It’s that time of year again, Halloween and Bonfire have passed and all focus turns to the Christmas period. I personally love this time of year, darker nights means more comfort food, the Christmas decorations going up (earlier for me to film our Xmas ad) and just a cheerful festive environment around the workplace (it’s acceptable for Christmas songs on the radio now right?!). Not forgetting Christmas markets are back, be sure to try come visit us at one this year.

What that means for me and the team at Mak Tok is it’s time to get our creative brains out and think of our Christmas campaign for the year. After a little competition in the office and several brain storming sessions we finally come to our theme for the year. Over the coming weeks leading up to Christmas we will be running promotions, posting Xmas themed contents, giveaways and live cook-alongs all in the aim to spread Christmas spirit. The main theme this year being ‘2 Countries, 1 Flavour’.

2 Countries, 1 Flavour

This year our main focus is that flavours can bring family’s together this Christmas. It’s been a strange 2 years and I’m sure nearly everyone’s Christmas last year was a little different to normal. For me personally, It will be another Christmas where I am unable to travel home and it’s almost 3 years since I saw my family, so this campaign is one that’s very close to my heart. Will Christmas be normal in the UK this year? We all hope so.  

For numerous different reasons family’s can’t always be together on Christmas and it’s the memory’s from past Christmas’s that we treasure. For me, my memory is always food. In Malaysia, Christmas isn’t celebrated as much as over here in the UK, but we would always make sure that a large group of family got together, and indulged in a massive banquet of food. Compared to the UK we didn’t really stick to the one traditional Christmas dinner. Each family member would bring their own specialty dish and place it on a centre piece ready for everyone to help themselves.

My Special Christmas Memory

My earliest memory’s and the most special to me was always helping my Mum prep the food for Xmas day. Possibly the most important task was left to my mum as we would be making the Sambal (chilli paste) as a condiment for all the dishes! As a staple back home we take the sambal very seriously, so the pressure was always on. It would always be Christmas Eve when I would get in the kitchen with my mum and begin to prep all the ingredients from scratch. My Mum would pass me this old piece of paper which was stained with ingredients and the odd tear in it, which was our family recipe for the sambal passed down from her Grandma for me to follow. The smells and all round fun of creating something from scratch with my Mum will stick with me forever.

This Christmas

With travel still being restricted and how busy work has been this year, it means the chance to fly home to Malaysia and see family will have to be put on hold again this Christmas. I learnt last year that without the big family gathering Christmas can feel quite lonely, but doing little activities that spark memory’s was what made it special for me. Although I now have my family’s sambal in jars all over the house, I decided to make it from scratch whilst on Facetime to my Mum. The fact we will be in 2 different countries again, but united through flavours and memory’s is what fills me with happiness and festive spirit and what our campaign is based on.

Our Campaign

The campaign itself will focus on how smells and flavours from our childhood can spark such happiness. For me it’s the chilli paste, where as for most of the Mak Tok team it is the smell of the roast turkey. The fact that a specific ingredient/dish/flavour can help cure the feeling of missing someone or create happiness is what we will focus on. Christmas is all about these moments and the reason we look forward to it so much each year.

It’s also led us to look at other sub-themes such as no one should be alone at Christmas and family traditions on how to celebrate Christmas. Throughout the campaign we will be focusing on both of these as this is something both I and the team firmly believe in.