KUALA LUMPUR – If you have a car, carching, a Malaysian startup will reward you for turning it into a branding platform. The best part, drivers are empowered to choose the brand that the car will be wrapped in – an approach that has already piqued the curiosity of many.
carching’s approach is to create sleek car wrap designs that both brands and car owners can appreciate, wherein the brand elements are seamlessly integrated onto the anatomy of the cars
“We rolled out our beta app two months ago, along with two pilot campaigns with brands from the financial and fitness industry. By the end of this month, our 8th campaign will go live and we will have at least 100 carching drivers on the road, allowing us to put back more than RM40,000 into Malaysians’ pockets – a driver can earn up to RM500 per campaign passively.” said founder of carching, Jeshua Choong.
carching’s target is to acquire 5,000 users (drivers) and to work with 15 brands by the year-end but Jeshua is careful to outline that the business’s strategy to achieving success is carefully balancing both supply and demand before pushing for high growth.
“We allow brands to pick features on a car that would highlight with their brand principles or campaign messaging for emphasis,” Jeshua adds. As an example, drawing inspiration from F1, cars with a more aerodynamic profile to accentuate speed could appeal to petrol-related brands. carching’s designs for each wrap is customised to the car.
From August to October, carching will be working with a handful local businesses and startups, including Al-Ikhsan, Kee Nguyễn, Snappea, Speedhome and Zus Coffee, to launch their Merdeka-based campaigns to empower the rakyat with an additional stream of income.
“We are glad to have the support of these brands as we share a common goal of creating accessibility for the everyday Malaysian.”
“For instance, Speedhome through its Zero Deposit scheme provides Malaysians with significant savings when renting a property. Similarly, Zus Coffee’s staggering growth is driven by a simple objective that is making artisanal coffee accessible to the masses,” Jeshua highlights.
Justin Chan who founded Snappea, the 1st pea milk brand in Asia, explains that carching’s ambitions resonated strongly with his brands’ mission.
“Like carching, we want to help create a more sustainable and healthier future for Malaysians by providing better plant-based milk option to the consumers.”
He adds that with carching’s mission of helping Malaysians, the collaboration between Snappea and carching for their #SupportLokal is the perfect way to give back to Malaysians through the carching way.
As for Al-Ikhsan Sdn. Bhd.’s Chief Executive Officer Vach Pillutla, it is carching’s business model that caught his eye.
“The concept of in-transit advertising has been around for a while and brands have seen this form of advertising as a cost-effective way to reach mass audiences.
“But we chose to explore carching’s platform because we like the fact that a significant portion of our branding investments will proceed to the individual car-owners. This in essence democratises advertising,” Vach opines.
There are more phases that carching plans to deploy and Jeshua emphasises that all the solutions will be non-disruptive to the user’s lifestyle.
“We want to relook into every aspect of a car and ask ourselves, what more can we unlock for car-owners. We aspire to help our users generate up to RM1,000 of value each month,” Jeshua says, adding that the target location for now is the Klang Valley with plans to expand into other states within the next 6 months.
“That being said, carching’s 36-month goal is to bring our tech across Southeast Asia, especially to places with high traffic and supported by a large population like Bangkok, Bandung and Jakarta. carching is confident that the idea will gain traction, especially with more brands currently looking for creative offline branding strategies to create excitement,” he adds.
Currently, carching is looking to raise RM500,000 in pre-seed funding and is part of Cradle’s MyStartup Pre-Accelerator Programme and MIH for Startups accelerator, powered by Techstars.
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