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Final Year Project

AHIBS UTM SKUDAI

CULTURAL VALUES IN PETRONAS ADVERTISEMENTS FOR CELEBRATION CHINESE
NEW YEAR AMONG MALAYSIAN ETHICS.

HIEW GEE CHEN, PROF. DR. ROHAIZIAT BAHARUN

Azman Hashim International Business School, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor Bahru

*Corresponding author: geechen@graduate.utm.my

Abstract
The Petronas Festive advertisement series has been broadcasted since 1998. For the past 20 years, the views of these advertisement are
increasing rapidly due to its touching and meaningful content that closely related to the life of Malaysian citizen. The festive advertisement are
produced accordingly to each significant festival of dominant ethics such as Chinese New Year, Hari Raya, and Deepavali. As the series of
Chinese New Year celebration has been reviewed by many audience, an Advertisement Content Analysis (ACA) has been planned by the
researchers. The objective of this study is to look at primary cultural values of Petronas Chinese New Year festive advertisement and how it
affects the racial relation. This study uses a quantitative sampling method with a total of 100 respondents. Statistical analysis with mean
(average) and percentage tests is used to measure the level, perception and application of the Malaysian community towards the cultural values
and perception towards Petronas. The expectation on the findings of the research are most respondents are favor the religious value when they
looking at the content of Petronas Chinese New Year advertisement. Hence, this study explains that religious value are important as marketers
producing a advertisement for audience in Malaysia.

Keywords: Advertisement, Value, Culture, Chinese

1.0 Introduction

In Malaysia, a multicultural country, there are many classic advertisements that have been played for many years on television. For
an instant, the Apollo advertisement played on Ntv7 every day and every child from the 90s will remember it until they grow up.
However, Petronas was the one that produced a very special advertisement series that connects the multiracial community of
Malaysia. The advertisements are also known as festive advertisements which means it's related to each ethics’ significant festival
such as Hari Raya, Deepavali and Chinese New Year. For the past two decades, Petronas festive communications have always
urged Malaysians to remain rooted in these values and the inclusiveness of all races said by Petronas senior general manager of
group strategic communications Zahariah Abdul Rahman. Therefore, in this study we are going to analyze the content of the
advertisement and what are the impressions that bring unity among the ethics through the advertisement.

1.1 Background of the research

1.1.1 Petronas

Petroliam Nasional Berhad (Malaysian National Oil Company Inc.) was founded by the year of 1974. Before Petronas was founded,
there was a few major players existed in the petroleum market in the late 1960s. These company are recognized now as Shell and
Esso. They were able to find petroleum in the offshore fields in Sabah and Sarawak thus making them the pioneer of in this market
before Petronas founded by government. (Mehden & Al, 2007) . In the late 1960s, Petronas is an oil and gas company directly
under the Malaysian government. The company was formed because of several factors at the time. One of the most obvious reasons
is because Malaysia had to set up state-owned companies to compete for oil, otherwise these natural sources would unsurprisingly
be left to the oil empire at the time. (Hishamuddin, n.d.)

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