A time when digital storytelling failed miserably in Malaysia

On the 10th of May 2018, the former ruling party of Malaysia (BN) lost in the elections for the first time since it's inception over 60 years ago. It was unprecedented.

What you may or may not know is that the former ruling party lost to an opposition coalition led by a 93-year-old man, who subsequently got elected as the world's oldest Prime Minister, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

I repeat, 60-year-old government gone and now a 93-year-old man is ruling Malaysia.

Logically, the numbers are astounding, and this may only happen once in a lifetime.

The decision was at the hands of the millions of rakyat (Malaysians) who turned out to cast their ballots.

Despite a digital storytelling campaign executed with millions spent to target millennial voters, BN shockingly lost.

The loss came at such a shock because BN was expecting a landslide victory after their campaign.

BN had dominated the covers of traditional media and local news leading to the elections.

In Malaysia, the traditional media and press are 'moderated' by the former government (BN) with regulations including the recent enactment of the Fake News Act which proved to be unpopular among the rakyat.

During the election campaign period leading up to the elections, my entire social media feed was subjected to ads containing a stream of propaganda messages.

I decided to write this post because it is an interesting case study as I was heavily targeted during the campaign period.

I must admit I am not versed politics but this story is worth sharing as a case study.

Here's a snippet of BN's digital storytelling campaign (and how I was heavily targeted).

First, let me account for the hundreds of occasions that I have been targeted during BN's campaigning period on Youtube as an example:

• Display banners when I log into Youtube
• In-stream video ads such as #namasayanajib
• One of the 300 Youtube Videos released by Najib Razak in the span of one week during the campaigning period. That's a lot of prep work!
• A viral song, Hebatnya Malaysiaku
• The viral 'ikan kembung' video about the former government's initiatives to support the community
• Original campaign video by Tony Fernandes.

I was shown at least 50 ads a day with a mix of strong propaganda messages and also mild also ones.

The production value of these ads were great and snappy.

Here are some numbers to get a sense of the scale of the digital storytelling campaign by BN.

Let's assume that it costs RM 0.10 to serve me an ad. That would equal to RM 5.00 per day for showing me 50 ads.

In the two week campaign period, the cost of serving me the ads would be 14 x 5 = RM70.

We know that 41% of the 14.5 million voters are millennials which equals to about a target pool of 6 million people and very likely that most of the people in this age group use the internet.

It means that may have also been served similar ads like me via social media or web pages.

The estimated cost of the ads would then be RM 70 per person x 6 million millennials = RM 420 million just on the group of millennials alone.

The cost does not account for the price of ad expenditure on traditional media, billboards, flags and banners, community events (ceramah), the cost of production, staging and so on.

It also excludes the remaining 9 million rakyat who voted from other age groups.

Please note, this is just to help you understand the magnitude of this campaign, and it is not an accurate representation of the actual numbers, though I suspect that the actual cost of the campaign is much higher.

The total budget could be multiples of 3, 4, 5..? I can't be sure.

So, how could it have failed, despite posing such a huge dominance in all media platforms during the election campaign period?

I thought that the dominating media presence would have helped to sway BN into another victory.

But clearly, I was wrong.

The BN campaign was met by an equally ferocious army of netizens who banded together demanding for justice and fair elections.

Any posting affiliated to the former BN government will follow a stream of polarising comments for and against the former government.

For obvious reasons, viral videos such as #namasayanajib had their Youtube comments turned off.

I think it proves that digital campaigns can help to drive a message and quickly reach the masses, but whether people trust these messages or not is another matter.

Lessons learned about the digital storytelling debacle.

Here are some takeaways I would like to share:

• It is not how much money you spend, but it is the authenticity of the story that matters: BN's campaign was massive in its expenditure, yet it did not yield desired results. It proves these digital campaigns could not mask the discontent of the rakyat. In comparison, the opposition coalition that won had to manage on a budget which pales in comparison
• Conflicting stories from local and international sources. Reputation matters: The former government's digital storytelling campaign was plagued by alleged corruption and wrongdoings of senior officials reported around the world. The party chose to deflect the reports and turn a blind eye causing public uproar up till the election period.
• The power of social sharing: Netizens gravitated to social media because of the speed and transparency they could get by sharing online and offline resources together. It subsequently turned into a strength by numbers movement and gained enough momentum to propel the propaganda messages they were shown
• The internet is liberal: It is a place for you to do your research and form your own opinions, it is not another platform you can assume to 'sway' people without a believable story
• Online legislation may come: For example, the GDPR introduced in Europe, and other regions might adopt measures to protect users data privacy for a safer future for netizens.

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