Interview with Mr. Chow Tuck Mun, Head of Yoodo: Strategies, Personalization, and More

Since the pandemic hit across the world, brands are forced to go digital, and in the process, uncover the size of the Gen Z and millennial consumer market at 16 million strong, which had yet to be tapped into and optimized fully. While many just began to take their steps in approaching this group, Yoodo, Malaysia’s first fully customizable and 100% digital telco is already miles ahead as it caters specifically to this demographic.

Recently, we took some time to talk to Chow Tuck Mun, the Head of Yoodo on how the brand is paving its path in Gen Z marketing.

1. What are Yoodo's strategies and efforts in expanding your footprint in digital marketing, especially in this highly competitive market?

First thing, of course, Yoodo itself is a digital telco so, naturally, we use digital marketing because we want to attract the digital natives, which is our consumer base. Digital marketing is very big but we look at it in different ways, in terms of providing digital experience, content, and engagement.

For example, in terms of experience, we want to engage with our customer base by providing suitable experiences in lifestyle segments, such as Kpop, esports, music, and entertainment. For instance, over the last weekend, we had a cupsleeve event, which is so popular nowadays. We saw fanbases of certain Kpop groups come together to talk about their groups to celebrate their birthdays and so on. We had one event in NU Sentral over the weekend for BTS, Enhypen, and TXT. So how are we involved? We provided things like free albums and organized the space, which is what I mean by providing experience. They (the digital natives) want this kind of experience so that's one way we tackle digital marketing.

In terms of esports, for example, we have our respective teams: Yoodo Alliance and Yoodo RSG. Now, this allows for both the engagement portion and content portion because these are the people who are always online and on social media. So, through them, we're able to engage with their base and it becomes our base.

The third part is the engagement. How do we provide that engagement to be able to communicate with our customer base? It's about the way we advertise, the way we talk to our customers; it's not just about sending EDMs. It's using influencers to communicate with customers so they can also talk back to us. We also have a community that allows us to talk to our customers.

2. How Yoodo is leading the way in personalizing the customer journey?

Our target segment is basically the millennials and Gen Zs, and these are the people who really know what they want - things that are catered to them. So here comes the topic of personalization and Yoodo's set up that way as the plans that we offer to our customers are basically combinations. You can choose the amount of data you want, the amount of voice you want, and the amount of SMS you want. Customers can choose their own plans and we have more than 2 million combinations.

Theoretically, everyone in our customer base could have a different combination so that means that our product itself is already catering to personalization. It shows in our hashtag; it's #youdoitbetter. We believe the customers know what they want and want what they want.

We also have a data bucket, which is like an add-on. For example, someone can choose a TikTok add-on and they'll get 20GB of TikTok data for a better price compared to the normal data that we sell. Other add-ons we offer are for gaming or entertainment, such as PUBG Mobile, Spotify, or Netflix. This is also a type of personalization. Someone playing PUBG Mobile is more likely to purchase a PUBG Mobile add-on rather than a Mobile Legends add-on, and vice versa. This puts Yoodo as one of the very few telcos that allow this kind of personalization.

3. What are some of the strategies implemented to attract and retain customers, especially the Gen Zs? One of our ways is the product itself. We're a mobile telco so we need to provide good data and good connectivity to our customers, something that we are constantly working on. That's the basis; you want a mobile line, you get a good mobile line. So, I think that's the first thing that would attract and retain. The second thing is our value proposition, which is the customization part. I think we're the only telco in Malaysia that allows customers to fully customize their plans. That's a value proposition that will attract and retain.

The younger generation is comfortable doing things and running their lives on apps, like online buying. 100% of our customers are on the app because you have to use the app to manage your line so, I think that's an interesting point where customers will stay with us. They come to us because of that and they stay with us because of that.

Also, we target the younger generation based on lifestyle segments like Kpop, esports, music, and entertainment. We're involved in a lot of things around these to allow us to engage with the millennials and Gen Zs. They will feel a sense of belonging with Yoodo and since we offer good mobile plans and add-ons, naturally they would want to stay with us. If you're into gaming, we give you access to tournaments since we're involved too, and even access to our teams such as meet and greet. This really allows us to connect with our customer base.

4. Does Yoodo have any upcoming plans or goals for the rest of this year (2022)?

We have more plans for lifestyle segments, in terms of gaming and esports. We also want to get more involved in Kpop, music, and entertainment. I can't fully reveal it yet but fans can expect us to be also on the ground for new tournaments and maybe, music festivals.

Besides that, we're looking to expand the locations and places where you can get our Yoodo SIM cards. That's something that we're also working on for the second half of this year.

We will also be meeting with our community whether it's online or on-ground because they have been fans and customers of Yoodo for a long time so it's time to meet up with them. These are the small events that we're planning and there will be a few bigger ones coming.

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