Summary

At the end of 2020, the third wave of Covid-19 cases surged in Malaysia, resulting in a strict new lockdown. Tiger wanted to bring back the excitement of street food in this ‘new normal’ by using technology and creativity to design new and accessible street food experiences via digital platforms.

Insight

A food festival is about so much more than just the food. That’s what brings you there, but it’s the overall experience that people were missing the most. Walking around, checking out what various vendors have to offer, playing games and joining in on activities – and even watching live performances. 

The challenge was to move the street food experience beyond endless live streaming towards data and tech-enabled experiences that mimicked extraordinary local streetfood atmosphere online. So in addition to making sure we had a huge selection of great, authentic street food from some of the best vendors Malaysia has to offer (more than 80 across the four weekends of the festival), we really focused on replicating everything else about the experience, in a fully-immersive 3D world.

Creative Idea & Execution

Dentsu X Malaysia spent around 5 months creating this from the ground up – nobody had done something like this before. Unlike most virtual festivals that ran as live-streamed content, the Tiger Street Food Virtual Festival was planned as a fully-immersive and engaging online experience; the first of its kind anywhere in the world. 

Users would be able to walk the 3D streets as their own customized avatar, interacting with others, playing games and visiting vendors, before ordering street food directly to their door through our official delivery partner – DeliverEat Next generation personalisation paved the way for a world of virtual street festival experiences where every consumer could be served dynamic, engaging content and Uncover the Extraordinary.

Celebrity KOLs like Lizz Chloe and Harvinth Skin were hired as festival characters (NPC) to drive traffic, engagement, and Word of Mouth. KL Foodie, the agency’s food content partner, transformed into an animated character to show audiences the hidden gems and crowd favorites at the food festival. The campaign leveraged high reach media such as social channels and newspapers to drive sales and traffic to Traditional On Trade outlets.