MDEC and TikTok roll out interactive food map to celebrate local F&B firms

The Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) has partnered with TikTok to support local food businesses with the #MakanLocal campaign. Celebrating Malaysia's food diversity, the campaign features an interactive food map that highlights well-known localities in different states, recommendations of local food businesses, and food reviews of restaurants and online food businesses.  

As part of the partnership, MDEC will be featuring the restaurants on the MDEC eCommerce website. It will also assist food and beverage businesses to onboard TikTok, guiding them through the process of content creation and promotion. To further amplify the campaign, TikTok has rolled out a giveaway for users who post the most interesting selection of videos. Users are able to participate by uploading the original videos featuring food reviews, recommendations or small food and beverage business shoutouts with the #MakanLocal hashtag. 

Being a food content hub, TikTok said it has birthed food trends, pushed the discovery of new recipes and eateries, and inspired home chefs and foodies alike to share their love of food on the platform. "Our immersive short-form videos makes it even easier for local food businesses to showcase their delicious creations and story tell their brand strengths in creative and authentic ways," said TikTok Malaysia's strategy operations manager, Darren Quek.

Now with local establishments being affected by the pandemic, Quek added it was the platform's aim to help small businesses reach more customers as well as connect food lovers with the food options available in Malaysia. A+M has reached out to TikTok for additional information regarding the partnership and how the tools will help build these businesses. 

Meanwhile, this is not the first time an organisation or brand has partnered with TikTok with the purpose of consumer outreach. In August this year, MyHealthKKM, the education health division of Malaysia's Ministry of Health tied up with TikTok to raise public health awareness for mass vaccinations and provide accurate information about COVID-19. Through the #KitaJagaKita hashtag, TikTok users were able to get up-to-date information and government guidelines on various topics including the latest COVID-19 case numbers, updated standard operation procedures and changes in National Plans. 

Separately in October this year, several brands converged on TikTok to comment on a viral video posted by user ramblingsanchez. The post shows the user himself eating broccoli with a whimsical request for brands: “A bunch of brand accounts should comment on this for no reason.” Surprisingly, many brands sportingly stepped up to the plate, fulling his odd yet simple request. The post had comments from a mix of global and local brands such as Amazon, lululemon, Trojan Brand Condoms, Nerf, Bumble, Levi's, Decathlon, Secretlab, Nando’s Singapore, Grab, and Razer, as well as content creator Ming and social media company SGAG. Even TikTok left a comment.

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Photo courtesy: 123RF

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