ISI STEEL - PALM Roofcap "Leaky Moments"

 A client who sells steel products. 

They wanted to launch their new steel roof cap that can help prevent leaks from happening. (Rainy season was in the horizon). When a roof leaks, it is almost impossible to find the source of the leak.

Instead of doing a pure demonstration spot on how the product works using expensive CGI, we (client and agency) wanted to shift the focus to how something so small - a water droplet from a leaky roof -  can disrupt our daily lives. 

Hence the spot.

Short scenarios designed to work as a 60 seconder, as well as shorter, edited down snips (20s)

Haven't had this much fun on a shoot in a while

Director : Lim Heng (Will)
Producer : Vicheth Mor
Agency : ComZone Asia
Creative Director : Izwar Zakri
Art Director : Samoeun Cheng (James)
Client Service : Channa Seng
2022

 

https://vimeo.com/792672986

Samsung Food Showcase - "Feeling Fruity"

Hello 2023. New year, new hopes. 

With more and more clients moving into the digital sphere, TVCommercials are now even rarer than finding a Dodo bird - at least when it comes to brand work. With the pandemic, smarter clients started to really utilise digital / social media

Took a deep breath and dived (deep end, mind you) into digital and reprogramming myself to learn how the format works - ie being direct and straight to the point (so that we do not lose the viewer's attention in the first 3 seconds. 

For this particular project, the client, Samsung was launching their new Food Showcase (a fancy, uppity  name for a refrigerator), using their Brand Ambassador. 

Several scripts were written and approved. Preproduction work commenced with a 2-day video and still shoot planned. On the day of the still shoot, client came over and informed that the marketing team and their bosses have changed the direction. They did not want to have the video shoot with just the BA looking pretty and pointing to the fridge with food inside.

We had only 3 hours to come up with new scenario options by noon so he can get approval by 3pm. 

As it was too late to engage a film director, behold, my directorial "debut". Shoot, edit and animationwere all done inhouse.  

Agency : Oxygen Cambodia
2021

Links 

Metal cooling : https://vimeo.com/792672736

Space max : https://vimeo.com/792672513

Foodshowcase : https://vimeo.com/792672383

Chip Srun (Part of the Chip Mong Group, one of Cambodia's largest conglomerates) wanted to launch a new product, incorporating their 3-in-1 feature : Advanced formula, Bright clothes and Soft on hands.

What we prevented ourselves from doing was a typical housewife doing her washing and smiling through the bubbles as the VO talks about the wonders of the 3-in-1 formula, we focussed on
their unique "Soft on Hands" feature.

Not to mention, played on the common insight with housewives everywhere - a concern that their hands become rough whenever they do laundry.

 https://vimeo.com/229781695

CIMB was going to launch their exclusive VISA Platinum credit card.

Now, in a country where the affluent are obsessed with flaunting what they have, where one would buy the "latest and newest Lambo because his friend has a 2015 model", how else would we have done this?

https://vimeo.com/229781147

Moving on to Metfone.

They are the last to actually launch the 4G services after the other two main competitors.

However, one advantage Metfone had over the other two is that their 4G ervices are really nationwide. Not only that, super fast, too.

https://vimeo.com/229781557 

Here is a spot we shot along with "Toy Car" for Cellcard.

Its another one of those "whack the competition"spot, highlighting the inadequacies of being on an "inferior" network.

Story is about a "serial dater' who isnt really that handsome, but goes on a lot of dates. He scours through many dating sections of magazines and messages the girls, inviting them for coffee.


https://vimeo.com/97730557

It's been a while since this folio site of mine has been updated - A few number of work has already been produced but have yet to breathe life here.

So here goes:
Cellcard VoiP

As the story goes, VoiP are always cheaper than regular calls. And this, was way before them folks at LINE, Facebook, Whatsapp got clever offering voice calls in their respective apps.

In what was supposed to be a series of tv commercials, a character was created called "the Turtle Lady", which basically means a glorified matchmaker.

This Turtle Lady is rather popular (a legend, actually) in her neighborhood due to her success rate of match making couples.

She is then commissioned by a woman who has 4 daughters and want to match them with 4 "anikachun" (khmers based abroad).

Link : https://vimeo.com/117572181

Cellcard - "Toy Car"

The biggest challenge of 2013 came in October, when we were briefed to work on a campaign imaginatively codenamed "WJC" (Why Join Cellcard).

What started off as a series of scripts pointing out why Cellcard is the better choice (cue : Apple vs PC campaign) it evolved, thankfully, to something more involving, heartwarming and had a very strong moral behind the story - yet, still taking a stab at the competitors.

Shot in December 2013, it went on air in January 2014.

View the tvc here - https://vimeo.com/87056453

The Director told us during the offline that the Cambodian translator he hired to help with the translation work cried in the session.

She simply did not believe that it was a commercial shot for the Cambodian market.

The 3-minute spot became 7min 47secs. And since it would have been financially impossible to run the 7 min version on air, it was decided that the 3-minute hit the stations whilst the 7 minuter went viral, starting with Cellcard's FB page. 

Two weeks later, the spot garnered 12,000 “Likes”, with over 3,000 comments (all of which were interesting to read themselves).

What made the project much more fulfilling was that there were no veteran actors or celebrities hired in this TVC.  The father was played by a university lecturer. The son, is a real life orphan. The debt collector actually collected money as a “part time” job.

More importantly,  this commercial was the start of many commercials that would make Cellcard appear more “human” as opposed to being a corporation hard-selling their products and services.

Credits
AGENCY : Phibious Cambodia
CD/CW : Izwar Zakri
Khmer CW : Pisal Ren
Producer : Engrid Rosal

Director : Barney Chua
EP : Malcolm Soh, Phoo
Editor : Jeff
Prod House : Filmbase Asia, Viet Nam
Post House : The Post, Bangkok

Music : Addaudio, Malaysia

Cellcard Thom Thom - "Big News"

Sometime in June 2013, Cellcard came up with this gobsmackingly awesome product : A SIM card that came with 10,000 minutes preloaded.

Product research garnered positive reviews - current subscribers and non-subscribers were interested to know about this product even more.

Calling it the "Thom Thom SIM" (SIM Big Big), it was subsequently launched based on the idea "No News is Bigger"

Unfortunately, Kong had to find that out the hard way.

View the tvc here - https://vimeo.com/96292025

Few days before the launch, a teaser was aired on TV. It featured Kong on top of a building letting out a roar, the spot ended with the message to tune in on a specific date & time.

The movie feel of this commercial captured the audience imagination and soon became the talk of the town for a few weeks. Heck, they even started calling it "King Kong SIM" instead of the original "SIM Thom Thom"


Credits
AGENCY : Phibious Cambodia
CD/CW : Izwar Zakri
SAD : Danny Thong
Khmer CW : Pisal Ren

Film Director : James Ashburn
EP : Andrew Ngeow / Sue-Ann Tan
Prod House : Redwolf Malaysia
Post House : The Spice Shop, Bangkok

Music : 2AM, Malaysia

Cellcard Niyeay - "Mother"

Another product Cellcard have is an all-talk plan for them lovely folks in the rural areas.

With the cheap call rates and readily available SIM cards, it is not uncommon to see people owning two - three mobile phones, with 3-4 sim cards, with them switching the cards whenever a telco gives out an offer.

This commercial has no significant offers or price plan (Cellcard has refused to be dragged into the price war) but nonetheless, still wanted to compete via offering a different message : You get quality calls with Cellcard.

The "Mother" tvc played on what every mothers in the world do when they are far for their sons - basically being updated on his well being.

Hence conveying the message that maintaining a relationship isn't dependent on having a phone alone. Being on a network that gives clear, quality calls is important too.

Shot in December 2012, it went on air first week of January 2013 (Yup, that meant spending Xmas in the editing suite) The spot was well received, seeing a hike in subscription and/or top ups in the duration of the months it went on air

View the tvc here - https://vimeo.com/96311940

Credits
CD/CW : Izwar Zakri
SAD : Danny Thong
Khmer CW : Chantha Prom

Film Director : Sunil Thomas
EP : Bou Panha
Prod House : Legend Tiger, Cambodia
Post House : DigiPost Viet Nam

Cellcard Kjey Sen - "Announcement"

Cellcard is Cambodia's leading mobile service provider.

Having won the account in December 2013, we have managed to produce quite a fair bit of tv commercials for them, starting with their new service : Cellcar Kjey Sen (Which means "Balance Advance"

This was a service that Cellcard launched to remove the inconvenience of having your conversation cut off when you run out of phone credit (they will give you an "advance" of USD 0.70, pending on your qualification).

Based on the insight that Cambodian's are generally very family oriented and love to talk and give updates to each other, this storyline was developed.

After shooting this back to back with another two tvcs in December 2013, it was eventually launched in Feb 2014

View the tvc here - https://vimeo.com/96292024

Credits
AGENCY : Phibious Cambodia
CD/CW : Izwar Zakri
SAD : Danny Thong
Khmer CW : Chantha Prom

Film Director : Sunil Thomas
EP : Bou Panha
Prod House : Legend Tiger, Cambodia
Post House : DigiPost Viet Nam

Nokia Ovi

Challenge : How do you get people to sign up for an OVI email account when they are already comfortable with gmail and yahoo?

The team got together and banged our heads (with the client) and produced this :




This campaign garnered the Runner's up spot in the Nokia Worldwide Marketing awards in 2009/2010



Credits :
AGENCY : JWT Viet Nam
CSD : Luis Morelos
AM : Truc Tran
CD/CW : Izwar Zakri
Snr AD : Joe Teoh
AD : Evelyn Lam

Promo spot
Agency EP : Le Chi Hai
Production house : Scriin (Vietnam)
Director : Cris Morjica
Exec Producer : Taelin
Producer : Alex

POCA "Ridged Poster"

The POCA clients were about to launch a new extension to their already successful brand : POCA potato chips.

Called "Ridge Cuts", they wanted to shout about this launch as loud as they could.

...as long as it doesn't cost more than USD2k.

So we thought : why not do something that stands out as point of purchase?

Hence a corrugated cardboard cut into a potato chip shape and painted yellow, nicknamed "the Ridged Poster"



Credits
AGENCY : JWT Viet Nam
CD / CW : Izwar Zakri
Art Director : Evelyn Lam

7up

7up wanted to do something different.

They didnt want shiny, happy people with perfect tanned bodies and dazzling smiles running on the beach holding bottles of 7up to convey their "7up refreshes" message.

So they threw us the challenge to come up with a script that best conveys "refreshing" in a different light.

6 concept boards were presented

4 survived. And they were then sent for research.

2 survived. Out of these two, this was what the clients selected :

The UnCola.



2 months, 1 client Final PPM walkout, countless con-calls and 15,000 revisions (well, it felt like it) later, the TVC went on air.



Supers :
Uncaffeinated
Undark
Only the refreshing taste of lemon and lime

End supers :
The Uncola

Six months later, we were told that this spot went regional, going on air (with appropriate languages and supers) in Malaysia and Thailand.



Credits :
AGENCY : JWT Viet Nam
CSD : Luis Morelos
AM : Nguyen Thi Xuan Thu
CD/CW : Izwar Zakri
Snr AD : Joe Teoh
Agency EP : Le Chi Hai

Animation House : 111eye (Malaysia)
EP : Sivagamy

Music : JIA (Malaysia)
Producer : Mary Wilson
Musician : Jit

HSBC sale

This was seriously an interesting project.

In conjunction of the city-wide sales, our lovely clients decided to do a "SALE" promo too, offering their products and services (Like car loans, housing loans, credit cards etc) at a lower interest rates (for most loans), gifts for successful credit card application, etc.

Budget wasnt much, (as usual) which means we had to resort to the tried and tested "guerilla" approach. (yes, there was also a 15sec spot produced for LCD screen advertising)

Below is what we presented to the clients, using a common, simple device :

The sales tag.


And we planned to place them everywhere and anywhere

The Notre Damne Opera house.


Cars parked at the roadsides.


Car showrooms.


Houses.


Shops.

The Vietnamese headline basically read : The great HSBC SALE".

Subheads were relevant to the product it was placed next to. case in example :
1-get lower interest rates on car loans.
2-interest free for the first three months on your credit card bills

The clients were keen.

The powers that be who controlled Ho Chi Minh however, were not.

"This isn't advertising!"

"Advertising is only in newspapers and television!"

"You damage public property!"

...were some of the words that escaped their thin and tight lips. Thus condemning this idea to just grace these pages.

Oh, not to mention the fact that some of the building owners wanted to charge USD1million for us to put a tag on their properties too.



Credits
AGENCY : JWT Viet Nam
CD/CW : Izwar Zakri
Art Director : Evelyn Lam

Ford

Some initiative work for Ford's new Fiesta ECOnetic

One of three


Credits
AGENCY : JWT Viet Nam
CD?CW : Izwar Zakri
AD : Ho Hoang Quy

Twister

Ambient media for pepsi's twister.


Credits
AGENCY : JWT Viet Nam
CD/CW : Izwar Zakri
SAD : Joe Teoh

viso cleaning powders

AGENCY : JWT Viet Nam
CD/CW : Izwar Zakri
SAD : Joe Teoh

stabilo highlighter pens

AGENCY : JWT Viet Nam
ECD : Vancelee Teng
CD/CW : Izwar Zakri
SAD : Joe Teoh

Tiger FC recruitment - Ambient

The 2007/2008 EPL is about to kick off - in two weeks, in fact.


Tiger FC is going all out to recruit new members to make the match viewings more enjoyable and bigger.

Hence the ambient, to be placed at every spot where they will be screening LIVE matches.

Credits
AGENCY : Grey KL
CD : Andrew Fong/Izwar Zakri