Netizens amused by Maxis, DiGi's identical theme in Merdeka ads

Syafique Shuib
Ogos 27, 2014 04:35 MYT

A scene from Maxis Merdeka Day advertisement entitled 'It's ok. We are family'. - Photo: YouTube/Maxis

Call it a publicity stunt, if you may like but the move for two telco giants -- Maxis Bhd and DiGi to adopt similar theme for their Merdeka campaign advertisements this year have garnered positive responses from Netizens.

In a sense of promoting unity, these telcos have chosen family as the core theme -- highlighting positive values that foster good ties among the multi-ethnic society of Malaysia.

Maxis’ commercial is titled “It’s Ok. We’re family” features expatriate, Tim Sharp, as he roams the city of Kuala Lumpur to feed his curiosity as to why Malaysians address your regular Alis, Joe and Raju -- 'macha', 'makcik' or 'abang'.

The 94-second video, Sharp received an interesting mix of responses his colleagues explaining to him that the attributions can be considered as terms of affection -- to celebrate the concept of unity - Malaysian-style.

Maxis' It's Okay, We're Family clip

DiGi's video is titled, We Are Family -- zooms in on social experiment that highlights how Malaysians in respond if he refers to them as family.

It was, initially a nervous experience but as he opened up to strangers and they responded well to him too.

“Although we do not know each other’s names, we might be strangers, we might not smile at each other as often or as much as we use to. But deep down I think we know we can rely on each other like family,” he said in the video.

DiGi's We Are Family

Here's what Netizens are sharing on social media:

funny thing hppnd, Maxis and digi have the same Merdeka messaging - we are family. Maxis was funny but Digi pulled my heartstrings
— visithra manikam (@visithra) August 26, 2014