RHB Group's 'Wealth' film, created by FCB Shout and released in Malaysia on 15 January 2025, redefines prosperity as legacy through the true story of Tan Swee
RHB Group Reframes Prosperity for Chinese New Year 2025
RHB Group's 'Wealth' is a five-minute film released on 15 January 2025 in Malaysia, created by FCB Shout, that reframes prosperity as the enduring legacy of meaningful actions and relationships rather than material ownership, using the true story of a Penang nursing home founder to anchor the message ahead of Chinese New Year on 29 January 2025.
The campaign centres on Tan Swee Ban, the founder of Peace and Harmony Home, a not-for-profit senior-care centre in Penang, Malaysia. Tan's story — defined by sacrifices of career, property, time, and personal comfort in service of elderly residents — becomes the vehicle through which RHB Group articulates a philosophy of wealth that reaches beyond the balance sheet. The campaign's hashtag, #TogetherWeProgress, reinforces the brand's positioning as a partner in long-term human flourishing rather than a transactional financial institution.
Strategically, the film exploits the cultural weight of Chinese New Year, a festival in Malaysia and across the region that carries deep associations with family reunion, filial piety, and the honouring of legacy. By grounding its message in a verifiable true story set in Penang, the campaign earns emotional authenticity that purely fictional narratives cannot replicate. The Finance and Health industries converge in the film's thematic architecture, with RHB Group positioning itself as a brand attuned to holistic well-being, not merely financial products. The film was distributed across RHB Bank's social and digital channels, extending its reach to a digitally active Malaysian audience during one of the highest-engagement periods of the cultural calendar. Clapboard Score for this campaign stands at 78 out of 100, reflecting strong narrative craft and cultural resonance.
RHB Group deploys a documentary-style true story to close the emotional distance between a banking brand and its customers. The strategic logic is precise: Chinese New Year in Malaysia is not simply a consumer moment but a period of heightened reflection on family, inheritance, and the meaning of a life well-lived. By anchoring the campaign's definition of wealth in legacy rather than accumulation, RHB Group speaks directly to the values that animate the festival, rather than merely decorating its advertising with seasonal iconography.
In Malaysia, the competitive banking landscape is concentrated. According to Kenanga Research, the six largest Malaysian banking groups account for approximately 70 percent of system loans, with Maybank holding approximately 18.7 percent of domestic market share, Public Bank at 17.8 percent, and CIMB Group at 12.1 to 12.2 percent, also per Kenanga Research. RHB Group holds an estimated share in the range of 6 to 9 percent of system loans, according to the same source. Against larger competitors such as Maybank and CIMB Group, which possess both greater scale and higher brand recall, RHB Group's recurring investment in emotionally ambitious film content represents a deliberate strategy to compete on values-led differentiation rather than product parity.
Abdul Sani Abdul Murad, Chief Marketing Officer of RHB Group, offered perspective on the campaign's intent, as reported by MarTech-APAC on 21 January 2025, framing the film as an expression of the brand's belief that genuine prosperity encompasses more than financial assets. This positioning extends the logic of RHB Group's 2022 film 'The Extra Mile', released with FCB Shout, which dramatised the true story of two RHB employees who travelled 140 kilometres from Kuala Kangsar to Gerik during the pandemic to assist a bedridden customer, as documented by Marketing Interactive. The throughline across both campaigns is consistent: RHB Group builds brand equity by narrating the human actions that give financial relationships their meaning in the Malaysian market.
Dick Chua directed the film, working with production company D Moving Pictures to translate Tan Swee Ban's true story into a cinematic narrative that resists the conventions of seasonal banking advertising. Director of Photography C L Wong shaped the visual language of the piece, and producer Jocny Lai oversaw the production, according to credits documented by Branding in Asia.
Wang Ie Tjer, Executive Creative Director at FCB Shout, spoke to the emotional core of the campaign in comments reported by Branding in Asia on 3 December 2025. The decision to root the campaign's definition of wealth in a living subject — a founder still operating her nursing centre in Penang — rather than in composite or fictional characters, is the creative choice that gives the film its moral weight. Tan Swee Ban's sacrifices function not as metaphor but as documented fact, lending the campaign a credibility that scripted drama cannot manufacture.
Music, sound design, and composition were handled by GT Records, with Ram Nabil Chia serving as Executive Producer and Anand Shashidharan as Producer at GT Records. Shaktyvel Neelamekan served as sound engineer. The audio architecture of the film is significant: for a piece that depends on intimate testimony and quiet revelation, the relationship between silence, ambient sound, and score is load-bearing rather than decorative. Shaun Tay, co-founder of The SHOUT Group, was among the agency leadership credited to the campaign, per Branding in Asia.
The film runs to five minutes, a duration that is atypical for digital-first advertising in the Malaysian banking category and reflects the creative team's confidence that the subject matter can sustain attention without compression. The choice to pursue length over brevity is a strategic creative decision, signalling that the campaign is designed for depth of engagement rather than frequency of impression. Distributed across RHB Bank's social and digital channels, the film's format is calibrated for an audience that self-selects into longer content during a culturally significant season.
The 'Wealth' film generated measurable and significant audience response in the Malaysian market. According to Marketing Interactive, citing an FCB Shout statement, the five-minute film exceeded 7.2 million views and 24,000 likes across social channels within four days of release. For a banking brand operating in a market where the six largest groups account for approximately 70 percent of system loans, per Kenanga Research, that level of organic engagement within such a compressed window represents a meaningful outcome for a brand in RHB Group's market position.
Campaign Asia published a positive editorial review of the film on 24 January 2025, noting the true story of Tan Swee Ban and the Peace and Harmony Home in Penang as the narrative foundation of the campaign. Editorial recognition from Campaign Asia, a primary trade publication for the Asia-Pacific advertising industry, adds a layer of professional validation that paid-media metrics alone cannot supply.
No formal awards data for the 'Wealth' campaign is publicly available at the time of this analysis. The structural effectiveness of the campaign, however, is legible in its mechanics. A verifiable true story, a culturally resonant occasion, a production team with documentary discipline, and a distribution window timed to peak cultural engagement in Malaysia collectively produce conditions for high-quality earned attention. The campaign also extends and deepens a creative lineage established by 'The Extra Mile' in 2022, reinforcing RHB Group's brand consistency over time rather than relying on a single viral moment. The Clapboard Score of 78 out of 100 reflects this combination of narrative integrity, strategic clarity, and demonstrable audience impact within the Malaysian banking category.
RHB Group's 'Wealth' is a five-minute film released in Malaysia on 15 January 2025, created by FCB Shout. It tells the true story of Tan Swee Ban, founder of Peace and Harmony Home in Penang, to argue that true prosperity lies in the legacy created through meaningful actions and relationships rather than material ownership.
Dick Chua directed the 'Wealth' film for RHB Group, with D Moving Pictures serving as production company. FCB Shout created the campaign, with Wang Ie Tjer as Executive Creative Director. C L Wong served as Director of Photography and Jocny Lai as producer, as documented by Branding in Asia.
The 'Wealth' film exceeded 7.2 million views and 24,000 likes across social channels within four days of its release, according to Marketing Interactive, citing an FCB Shout statement. The film was distributed across RHB Bank's social and digital channels in Malaysia, launching ahead of Chinese New Year on 29 January 2025.
RHB Group grounded the 'Wealth' campaign in Tan Swee Ban's verified real-life story to earn emotional authenticity unavailable to fictional narratives. The approach also extends the brand's established creative strategy, built with FCB Shout since at least the 2022 film 'The Extra Mile', of using documented human actions to define RHB's values in the Malaysian market.
RHB Group holds an estimated 6 to 9 percent of Malaysian system loans, according to Kenanga Research, competing against larger rivals including Maybank and CIMB Group. The 'Wealth' campaign pursues values-led differentiation through long-form emotional storytelling rather than product messaging, a strategy designed to build brand depth in a concentrated competitive market.
The RHB Group 'Wealth' campaign receives a Clapboard Score of 78 out of 100. This reflects strong narrative integrity, cultural alignment with Chinese New Year in Malaysia, and demonstrable audience impact, balanced against the absence of formal awards recognition for the campaign at the time of this analysis.
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