Embracing Technology

JIMAT in Jimat dan Senang Kira?

Since the advertising campaign for the rounding up and down of 1 sen to the nearest 5 sen has emerged a few months back and has now been implemented, I have been skeptical on the Jimat part right from the start.

If you look at the rounding table from BNM. http://www.bnm.gov.my/index.php?ch=209&pg=657&ac=567

• 1, 2, 6 and 7 sen to be rounded downwards
• 3, 4, 8 and 9 sen to be rounded upwards

It looks like a balanced of rounding where half is rounded down and the other half is rounded up. So which part in it is JIMAT? You do the math.

However, IF 1,2,3,4 is rounded downwards to the 0 sen and 6,7,8,9 rounded downwards to 5 sen, then that is a real JIMAT.
Sadly, this is not the case.
OK, I know 1 sen is really not that a big issue, but it’s the JIMAT part we are talking about, remember? And we’ve got how many Malaysians?

So I can only conclude this is a very poor marketing strategy to persuade consumers into thinking the way what policy changers wanted people to think. To tone down the rejection of a new policy change.

Maybe the majority of consumers actually do think the way advertisers wanted them to, but I’m the one that think twice!

Should they have used another tagline like “1 sen to 5 sen” or whatever, it would have been easier to accept. But a tagline which contradicts the actual situation is worse than having none at all.

To date, there are many advertisements I remember vividly for the “tactic” used to gain public acceptance and I would rank this as the second worst.

The first? The one that advertises on Putra LRT, with super big ‘zing’ burgers whose sesame seed on its bun easily larger than the size of your nostrils. If it’s just the product size bigger then it’s alright, but placing it beside a human or other things which is deliberately scaled to make the product look enormous is downright unethical.

Anyway, I guess we now go JIMAT by saving our one sen coins and spending more five sen coins!

And hey, why would somebody now sell things at the price for it to be rounded down instead of up?

Well, I’d say I give it a try to see how much I can save from this new policy at first.
However, up until now I have not figured it out how. You tell me.