MISC hooks public to stories of women in maritime with QR code and soundbites

Malaysia's shipping line MISC has set sail with an ad campaign featuring the stories of different women in the maritime industry. Done together with The Chariot Agency in celebration of International Day for Women in Maritime, the campaign aims to celebrate and shine a spotlight on the 1.2% of women working in the maritime industry. By scanning the QR code on the ad (pictured below), the public will be able to access and listen to five different soundbites, where each woman shares her experiences and struggles she faces working in maritime.

The campaign mainly ran on print, as the brand only saw it fit to go for the masses this way, given how 2022 marked the first-ever International Day for Women in Maritime. According to Raja Vikraman, head of brand management at MISC, it believed that this method would cast the widest reach for the net spend to push the interactive experience, which was done via the call to scan the QR code. 

Vikraman explained to A+M that this gave the team the chance to transform a static visual medium into an authentic narrative that would reverberate with the masses who otherwise have no interaction with the industry. "In its essence, what we wanted to achieve was to create an empowering cross-medium experience for people," he added. MISC also utilised LinkedIn by posting a short video to lead people to the microsite containing the podcasts of the different women.

Vikraman said: "If you asked the daughters of our world what they wanted to be when they grow up, they would tell you all the professions they are exposed to. This campaign is actually targeted at them, so that one day they too can aspire to grow up to work in the maritime industry, just like the women we had featured." According to him, MISC believes that the women who work in maritime need to step out into the light, so that their stories can light up the consciousness of "our daughters".

The campaign's creative concept was inspired by women's struggles in the maritime industry. In a statement to A+M, Christyna Fong, creative group head of Chariot Agency said, "We learnt that generally, women find it hard to speak up in professional settings. And in an industry that is predominantly male, such as the maritime industry, it is even harder to hear their voices." She added that International Day for Women in Maritime was an opportunity to create a platform for MISC’s female seafarers to share their stories in an industry where their voices had gone unheard for too long. 

In addition, the soundwaves in the soundbites showcase the faces of the individual women. The agency worked closely with Cue Art Designs and Associate which crafted lines to illustrate the women's faces in this style, using different wavelengths to form their features. 

This is not the first time MISC has launched a campaign mainly on print. During last year's Merdeka Day, MISC put a twist to its Merdeka Day message by launching it in morse code via a print ad. The ad ran on The Star, The Edge, and Harian Metro. 

When asked about the learning lessons gained from the Merdeka Day ad, Vikraman said that the brand learnt that people are now fully accustomed to scanning QR codes during the pandemic, and the team leveraged this insight to develop its morse code message for Merdeka.

According to the brand, the campaign garnered over 4,000 scans for a B2B brand, which allowed MISC to realise that if its message is able to unlock curiosity, there is a high possibility for audience engagement. "This had translated us to moving away from branded messaging to old-fashioned storytelling. The kind of storytelling that gets kids curious," he added

The use of QR code is in line with the immersive digital experiences that the brand is interested in. Vikraman said that MISC feels the best medium to immerse the audience into its world is "definitely pure-play digital, especially something such as AR". "However as a B2B brand we need to go out on print, appeal to consumers' curiosity and then immerse them into our world," he said. As such, the brand's campaigns need to strike a balance between raising awareness about the maritime industry to the masses and marketing activities that have business-driven goals.

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