This is an analysis based on the top 20 CNY video ads in Malaysia 2020 that we compiled earlier on 27 January 2020 (CNY day 3), so the data could be different by the time you read this.
Just to recap, all the videos must have more than 100K views on YouTube to be considered. Anything with less than 100K views for a brand festive commercial is quite unacceptable.
Also, you might need to understand the following terms before you start:
- Like Ratio = Likes ÷ Total Engagements
- YT Score = (Likes ÷ Total Engagements – 0.7) ÷ SQRT( POWER 0.7,2) ÷ Total Engagements )
In short, YT Score is a balanced approach to comparing the Like Ratio across the videos with varying degrees of engagement counts.
1. Story-telling is the popular choice of brands & video producers
There are a total of 48 local CNY video ads (with >100K views) being recorded in 2020.
- 17 of them are story-telling (3 of them are inspired by true stories)
- 15 of them are standard commercial
- 7 of them are short commercials (30 seconds or lesser)
- 5 of them are drama/comedy style
- 4 of them are music video
2. Story-telling video ads are well-received by Malaysians
More than half of the top video ads (ranked by YT score) are story-telling style.
- 6 out of the top 10s are story-telling video ads
- 11 out of the top 20s are story-telling video ads
3. Top 3 “story-telling” video ads by YT Score
- #2. PETRONAS CNY 2020 –寶被 “Bao Bei”
- #3. 刀标油新年短片- 幸福加油 l Always Be There- A short film by Knife
- #6. Daikin CNY 2020 : The Twins 龙凤胎
4. Top 3 “standard commercial” video ads by YT Score
- #1. TNB CNY 2020 – #RealityNotVirtual
- #4. CNY 2020: HUATever you want, Grab got!
- #10. Malaysia Airlines CNY 2019 | The Spirit of Hospitality
5. Top 3 “short commercial” video ads by YT Score
- #28. Cadbury Dairy Milk Malaysia: Chinese New Year
- #29. McDonald’s – Journey to Prosperity
- #36. OLDTOWN presents Golden Feasts for a Prosperous CNY 2020
We cannot really gauge the Like Ratio or YT Score for short commercials as there is too little time to react (like or dislike) within 30 seconds. Also, short commercials are meant for brand recall, instead of engaging the audience emotionally.
6. Top 3 “drama/comedy” video ads by YT Score
- #19. IJM Land | Chinese New Year Greetings 2020 – “知足常乐 – Happiness Lies In Simplicity”
- #21. AIA CNY 2020 I The Ong-ly Way to Prosper
- #24. PIZZA HUT MALAYSIA – HOW TO MAKE YOUR CNY FUN FUN FUN
While some of the drama/comedy video ads score high in the Like Ratio, the total engagements are quite low hence YT score is low too. For example, Pizza Hut with more than 5.7M views but there are only 67 engagements on its CNY video, which is really odd for a video with more than 4 minutes. Is drama/comedy style a double-edged sword, or is it hard to execute to perfection?
7. Top 3 “music video” ads by YT Score
- #5. Watsons CNY 2020 – Happy Beautiful Year! 过靓年, 我最潮!
- #14. Hyundai Malaysia CNY Brand Video║Happy Happy Bom Pi Pi
- #23. Tan Chong Group & Nissan CNY 2019 |【新年新期盼】 New Year, New Hopes
8. Top 3 video ads by Total Views
This is basically the ranking of brands with the most YT ads budget this CNY.
- Watsons CNY 2020 – Happy Beautiful Year! 过靓年, 我最潮! (9.6M+ views)
- TNB CNY 2020 – #RealityNotVirtual (6.5M+ views)
- PIZZA HUT MALAYSIA – HOW TO MAKE YOUR CNY FUN FUN FUN (5.7M+ views)
9. Top 3 video ads by Total Likes
- TNB CNY 2020 – #RealityNotVirtual (7.6K likes)
- Watsons CNY 2020 – Happy Beautiful Year! 过靓年, 我最潮! (7K likes)
- Malaysia Airlines CNY 2019 | The Spirit of Hospitality (4.9K likes)
10. Bottom 3 video ads by Total Dislikes
- Watsons CNY 2020 – Happy Beautiful Year! 过靓年, 我最潮! (2.2K dislikes)
- Malaysia Airlines CNY 2019 | The Spirit of Hospitality (1.6K dislikes)
- Celcom Chinese New Year 2020 – A Time for All (1.4K dislikes)
Yes, 2 of the video ads above are also in the top 3 likes chart. However, there are only 121 dislikes on the TNB commercial so that you know.
11. Top 3 video ads by Total Engagements (Likes + Dislikes)
- Watsons CNY 2020 – Happy Beautiful Year! 过靓年, 我最潮! (9.2K engagements)
- TNB CNY 2020 – #RealityNotVirtual (7.7K engagements)
- Malaysia Airlines CNY 2019 | The Spirit of Hospitality (6.5K engagements)
12. Bottom 5 video ads by Total Engagements
- Happy Chinese New Year from Dr Chong Clinic (17 engagements)
- MSIG presents a Chinese New Year message for 2020 (19 engagements)
- Celebrate CNY with U Mobile #MadeFor5G (19 engagements)
- CNY 2020: Ways to counter nosy questions this Chinese New Year by East Spring MY (32 engagements)
- BP Healthcare CNY 2020 新年快乐 (40 engagements)
To be fair, short commercials with 30 seconds or less are excluded from the above. In fact, all videos above are more than 1 minute in length. With each of the videos above recording a few hundred thousand views on YouTube, the engagement rates of less than 0.01% are really low. This could be due to the video content not being interesting, advertising configuration is not set up properly, the brand is not well-known in the market yet, etc.
13. Top 3 video ads by Like Ratio (Likes ÷ Total Engagements)
- TNB CNY 2020 – #RealityNotVirtual (98.43% like ratio)
- 刀标油新年短片- 幸福加油 l Always Be There- A short film by Knife (95.79% like ratio)
- Samsung presents: Flex Your CNY (95.15% like ratio)
14. Bottom 3 video ads by Like Ratio
- BRAND’S CNY 2020 (64.52% like ratio)
- 2020 Panadol Chinese New Year Short Film (66.67% like ratio)
- Setia CNY TVC 2020 | The Many Celebrations (69.05% like ratio)
Just take a look at the videos above and they seem so “old school”. In fact, these are the only videos with less than 70% like ratio out of all commercials. Perhaps it’s time to change and adapt?
15. Even Watsons Like Ratio has dropped
Watsons launched a very successful video campaign back in 2016 with its catchy tone based on #HappyBeautifulYear 扮靓靓 theme.
A similar theme has been extended over the years all the way to 2020:
- 2016: Watsons CNY 2016 – #HappyBeautifulYear (83.6% like ratio)
- 2017: Watsons CNY 2017 – Watsons #HappyBeautifulYear (87.4% like ratio)
- 2018: (just a short commercial <30 seconds is launched)
- 2019: Watsons CNY 2019 – Happy Beautiful Year! 过靓年，大过天! (83.2% like ratio)
- 2020: Watsons CNY 2020 – Happy Beautiful Year! 过靓年, 我最潮! (76.1% like ratio)
As you can see above, the like ratio has dropped significantly for the latest edition of Watsons CNY video. In fact, the video gets the most dislikes (2,200) among all the shortlisted videos. Even with a strong cast of celebrities, has the audience gotten bored with the same style over and over again? Or is it something else?
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