Firstly, i’m sorry for not blogging for a while now. The past 2 years has just been crazy. It’s safe to say i turned my life upside down and inside out. The step i took towards this journey i call ‘Paranormal’ has indeed been anything but normal. I thought i’d just share my story with aspiring entrepreneurs and hope my story inspires em.
How it all started : About 4 years ago, i was working in DiGi, doing events & sponsorships. It was just one strange evening when Sulin Lau, someone i consider my mentor came up to me (which she rarely does) and says let’s take a walk.. So i followed her for her regular cigarette break and she started talking to me about venturing into the local entertainment industry to build engagement with the Malay market. At that point, the only thing i knew about the local music industry is the pub scene. A scene where i frequent and i spent my nights listening to good ol country & folk music.
The Challenge : I obviously took the challenge. I always step up to take on new challenges. So step 1 : Research.. Google was the tool and Top Malaysian Malay celebrities on Facebook was my first search. Stumbled upon a site which told me Lisa Surihani was the most liked person on Facebook. At that point, Lisa had about 800,000 likes on her FB page. And that’s where it all began. I built a list of 20 most followed celebrities on social media and presented them to my bosses. What happened? Nobody knew anything about the existence of this ‘market’ which was followed my millions of Malaysians. What happened next? I managed the signing of Lisa Surihani, Shaheizy Sam, Aizat Amdan & Mia Sara as Friends of DiGi. So much memories but yes, they are my first 4 friends in this industry.
Konsert Jelajah Desa : About a year later, we tried out something new. Instead of having concerts in Key Market Centres, we brought concerts to the outskirts. At this point, i started learning that the entertainment industry was full of people who were trying to make big money by using their connections with the celebrities. Back then, if you paid RM 10,000 for a performer, the performer gets probably about just half the amount. This was something that i strongly am against so i literally made sure that i negotiate directly with each celebrity that we engaged and ensured that they got payment that is fair for them. Indirectly, i made ‘more’ friends and somewhere on the line, made ‘enemies’ with people that were already sucking money from celebrities.
Social Media : Having spent most of my budget on making sure the line up is strong, i had very little resources left for A&P. That’s where i started asking for favors. I asked all celebrities involved to assist in marketing this concert in their FB’s and Twitters and they all helped out. Till today.. i’m still grateful to all the celebrities involved in Konsert Jelajah Desa. So concert turn out was good. A couple of thousand in each venue and bosses were happy. But for me, if i spent 1 Million Ringgit on a concert, i should have reached more people than just a few thousand people at 6 venues.
Social Media Tracking : So i did a little research online during the first week of the concerts. Could i track statistics of the advertising that was done on twitter & facebook? and thats where i stumbled upon (hashtracking) at that time a FREE tool for tracking twitter campaigns and when the reports came in, the numbers were just amazing. We were reaching out to more than 1 Million people at that time and to support this report i did an online survey to ask people how did they get to know about the concert. I got about 500+ responses and almost 80% of the people got their information from Facebook & Twitter! Now that’s amazing!
Paranormal Solutions : When i saw the results from the social media campaigns and knew a little back then about advertising, i had the feeling i could do 2 things. Number 1, i can help celebrities make more money and secondly, i could make a little more money than what i was getting back then. And so, i took a risk, a pay cut, a loan from my uncle Bob Tan, and challenged myself to start Paranormal Solutions.
How did we do? : My first client was Universal McCann who approached me back then for a KFC campaign. Today, McCann has become one of our biggest partners. 🙂 Thanks Wan, Polly & Rohayu! In our first year of business, with help from friends like Mark Darren, Shanker & Farah (All former colleagues), we had the opportunity to be a part of award winning campaigns like #Nestle100 & #TeamMalaysia, our first 2 major projects. Thank you Vanda & Mr. Khoo KK for believing in us.
And through #TeamMalaysia, i met Nick Gan who then introduced me to Zenith Media whom has officially became my biggest partner in 2013. Thank you Zenith Media & the Xpax team for believing in us and giving us the opportunity to grow together with your brand.
The Formula : If anyone ever asked me what’s my winning formula, i’d say it was real ‘Hard Work’ and ‘Passion Work’. Never once did i say No to my clients before giving it a try. Long hours were spent. I’ve even worked 2 months straight without weekends. It was crazy. But at the end of the day, it was well worth it.
People i need to thank : There’s a few people that has been there for me throughout my journey. People who believed in me, and has given me their 100% support! And i don’t get to say thank you to them enough, so i’m going to do it here. Thank you Aizat Amdan for being the first celebrity who followed me on twitter.. Thank you Zizan Razak for the countless retweets during DiGi Jelajah Desa. Thank you Yana Samsudin & Shila Amzah, the first 2 people that actually were my best friends on Twitter and for supporting me in the early days of my business. Thank you Mia Sara & Ridz for believing in me and becoming the First even Paranormal Talents. Thank you Elfira Loy for doing twitter work with me even though you have never met me before and also for telling all the other celebrities about us and introducing us to Nelydia. We are blessed to have both of you as our talents. Thank you Joe Lee for being a friend and helping me out with making media friends.
Our Future : In 2014, Paranormal Group has created a joint venture with theMalaya productions and now we are known as Paranormalaya Productions. I first met these twin brothers Man & Mie when they helped me vector pictures of Yana Samsudin. We then did our first tutorial video together for F&N Gempakz. Time flies. 1 Year later, we are creating content together like #OhMyMalaysia & #OhMyPerempuan and we are shooting all events together. It’s been a great journey boys! Let’s hope 2014 becomes more interesting for us!
My Advice : ‘Do business with integrity. Do not cheat and do not lie’ Strong words shared to me by my former Head of Marketing Boss Albern Murty. Remember this always. If you cheat people once, they will never believe you again. I stand by this principle and will do my best to uphold this principle and do my best to make a small change to how our local entertainment industry works.
We now work with over 50 top artist, the top malay youth key opinion leaders and over 200 twitter influencers! I am a proud man. Still a very small person in this entertainment industry, but enough to make a small difference.