26 focus sunday star, 10 FebruarY 2013

App-t greetings for the season

This Chinese New Year, some politicians are using creative ways with social media, tinged with a dash of election
flavour, to send their festive greetings.
By HARIATI AZIZAN
sunday@thestar.com.my

VEN 86-year-old Queen Elizabeth has

jumped on the technology wagon. Last
Christmas, the Queen decided to spice
up her annual festive greetings with 3D visual
effects. Also made available on the Internet,
it was a stark contrast to her first-ever public
message in 1952, which was done only in
audio and broadcast over the radio.
To no ones surprise, her recent experimentation with technology garnered the Queen
new fans, especially the young.
With technology so much a part of our
lives, some of our politicians have decided to
explore technology for more innovative and
exciting ways to make their festival greetings
this Chinese New Year. And with the elections
just around the corner, this also gives them
the opportunity to try and stand out.
As Deputy Sports Minister Senator Gan
Ping Sieu puts it, people now expect it of their
politicians.
The young, especially, now want to see
videos or something that is social media
related, fun and cool from their leaders.
They dont want to see leaders who are
old-fashioned or a dinosaur. They want leaders who are relevant to the times, he says.
Deputy Education Minister Datuk Dr Wee
Ka Siong is one who is trying to be different
with his interactive greeting cards that are
embedded with augmented reality (AR) technology.
The cards may look conventional to the
naked eye, but those with smartphones can
receive a video greeting from a 3D-animated
Dr Wee or a recorded live-action version of
the Ayer Hitam MP and MCA Youth Chief. All
they have to do is to download a special app
and scan the greeting card.
He says the idea came from two young IT
entrepreneurs, Chew Choon Yet, 29, and Tai
Leong Wee, also 29, who run Internet advertising and web design company Teknologi AR
in Johor.
They wanted to try it out in greeting cards
after they came across the South Korean app,
he says.
They came up with the mock design and
proposed it to me. I was impressed because
we can put any video up while keeping the
tradition 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 been
doing over the years. Just this time I am able
to use the latest technology.
I still ordered the same number of cards,
20,000, and even with the 3D-element that
we have incorporated, the cost is kept minimal, he says, adding that his ang pow packets
are also animated.
Chew, one of the people behind the multifunctional card, says they approached Dr Wee
because they wanted to introduce the app to
the public.
We took a month to develop it from the
concept to the execution. We also wrote the
script and created the animation character
ourselves.
According to Chew, this is similar to the
AR technology used by Google to develop
their futuristic Google Glasses, a hands-free,
head-mounted augmented reality device
that would display information in smartphone-like format and could interact with
the Internet via natural language voice commands.
The cutting-edge technology will make
people curious about the sender of the card,
he says, adding that they are now trying to
persuade Dr Wee, who is the first politician in
the country to use this technology this way,
to also use it on his election campaign materials later.

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

The usual greeting cards

are static, so we wanted
a livelier way to celebrate
the festival.
wong nai chee

Before the cameras: Kok has become a

surprise YouTube star after she decided to act in
her parody videos.
Still, Dr Wee believes that all the specialeffects will not mean a thing if the candidate
does not do any work for the constituency.
To me, the day-to-day effort is more
important regardless of whether it is election
year or not. I dont believe in doing the lastminute push.

Message still prime

Currently, you can see many politicians
online and using social media, says digital
culture commentator Niki Cheong, but they
are not maximising the use.
To maximise their social media presence, they need to commit to social network.
Its not enough to just be on it, you need to
be constantly engaging with people, says
Cheong.
Conceding that while this is where the
younger politicians have the edge over their
seniors they grew up with the technology
so they are more savvy there are those who
know how to generate the numbers and get
followers, like our Prime Minister Datuk Seri
Najib Tun Razak.
Many politicians think its enough to use
Twitter. Sure it is fast, easy and instant but
there are so many other networks or new
mobile apps like Vine (video on Twitter) and
Instagram with bigger potential.
Some are not even maximising Facebook
to do promotions and campaigning. And even

YouTube like what the PM is doing. Many

dont realise that it is also a social network,
Cheong points out.
Ultimately, it is also about what you want
to say and how you say it, not just where you
say it.
Take, for instance, the PMs inspired CNY
greetings on radio and television, which are
also available on YouTube; they may be conventional but they have wowed old fans and
new alike.
Revealing his regular side, the PM is
shown learning Mandarin from his youngest
son Nor Ashman, who has previously studied Mandarin at the Beijing Foreign Studies
University.
They both discuss the meaning of their
names in Chinese Na Ji (luck) and Si Ji Ping
An (Peace for all seasons) before combining
them to extend a festive greeting to listeners.
We wanted to show that there is more
to him, there is a personal side where he is a
family man he is a husband and a father. He
is not a machine, he is just an ordinary human
like us; he can be your neighbour like any
father bantering with his son. He does not
talk about GDP or ETP, says Najibs political
secretary Wong Nai Chee who worked on the
concept with his team.
Wong says they decided to do something
different this year instead of sending out the
conventional greeting cards to present the PM
in a more dynamic way.
The usual greeting cards are static, so we
wanted a livelier way to celebrate the festival.
With the elections drawing near, they also
saw it as a good opportunity to project the
1Malaysia idea to the public, says Wong.
This is captured in the TV advertisement
which shows the PM accepting the invitation
of 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 the
Chinese, the drum player is the leader in the
dance because the lion listens to the drums
and dances to the beat. The ad shows the PM
not just talking about multiculturalism but
also playing a leading role in it.
Wong believes that the advent of social
media has allowed leaders to reach out to
more people in a diverse and direct way.
It is also playing its role as a communication bridge to see how people see and
respond to the Government policies, and a
way to find out about peoples problems and
issues and try to help them.
Fahmi Fadzil, social media observer and
political secretary to Lembah Pantai MP Nurul
Izzah Anwar, agrees that social media is an
effective communication bridge for politicians.
Social media is about having a clear identity and getting people to engage with that
identity on these platforms.
Actually, a lot of older people are very
active on Facebook, so social media is not just
about or for the youth, he says.
As they have a far smaller purse, says
Fahmi, the online and social media is what
we leverage on. For the festive seasons,
we post banners and cards on Twitter and
Facebook page.
Like Wong, Fahmi believes it is important
for politicians to show their personal facet
to the public, especially during this election
season.
Let people see the lighter side of you, but
it must be your lighter side and not one chosen by your public relations consultants.
As he sees it, Malaysian readers and listeners are by now very sceptical of all things
political.
Theyll not only judge your message based
on the creativity or its hipness, but will also
look at who is saying it is this person truthful, honest, believable?
Many will agree, though, that humour is
the best way to get any message across or
touch people.
For DAPs Seputeh MP Teresa Kok, it has
even made her a surprise YouTube star,
especially after she decided to act in her two
CNY-cum-Election parody videos: Dare to try
and Dare to Change.
The idea for the videos came from a friend
who designed her greeting cards in previous years, Kok says. He suggested that I
give my CNY greetings in cyberspace as this
can spread to more people and reach out to
greater audience.
Noting that eating new dishes in a restaurant and getting a new haircut are part and
parcel of the CNY, Kok feels the concept resonates with many revellers.
The content and issues which are close to
their hearts are also creatively presented.
Kok shares that the biggest challenge for
her personally when doing the video was
memorising the script and getting into character.
It is my first experience acting before
a camera crew together with professional
actors/actresses. I had to repeat my act many
times while doing the filming, she says.
Still, when it comes to the crunch, nothing
is stronger than face-to-face meetings, opines
Deputy Agriculture and Agro-based Industries
Minister Chua Tee Yong.
While it is good to be creative to make
CNY greetings more interesting, direct interactions with the people are still the most
effective, he says.
Chua says he prefers to hold small gatherings where he can meet and mingle with the
voters while listening to their problems.
I find that voters always like the personal
touch, where they can meet the leaders and
highlight their issues.