Branded entertainment in Malaysia is still fairly new but with digital media and YouTube on the rise, we are seeing more and more collaboration between local YouTube personalities and advertisers, creating content that is targeted towards an urban audience.

However, many Malaysians are still more interested in watching content from other countries rather than creating our own. While YouTube is a tool for putting ourselves out there, self-expression is still new to Malaysians because many of us are afraid of criticism.

To promote the new Samsung Galaxy Note II, a device that puts the “Human Touch” back to technology and enables people to ‘Be Creative’, we collaborated with acclaimed singer, songwriter Yuna and asked typically apathetic Malaysians to dig deep into their roots to rediscover the country and themselves through a music project – Galaxy Wonderland – a journey in search of what makes Malaysia a wonderland, a microsite which collected the peoples thoughts and ideas, inspiring a song and interactive music video called ‘Home’.

Galaxy Wonderland received close to RM1 million earned media. Approximately 265,719 unique visitors explored the microsite, resulting in 426,888 page views. We received over 5,000 submissions comprising of stories, photos, doodles and videos at the end of the month-long campaign – a big number considering Malaysians’ general reluctance in putting themselves ‘out there’. On Samsung Malaysia’s official YouTube page, Home’s music video received 475,120 hits to date.