Malaysiana: the DiGi Man

A few years ago, DiGi Malaysia, a mobile phone service, had an ad campaign. DiGi's best known for its prepaid service, which in North America is called pay-as-you-go, which I think is silly. Anyway, DiGi's signal mascot in this campaign was the Yellow Man. Despite being an anthropomorphism of telephonic coverage, Digi Yellow Man has some personality to him, although in the first ad, those aren't much more than loyalty, a somewhat cheery disposition, curiousity in both what you do and the world around him, and a dogged determination to follow you everywhere you go, even to the bathroom:

He will be available at your disposal even out in the middle of nowhere, and will be your constant companion wherever you go:

Even on your wedding day:

Digi Yellow Man always wants to be the first to serve, and will fight to be of service:

But DiGi Yellow Man is under no obligation to never be embarrassed about you when you decide to be a rude obnoxious jerk in a cinema:

Nor does he appreciate being disturbed during the movie, either:

DiGi Yellow Man also really likes nature:

When DiGi's campaign decided to show how good the coverage was, even extending overseas, that's when things got a bit iffy. For example, the imagery of the Japanese DiGi partner where our favourite Yellow Man hands over his "human" to the Japanese representative, borders on the stereotypical image of sumo wrestlers:

The thing about this is that it's not even just Japan, but to indicate coverage all over Asia. Yet Asia is represented with the Japanese wrestler image, whereas Africa is represented by a warrior of some sort, no less stereotypical, in black, who greets and exchanges with Yellow Man a funny dance:

Yellow Man also exchanges a secret handshake with the white, European representation, who is depicted as significantly less threatening as the other two, so much so that Yellow Man has no qualms about showing how he's keeping his eye on the European rep:

I'm guessing after a bit of all this silliness, DiGi decided to step up its campaign, and gave us a much more macho DiGi Yellow Man, in the boot camp, military-style way:

Which was followed up with a parkour-esque Yellow Man test to make sure every DiGi Yellow Man on the street was up to par, and even had to earn the bars on his chest:

Today, DiGi pays dudes to dress up as this mascot - bright yellow costumes, sometimes with large bellies (we Asians have complicated relationships with large tummies), with five full bars on the belly to indicate always strong coverage.

And yes, our telecommunications are better than what I get in Canada. In Canada, I lose coverage when I go inside the mall. That shouldn't happen, ya'll. It's just wrong.

Anyway, hope you liked this introduction to the DiGi Yellow Man.