Maxis wants online shoppers to help build Epic homes

Local telco Maxis is hoping to spur Malaysians to give back by integrating the power of e-commerce to incorporate the act of charity seamlessly into festive shopping.

The campaign, titled ‘Kongsi Home project’, involves a collaboration with Epic Homes as well as Malaysia’s top five e-commerce platforms – Lazada, Gem Five, Zalora, Rakuten, and Happy Fresh — to turn customers’ online shopping into online giving.

The campaign, which launched on 26 January and will run until 31 March, invites everyone to put a roof over the head of underprivileged families.

It hopes to raise enough money to fund the building of new homes for 67 families and to reach that goal, needs 5 percent of Malaysia’s 7 million online shoppers to donate RM8 (US$1.91) worth of building material each.

The project enables shoppers from anywhere across the globe with a valid credit card to visit any of these five online retail sites, and add that amount to their shopping cart. The materials will then be donated to the community home-building projects by Epic Homes.

The building materials that have been made available for purchase are auspiciously named, with titles such as Window of Longevity, Gold-With-The-Flow Tap, Lockdown-Your-Love Doorknob, Confirm-Nail-The-Job Nail and Like-A- Boss Papan.

Founded in 2010, Epic Homes is a non-profit initiative that has been building homes for underprivileged communities in Malaysia. The initiative has built a total of 71 homes across Perak and Selangor in partnership with Maxis.

The video received more than 2 million views in its first week. This translated into RM84,000 (US$ 20,093) worth of donations, enough to build two homes.

Ad Nut thinks this campaign is pretty inspired, merging the convenience enjoyed when shopping online with the concept of micro-donations. What’s another two bucks when you’re already buying three dresses or a week’s worth of groceries?

Ad Nut does feel a little sad though that the campaign has only raised enough for 2.5 homes so far, and thinks that perhaps the accompanying videos about career, wealth and health Feng Shui advice in line with the Lunar New Year were not quite on message in terms of getting people to add a little extra to their shopping cart.

But Ad Nut will remain optimistic and hopes shoppers will rally at the last minute to at least make it a nice complete number of 3 (maybe 4?).

Remember, Ad Nut only needs a sturdy mature oak tree to call home, you humans need more than that.