Maxis Mydeals Reaches 2.8 Million Members

MAXIS MYDEALS REACHES 2.8 MILLION MEMBERS
Maxis’ permission-based mobile advertising service now connects brands to the interests of a large community

Maxis Berhad (‘Maxis’), Malaysia’s leading integrated communications provider, today celebrated a new threshold for the local mobile advertising landscape. Maxis myDeals, a permission-based mobile advertising service launched just eight months ago, has reached a critical audience mass with over 2.8 million members.

The large opt-in community provides brands and merchants with opportunities for innovative, interactive and personalised advertising and customer relationship-building, reaching Malaysians on their mobile screens as the latter grow their adoption of mobile devices as primary channels of engagement and transaction.

Said Maxis’ Chief Operating Officer Jean-Pascal van Overbeke, “Growing a community of over 2.8 million customers who are happy to receive visually rich and directly relevant advertising to their mobiles, in just over half a year – further affirms what we know about the power of the mobile medium to offer more value through data services.”

“Mobile has ubiquitous reach and quickly incorporates technological advances – this combined with Malaysians’ and Maxis customers’ ready adoption of emerging services on the connected platform, ensures that mobile advertising is set to grow. Currently, the mobile medium has expanded to become the most conversational, direct and measurable medium. This can lead to an actual, real-time increase in business-to-consumer transactions and value.”

Added van Overbeke, “Mobile advertising is growing all over the world – however, reaching over 2.8 million opt-ins with such speed was an achievement we didn’t entirely expect, and it stands out against rates of similar community growth in other marketplaces. What Maxis myDeals offers is a locally relevant service. We look forward to growing together with innovative brands and over 2.8 million Maxis customers, more creative and effective brand-consumer communication, and even better ways to enjoy the best deals.”

Maxis myDeals’ permission-based mobile advertising model integrates multiple mobile channels, serving Out There Media mobile advertising technology. Over the past half year, Maxis myDeals has grown its brand partnerships in tandem with its opted-in community of keen technology adopters.

Forward-looking brands such as BMW and Malaysia Airlines, which were among the first to integrate Maxis myDeals into their marketing campaigns, have seen impressive response rates – and in some cases, doubled their campaign expenditure. As part of BMW’s campaign in July-November 2010, selected members of the myDeals community were offered test drives of the luxury automobiles, yielding noteworthy best response rates of 17.9% and 50.4% for SMS advertisements and MMS with brand video, respectively.

Malaysia Airlines’ promotional flights campaigns garnered an average response rate of 21.5 % to the initial message; and an average of 23% to 52% response rate to subsequent choice-dependent interactions. These results enable Malaysia Airlines to accumulate data about customers’ preferred holiday destinations. Both BMW and Malaysia Airlines are currently working with Maxis myDeals to tailor sequel campaigns which will further grow brand-consumer interaction and relationship.

Maxis myDeals not only offers an enriched customer experience across all myDeals campaigns; but also offers each customer who is part of its community, loyalty points for every myDeals alert, redeemable against mobile products and services.

Said Maxis’ Vice President and Head of Product, Devices and Innovation, T Kugan, “Over 50% of our customer base regularly access the mobile internet. Maxis’ mobile portal generates more than 60 million monthly page views. Maxis customers, like many Malaysians, are enjoying the enrichment of personal opportunity that the always-on, always-with-you mobile ecosystem creates – and are of the right profile to enjoy receiving and responding to, Dialogue SMS, MMS, WAP Banner and related mobile advertising technologies. Some of the privileges so far enjoyed by the myDeals community are luxury auto test drives, free product samples, property launch discounts, exclusive Maxis Movie Day privileges and more.”

“The attractiveness of myDeals comes from the fact that it offers a new outreach opportunity for brands, a new way for customers to stay on top of exclusive deals tailored to their profile – all of which are capable of moving even further forward and developing more appeal, as the data services platform, m-commerce ecosystem and brands participation continue to grow.”
Through myDeals’ unique Dialogue Messaging, advertisers can enter into direct two-way communication with Maxis subscribers and “talk” to customers to gauge what they truly need. The array of brands currently employing Maxis myDeals in addition to BMW and Malaysia Airlines, includes other global and local industry leaders such as Mahsa University, Colgate, Panasonic, Samsung, Nestle, Mastercard, Sunway City, Astro, Prudential, Michelin, Mamee and many more enterprises of different needs and sizes.
Since launching in June 2010, the Maxis myDeals and Out There Media campaign solutions team has been active in consulting to advertisers and media agencies on the customisable benefits of permission-based mobile advertising, and how it can be included into a media mix as an integrated marketing solution. Going forward, Maxis will add to the myDeals proposition with a wider and complementary range of mobile and online advertising services encompassing even more channels and delivered to more screens.

In anticipation of more development of the mobile advertising landscape, Maxis is also working together with regulators to develop customer-first practices that place a priority on additional value to the customer, and on customer consent.

The Maxis myDeals community of brands, merchants and connected consumers can look forward to coming value additions such as community conversation features on its new website at mydeals.com.my. It’s easy to be a member of the myDeals community and to start participating in exclusive deals and rewards today. Just SMS JOIN to 8001 or dial *100# and select Content, then myDeals.