Imagine cruising down the highway casually when all of a sudden a wild ostrich starts running alongside your vehicle, its long legs taking quick strides that could very well rival a car’s speed (not true, but it could rival my driving speed, I drive at 60km/h).
That was exactly what happened along Federal Highway yesterday when Chickaboo, a six-month old ostrich was seen doing a little sprint in the midst of vehicles driving past it.
Chickaboo, who is an apparent celebrity in Klang Valley, attends events such as the KL Picnic Festival, KL Kids Carnival and Pets Fiest. It had escaped from his owner, Darren Chow’s vehicle whilst they were on their journey to the farm, Ostrich Wonderlands. That was exactly when in typical Malaysian fashion, the road users began whipping out their smartphones to document Chickaboo’s escape.
Alongside the Facebook status updates of, “Oh my gosh, I saw an ostrich on the road today!”, some companies actually leveraged off of the viral situation to market their brand. Here are 7 companies that smartly ran with the Chickaboo idea.
1. SWCorp Malaysia
SWCorp Malaysia is a solid waste and public cleansing management corporation. Following the runaway ostrich incident, they posted an image of Chickaboo captioned with “run if you can” and hashtagged it with #asingkan. The image urged for the separation of solid waste and Chickaboo’s stern face served as a good reminder to do so.
2. Buzzme.m8
BuzzMe is a mobile prepaid company which provides instant rewards. They captioned their bright yellow image of Chickaboo with, “Run freely like Ostrich without limit, Buzz freely with Buzzme Smart Plans with Unlimited Validity”.
3. Kilkenny
Kilkenny, a liquor brand took the time to create an adorable illustration of Chickaboo. They captioned their illustration with “Thank you Mr. Ostrich. Because of your mad rush hour dash, every other excuse we make for being late sounds totally possible.” They’re even offering Jeff Sandhu (the original poster of the viral ostrich video) a pint of Kilkenny!
4. JC Group
JC Group is an insurance planner company and as everyone were concerned about Chickaboo’s wellbeing whilst it was running down the highway, it was smart of JC Group to relate the incident to life insurance. They captioned their image with, “Life is just like the fast lane.”
5. DiGi
DiGi, a telco company in Malaysia took the Chickaboo runaway incident and related it to current events. As it is currently the fasting month period in Malaysia, they posted an image of Chickaboo running and captioned it with, “To all you guys rushing back home (especially those on the Federal Highway). We hope you get to your destination safely. Selamat berbuka!”
6. Huawei
Huawei, a telecommunications equipment and services company, used the ostrich as its subject for the P9 mobile device and hilariously captioned the image with much pun. They shared alongside the image, “Don’t let a great shot fly by! Moving targets are not a “bird-en” with the Huawei P9’s speedy, laser sharp autofocus.”
7. Little Rara Thai Noodle House
Little Rara Thai Noodle House is a Thai restaurant situated along Jalan Kia Peng, Kuala Lumpur. Their image of Chickaboo sprinting was captioned with, “When you are running late and your friends’ already at Little Rara Thai Noodle House.”
