All Your Raya Goodness in One Place - AmBank Raya YouTube Channel
2:11:00 PM
Salam and
peace.
How is
your sixth day of fasting today? Hope it’s going on great so far. Ramadhan is
my favourite month in the Islamic calendar. :) All praises to God, I have another chance to
experience Ramadhan.
“Buka mana harini? Makan apa harini? (Where
are you breaking your fast today? What are you eating today?)”
I was
asked this question a number of times by more than 5 different people today. That
is totally normal. This is a question that even without realizing it, will be
asked by everyone who is fasting, and even those who aren’t fasting too. We
Malaysians do think and talk about food a lot especially because of the variety
of food choices that we have here in Malaysia. And when Ramadhan comes? I think
its multiplied by 10.
So where
will I be during buka today? At home
with the family :)
Anyways,
just last week on the 25th June 2014, I attended the launch of
AmBank Raya YouTube channel at Google’s office at KL Sentral.
To be
honest I didn’t even know Google had an office here. As I entered Google’s
office my mood really lifted because the office was so cool and colourful! I
think it has to be the coolest office ever! Before I arrived I didn’t know what
the launch was about at all.
Surprise,
surprise!
It turned
out to be a launch of AmBank Raya’s channel on YouTube which is dedicated to featuring over 1000 Ramadhan-Raya
related content ranging from food, recipes, fashion, beauty tips, cartoons,
learning, Upin & Ipin and music. It is something really useful and I
haven’t heard of such channel before!
Paul Lewis, Managing Director, Retail Banking, AmBank launched the
channel together with Sajith Sivanandan, Managing Director of Google Malaysia.
“AmBank decided to collaborate with Google to celebrate Ramadhan… This
would be the largest YouTube channel in South East Asia for a Ramadhan and Raya
themed channel. It is our aim as Malaysia’s Bank to provide relevant content
for Malaysians who celebrate this special occasion. Malaysians talk about food
a lot. At lunch we talk about dinner, at dinner we talk about breakfast.”
Snippets of what Paul said during his presentation.
“For YouTube in Malaysia, our
fervent wish is for Malaysians to be able to easily access all the relevant
seasonal content to enjoy with family and friends during this special time.
Being able to showcase quality content by Malaysian creators makes it all the
more special,” said Mr Sajith.
At the press conference, they mentioned that this collaboration is not
about the bank, sales or the products. The focus is on the customers and to
give something beneficial for their YouTube channel viewers.
I made a new sweet blogger friend that day and her name is Namee Roslan.
Also met Budiey. This is why I love my blogging world, I always meet new
friends and new people :)
I must
admit that since YouTube first launched many, many years ago I was one of those
who were crazy about searching videos of content which I liked as well as relevant
things to me. I started to watch YouTube videos to watch music videos, concerts
of my favorite bands, funny videos and then after I went for umrah in 2012, I
started to watch talks by Muslim inspirational speakers too. I even started my
own YouTube video when I was in uni, but no I am not going to tell you my
username of that old account! Haha. YouTube is very useful and beneficial and I
am sure many will agree to that.
Paul
also said that “as the second largest
search engine in the world today, YouTube has attracted millions of Malaysians
to watch, be entertained or learn anything they want at anytime.We have seen
significant growth of this trend in the past and even more so during Ramadhan
and Raya period.”
I personally think that the collaboration between AmBank and YouTube is
very unique. AmBank is the first financial institution to do this kind of
collaboration on a big scale like this and Google, which owns YouTube, only
collaborates once a year.
As Paul said at the PC, the banking institutions are usually very
conventional so AmBank wants to be more relevant and reach out to online
viewers. All that info I got during the press conference which just looked so
cool and relaxed because it was done in Google’s office. Have I mentioned how
impressed I was with the office yet?
Anyways,
when I went back home after the event, I checked out their channel. It was
really interesting. They divided it into 4 categories, Jom Makan (Let’s Eat) with videos on recipes of local and
traditional dishes (feel like trying them all!), Sudut Molek (fashion and beauty) for styling and beauty tips; Kartun Korner(cartoons) for the kids
(Aiyo I feel so old already.. and that reminds me.. must save for duit raya
angpow T_T) and Muzik & Hiburan (entertainment
and music) for all your favourite and nostalgic Raya songs.
The AmBank Raya Bergaya channel can be viewed at www.youtube.com/ambanktv/rayabergaya.
At the end of the launch they showed a preview of their
sing-along, cheerful and happy Raya song.
Watch it below.
Raya Bergaya bersama AmBank music video.
The
cooking channel Jom Makan is something I’m really keen to try out. So instead
of buying all my yummy favourites at the crazy Ramadhan bazaars, I think this
year I might just be cooking some of my favourite dishes like laksam and ayam
percik at home instead!
Oh and
randomly, I wish I brought a little red too to match AmBank’s colours! I was in
black and yellow. Almost.. almost.
Gerai Gugel. So cool. I was fasting that day though so I couldn’t try the
food they had. It looks good though!
Me in
yellow for AmBank.
Paul Lewis, Managing Director of Retail Banking, AmBank (left) and Sajith
Sivanandan, Managing Director of Google Malaysia after launching the AmBank
Raya YouTube channel.
The
management team of AmBank and Google.
Love and
Peace!
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