche.  

Strategy 

BEST decided to concentrate solely on Facebook due to its budget constraints and the fact that most B40 were on that social platform. It had to work on well written contents that leveraged on Facebook Feeds Algorithimic ranking, also known as "organic marketing". 

In creating its marketing message, BEST first looked at what it had to offer, then narrowed it down to five points it wanted to highlight and formulated a focus ratio. The brand then visualised how the messaging points would be communicated to the audience for optimal efficacy. Thus, the five points were ranked in the following order: Goal-based investing, robo-intelligence, RM10 investment, Shariah compliance and ESG compliance.  

Execution 

BEST structured its social postings according to the preset messaging point ratio. This approach primed them into a specifically engineered thought process that led to optimal conversion rates. It deployed an optimal mix of contents that reinforced the five selected messaging points.  

In addition, BEST incorporated ‘BESTnya’ into its post copies intermittently to ingrain it into the minds of the audiences’ subconscious. Its aim was for readers to eventually feel compelled to give in and sign up as a user to BEST Invest. To that end, BEST created and scheduled a post everyday for maximum repeated exposure to audiences.  

Results 

BEST saw close to RM10 million in transactions from 1 April to 31 December last year, and over 20,000 mobile app downloads in the same period. Over half of the users who downloaded the app had an income RM3,000 and less.