Time sold 2Gbps broadband as life's shortcuts, not speed numbers

In 2021 Time Internet launched its all-fibre network under the platform 'Kabel Besar', local slang that connotes both strong internet speed and the powerful connections one needs to get ahead in life. By late 2022, with a new 2Gbps home plan to sell, agency Fishermen Integrated faced a harder audience: a generation raised on shortcuts, wanting everything fast, easy and instant.

The answer was to make 2Gbps mean 'the advantage of staying ahead'. A hero film brought back the well-connected spokesperson Datuk Papa, who with Time's 2Gbps cuts his already-short shortcuts even shorter. The idea then spread nationwide through hyper-contextualised billboards, vogons, 6-second bumpers and creator tie-ins, landing the brand's irreverent challenger persona alongside a full brand refresh in October 2022.

The campaign took the Creative Effectiveness Kancil at the Kancil Awards 2023, Malaysia's premier creative awards, where the jury chair praised work that rebooted festive tropes and turned product demos into culture. Time kept the Kabel Besar platform running for years afterward, extending it into satirical festive films fronted by a 'Dato KB' character.

Sell the shortcut, not the megabits

A native double meaning ('big cable' / 'big connection') let one phrase carry product truth and life truth at once.

Casting a 'well-connected' spokesperson personified an abstract network spec as a social advantage everyone understands.

Hyper-contextual billboards made the shortcut joke about the viewer's own street and routine, not about fibre optics.

Customers don't buy speed, they buy what speed lets them skip. A local double meaning can carry an entire value proposition further than a spec sheet.

The work won the Creative Effectiveness Kancil at the Kancil Awards 2023 (plus a Silver for best film-led integrated campaign). Time continued the platform: an 'infiltration' broadband campaign with Fishermen followed in 2023, and the Kabel Besar character universe was still fronting Time's satirical Raya films in 2025.