Google's Top 10 Ads List Gives Marketers Insight into the Malaysian Mind

As part of a move to emphasise its presence there, Google Malaysia recently released a list of the top 10 ads in the country based on viewership and shares on YouTube.

For those doing business in Southeast Asia’s third largest economy, the lineup of most-viewed ads offers great insight into the Malaysian demographic and how to reach them in an arena of increasingly crowded ad space.

One of the more interesting takeaways when looking over the list is the willingness of Malaysians to watch longer ads.

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The general consensus is that attention spans are decreasing around the world (if you’re still reading this I’m impressed). For Malaysians this is clearly not the case in terms of ad watching.

Three of the ads in the top 10 eclipse 7-minutes in length with the longest (and actually the most popular of them all) clocking in at nearly 12 minutes.

Sajith Sivanandan, the Managing director of Google Malaysia, Vietnam, Philippines & Emerging Markets, gives a nod to this trend as well.

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“The top 10 ads in this list are well beyond the traditional 30-second ad length, showing that viewers on YouTube will engage with longer videos as long as there are great stories to go with high-level cinematic quality,” Sivanandan told the Malaysia Insider.

Sentiment and Emotion Rule the Day

Another interesting reveal for marketers is that Malaysian viewers are most fond of videos that offer up a heart-warming tale. Storylines steeped in nostalgia and heartfelt emotion score high across the entire demographic.

We’ve seen a similar trend in neighboring Thailand with the enormously popular Ogilvy & Mather spots produced for Thai Life Insurance. The takeaway here is simple: if you can elicit tears of joy, you’re much more likely to see your work get shared amongst viewers.

Lest we forget, the domestic creative teams behind these top campaigns in Malaysia have proven they have a solid grasp on what the people want to see and deserve to be acknowledged for it.

“These ads show the amazing creativity alive today in the Malaysian ads industry — and it’s creativity that would not exist without digital’s ‘canvas’”, Google said in a released statement.

That’s a nice piece of acknowledgement by Google, while slipping in a nice little pat on their own back for YouTube making it all possible. Fair enough.

OK. Enough analysis. I’ll put a lid on it and get to the ads.

The Top 10

Taking the top spot is Malaysia Airlines’ Blessings, A Malaysian Story, a short film just under 12-minutes, that follows a dentist who’s reminded of life’s blessings.

The ad, which was directed by Linus Chung and Mohd Hisham Saleh, has been viewed over 1.6 million times and shared over 3,000 times.

Have a look at it, and all the rest, for yourself.

The Top 10

Taking the top spot is Malaysia Airlines’ Blessings, A Malaysian Story, a short film just under 12-minutes, that follows a dentist who’s reminded of life’s blessings.

The ad, which was directed by Linus Chung and Mohd Hisham Saleh, has been viewed over 1.6 million times and shared over 3,000 times.