8/10/2019 App-t greetings for the season

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App-t greetings for the seasonThis Chinese New Year, some politicians are using creative ways with social media, tinged with a dash of electionflavour, to send their festive greetings.

By HARIATI AZIZANunday@thestar.com.my

EVEN 86-year-old Queen Elizabeth has

 jumped on the technology wagon. LastChristmas, the Queen decided to spice

up her annual festive greetings with 3D visualffects. Also made available on the Internet,

t was a stark contrast to her first-ever publicmessage in 1952, which was done only in

udio and broadcast over the radio.To no one’s surprise, her recent experimen-

ation with technology garnered the Queennew fans, especially the young.

With technology so much a part of ourives, some of our politicians have decided toxplore technology for more innovative andxciting ways to make their festival greetingshis Chinese New Year. And with the elections

ust around the corner, this also gives themhe opportunity to try and stand out.

As Deputy Sports Minister Senator GanPing Sieu puts it, people now expect it of theirpoliticians.

“The young, especially, now want to seeideos or something that is social mediaelated, fun and cool from their leaders.

“They don’t want to see leaders who areld-fashioned or a dinosaur. They want lead-rs who are relevant to the times,” he says.

Deputy Education Minister Datuk Dr WeeKa Siong is one who is trying to be differentwith his interactive greeting cards that are

mbedded with augmented reality (AR) tech-nology.

The cards may look conventional to thenaked eye, but those with smartphones caneceive a video greeting from a 3D-animated

Dr Wee or a recorded “live-action” version of he Ayer Hitam MP and MCA Youth Chief. Allhey have to do is to download a special appnd scan the greeting card.

He says the idea came from two young ITntrepreneurs, Chew Choon Yet, 29, and Taieong Wee, also 29, who run Internet adver-ising and web design company Teknologi AR n Johor.

They wanted to try it out in greeting cardsfter they came across the South Korean app,

he says.“They came up with the mock design and

proposed it to me. I was impressed becausewe can put any video up while keeping theradition of sending a greeting card, so I

decided to take it up.”While it is an innovation, Dr Wee feels that

he has not gone overboard.

“It is no different from what I have beendoing over the years. Just this time I am ableo use the latest technology.

“I still ordered the same number of cards,0,000, and even with the 3D-element that

we have incorporated, the cost is kept mini-mal,” he says, adding that his  ang pow packets

re also animated.Chew, one of the people behind the multi-

unctional card, says they approached Dr Weeecause they wanted to introduce the app to

he public.“We took a month to develop it – from the

oncept to the execution. We also wrote thecript and created the animation characterurselves.”

According to Chew, this is similar to theAR technology used by Google to developheir futuristic Google Glasses, a hands-free,

head-mounted augmented reality devicehat would display information in smart-phone-like format and could interact withhe Internet via natural language voice com-

mands.The cutting-edge technology will make

people curious about the “sender” of the card,he says, adding that they are now trying topersuade Dr Wee, who is the first politician inhe country to use this technology this way,o also use it on his election campaign materi-ls later.

Still, Dr Wee believes that all the special-

effects will not mean a thing if the candidatedoes not do any work for the constituency.“To me, the day-to-day effort is more

important regardless of whether it is electionyear or not. I don’t believe in doing the last-minute push.”

Message still prime

Currently, you can see many politiciansonline and using social media, says digitalculture commentator Niki Cheong, but theyare not maximising the use.

“To maximise their social media pres-ence, they need to commit to social network.It’s not enough to just be on it, you need tobe constantly engaging with people,” saysCheong.

Conceding that while this is where theyounger politicians have the edge over their

seniors – they grew up with the technologyso they are more savvy – there are those whoknow how to generate the numbers and getfollowers, like our Prime Minister Datuk SeriNajib Tun Razak.

“Many politicians think it’s enough to useTwitter. Sure it is fast, easy and instant butthere are so many other networks or ‘new’mobile apps like Vine (video on Twitter) andInstagram with bigger potential.

“Some are not even maximising Facebookto do promotions and campaigning. And even

YouTube – like what the PM is doing. Manydon’t realise that it is also a social network,”Cheong points out.

Ultimately, it is also about what you wantto say and how you say it, not just where yousay it.

Take, for instance, the PM’s inspired CNY greetings on radio and television, which arealso available on YouTube; they may be con-ventional but they have wowed old fans andnew alike.

Revealing his “regular” side, the PM isshown learning Mandarin from his youngestson Nor Ashman, who has previously stud-ied Mandarin at the Beijing Foreign StudiesUniversity.

They both discuss the meaning of theirnames in Chinese – Na Ji (luck) and Si Ji Ping 

 An (Peace for all seasons) – before combiningthem to extend a festive greeting to listeners.

“We wanted to show that there is moreto him, there is a personal side where he is afamily man – he is a husband and a father. Heis not a machine, he is just an ordinary humanlike us; he can be your neighbour – like anyfather bantering with his son. He does nottalk about GDP or ETP,” says Najib’s politicalsecretary Wong Nai Chee who worked on theconcept with his team.

Wong says they decided to do something

different this year instead of sending out theconventional greeting cards to present the PMin a more dynamic way.

“The usual greeting cards are static, so wewanted a livelier way to celebrate the festi-val.”

With the elections drawing near, they alsosaw it as a good opportunity to project the1Malaysia idea to the public, says Wong.

This is captured in the TV advertisementwhich shows the PM accepting the invitationof a little girl to play the Chinese drums for

her and lead the dragon dance at her house.“The Lion Dance is a must during the

Chinese New Year and traditionally for theChinese, the drum player is the leader in thedance because the lion listens to the drumsand dances to the beat. The ad shows the PMnot just talking about multiculturalism butalso playing a leading role in it.”

Wong believes that the advent of socialmedia has allowed leaders to reach out tomore people in a diverse and direct way.

“It is also playing its role as a communi-cation bridge – to see how people see andrespond to the Government policies, and away to find out about people’s problems andissues and try to help them.”

Fahmi Fadzil, social media observer andpolitical secretary to Lembah Pantai MP NurulIzzah Anwar, agrees that social media is an

effective communication bridge for politi-cians.

“Social media is about having a clear iden-tity and getting people to engage with thatidentity on these platforms.

“Actually, a lot of older people are veryactive on Facebook, so social media is not justabout or for the youth,” he says.

As they have a far “smaller purse”, saysFahmi, “the online and social media is whatwe leverage on. For the festive seasons,we post banners and cards on Twitter andFacebook page.”

Like Wong, Fahmi believes it is importantfor politicians to show their personal facetto the public, especially during this electionseason.

“Let people see the lighter side of you, butit must be your lighter side and not one cho-

sen by your public relations consultants.”As he sees it, Malaysian readers and listen-

ers are by now very sceptical of all thingspolitical.

“They’ll not only judge your message basedon the creativity or its hipness, but will alsolook at who is saying it – is this person truth-ful, honest, believable?”

Many will agree, though, that humour isthe best way to get any message across ortouch people.

For DAP’s Seputeh MP Teresa Kok, it haseven made her a “surprise” YouTube star,especially after she decided to act in her twoCNY-cum-Election parody videos: Dare to tryand Dare to Change.

The idea for the videos came from a friendwho designed her greeting cards in previ-ous years, Kok says. “He suggested that I

give my CNY greetings in cyberspace as thiscan spread to more people and reach out togreater audience.”

Noting that eating new dishes in a restau-rant and getting a new haircut are part andparcel of the CNY, Kok feels the concept reso-nates with many revellers.

“The content and issues which are close totheir hearts are also creatively presented.”

Kok shares that the biggest challenge forher personally when doing the video wasmemorising the script and getting into char-acter.

“It is my first experience acting beforea camera crew together with professionalactors/actresses. I had to repeat my act manytimes while doing the filming,” she says.

Still, when it comes to the crunch, nothingis stronger than face-to-face meetings, opines

Deputy Agriculture and Agro-based IndustriesMinister Chua Tee Yong.“While it is good to be creative to make

CNY greetings more interesting, direct inter-actions with the people are still the mosteffective,” he says.

Chua says he prefers to hold small gather-ings where he can meet and mingle with thevoters while listening to their problems.

“I find that voters always like the personaltouch, where they can meet the leaders andhighlight their issues.”

Tech-savvy: Dr Wee’s interactive 3D cards are embedded with augmented reality technology.

Before the cameras:  Kok has become a‘surprise’ YouTube star after she decided to act inher parody videos.

Theusual greeting cardsare static, sowewanteda livelierway tocelebratethe festival.— WONG NAI CHEE

FOCUS Sunday Star,   10 FEBRUARY 201326