Awesomely Awesome

The commercial below was airing on Vietnamese television when we first moved.  When we saw it we laughed and laughed.  Take 30 seconds and watch it.

In what universe is the slogan "Malaysia Truly Asia" catchy? Of course Malaysia is truly Asia, it's in Asia.  If you really wanted to blow people's minds, you could advertise Malaysia as being not like Asia at all. "Malaysia, Truly Canadia" would really mess with people's minds and it almost rhymes in the same way that Malaysia Truly Asia almost rhymes.

 For the first month we lived in Vietnam we made up our own Malaysia tourism slogans. Things like "Malaysia maybe you heard it's in Asia,"  or simply "Malaysia it's in <dramatic pause> Asia."  When you say our alternates to yourself do they sound any different or better than "Malaysia Truly Asia?"  I don't think so.  Couple that with the fact that we already live in  SE Asia, it all seems rather stupid.  We don't need additional convincing that we are, in fact, in Asia.  But perhaps our Asia is not really Asia?  This Vietnamese Asia we find ourselves in is just a rank imposter compared to Malaysia?  I can just imagine deplaning in Kuala Lampur and thinking, "and here I thought we'd lived in Asia all this time... this is truly Asia."  

Oh and one more thing; you can't make a good sounding rhyme using basically the same word can you?  Malaysia must have taken a cue from American hip-hop.  I find rap music tends to do the same thing.  It's difficult to take hip-hop seriously when all the lines a song end with the same word.  Examples:

Lil Jon:

Only bitches talk shit
Only bitches talk shit
Only bitches talk shit
That's why we're bustin' your shit 
--Taken from "What They Gon Do"

Waka Flocka Flame adds these thoughtful lyrics:

See Gucci that's my muthafuckin' nigga
I hang in the Dale with them hit squad killas
Waka Flocka Flame one hood ass nigga
Ridin' real slow, bendin' corners in my nigga
--Taken from "Hard in da Paint"

Aside from making little to no sense, these things don't actually rhyme, do they?   The quality of rhyming "nigga" with "killas" is questionable at best, and that's one of the better rhymes in the song.  Regardless, three of four lines in both examples end with the same "word." (Not sure if the OED recognizes "nigga" yet.)  I don't classify this as clever, or edgy from a linguistic standpoint.  Perhaps crappy rhyming makes the songs sound more authentic.  "I'm so deep in this shit of mine, I don't have time to make a good rhyme." I just thought of that and it rhymes better than anything so far. Take that Waka Flocka Flame...  However, if we apply the "crappy rhyming makes things more authentic" metric to Malaysia Truly Asia, then they're dead on with their marketing.

Not to mention that if you spend 3/4 of your verse talking about how "only bitches talk shit", then how can you "bust" it?  You just spent a lot of time defining the word "shit" to me.  It's something that bitches talk, and by definition, things that are spoken cannot be busted.  They're just words not skulls or bottles or another object that might actually get busted when "bitches talk shit."  I'm going to need some other word to let me know what will, in fact, be busted if I'm a bitch and talk shit.  Okay L'il Jon?  How about "Only bitches talk shit, that's why we're bustin your lip?"  Why am I not a rapper?

In researching this blog post (yep I spent actual minutes finding the videos and looking up lyrics) I learned that the Malaysian Tourism Board has been using this lame slogan since 2008.  That's four years of trotting out variations on a slogan that doesn't entirely work.  Weak.  How about "Malaysia: Better than Hip Displaysia" or "Malaysia: Nothing like Euthanasia" or "Only Bitches Talk Shit...About Malaysia."  They could get Lil Jon to do the commercials (YEEAHYA!).  In other commercials they say, "Beautiful Malaysia.  Truly [fucking] Asia."  Is there anything wrong with "Beautiful Malaysia?" Keep it simple guys.  If they did change it, it would probably end up being "Beautiful Malaysia: It's Beautiful." Yaaargh.

So we'd spent months entertaining ourselves by mocking Malaysia Truly Asia (and lots and lots of bad rap/pop music) and all it's ridiculous iterations when we saw this:

I guess Thailand felt the need to jump on the redundancy bandwagon.  Really Thailand?  Amazing Thailand always amazes you?  This is the best you could come up with?  I was actually a little surprised that you didn't go with "Thailand Truly Thai" (it's at least alliterative) or something a little more similar to Malaysia and it's Asian-ness.  If Thailand didn't amaze then you couldn't call it Amazing Thailand could you?  It would just be "Pretty Good Thailand" or "Occasionally Amusing Thailand."  I like that better actually.  "Occasionally Amusing Thailand: Occasionally Amuses."  That has a better ring than what they currently have.  Nevermind that the montage in the commercial is made almost entirely fictional occurances you wouldn't actually want to happen  Do you really want to see domesticated elephants in a city park being ridden by construction workers?  No you do not.  Do you want a strange chick throwing "water" on your good suit? No you do not.  Ocean water on your dress shoes?  Walking into a flooded subway terminal, and then having a boat drive by and splashing you before work? No and no. 

Why not make a commercial about a real amazing Thailand adventure?  I didn't see a foreign object being removed from an unspeakable oriface or two 9 year olds kicking the shit out of each other or a man with boobs anywhere in that commercial, but I absolutely saw those things in Thailand (I'm working on that story -it's almost too horrible to retell).  Amazing Thailand did amaze me, but not in the way the commercial shows...  I haven't yet decided if that's a good or bad thing.  Maybe a better slogan would be "Unexpected Thailand"  or "Thailand, Yes That Just Happened."

I think I'll make an appointment to visit the Vietnamese tourism board.  We discussed it with friends and coworkers and decided that "Awesome Vietnam: Awesomely Awesome" works nicely.  Now we just need some montages of people with horrible teeth throwing litter in the street.  I've already started my timelapse video of mold growing on the walls of buildings and men hammer drilling at two in the morning.  It's a goddamned goldmine.

To be honest, I'd really like some other country (I'm looking at you Myanmar) to come out with an advertising campaign that goes something like "X...More Asia than Malaysia."  Let the tourism wars begin.

Finally, it's not lost on me that my rant is nothing more than a testament to the brilliance and effectiveness as marketing tools of those commercials.  They bug the crap out of me and consequently I am singing the stupid Malaysia song all the time.  Or anytime someone says something to me about Thailand, I say "You mean amazing Thailand? You know it always amazes, right?"  Plus, I just spent more than an hour on a Sunday writing about how much these two commercials suck.  So bravo tourism boards of SE Asia.  You have done your jobs well.  I salute you.