As Malaysia gears up for this Sunday’s Merdeka celebrations, plenty of National Day promotions and ads are being pushed to consumers nationwide by brands and companies wanting to show off their patriotic spirit … and to generate some extra marketing buzz.
Global search and tech giant Google is one of those brands helping us usher in August 31st with a bang this year, and the company has set up a special Merdeka promo page on the Play Store, Google’s official storefront where consumers can get apps for their Android mobile devices. Specifically, the Play Store lists 20 of Malaysia’s favourite mobile games, all offered for free or at a discount, just for Merdeka season.
Sounds fantastic, right? Well …
The promotional copy on the Play Store’s “Top 20 Malaysia’s Favorite Games” page, written by the Google Play Team’s Phoebe Lim, reads as follows:
“Celebrating 69th Malaysia National Day, Google Play has handpicked recent Top 20 Malaysian-liked games to reward our loyal Malaysia gamers. Enjoy the National Day Edition while it lasts!
[Limited for 2 weeks ONLY!]”
Malaysia isn’t turning 69 this weekend, Google. We’re turning 57. If you’re counting from the first Malaysia Day on September 16, we’d be even younger: 51.
Someone at Google thinks Malaysia achieved independence on August 31, 1945.
Was the copy maybe a fluke? A typo? Nope. If you look at the background graphic for the promotional page, you can see clearly that it shows an image of the KLCC Twin Towers, a lot of fireworks, and the words “Hari Kemerdekaan ke-69”.
Yikes.
Here are screenshots from the web page, the Play Store mobile app’s homepage and the dedicated promo page on the mobile app:
It looks like Google might have some explaining to do.
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