KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 7 — The net is heating up as the conflict in the Middle East continues. Support is coming in from all sides, for both sides. Big-name brands around the world, as well as big-name celebrities, weigh in to give either side their support for credence — or maybe just clout.

Here in Malaysia, choosing sides can be a thorny issue — especially if you are a global brand. This is what happened to Asus Malaysia, after Asus Israel pledged support to the IDF in a social media posting.

A content creator under the account AzyanDraws shared a post on X, previously known as Twitter, where she demanded a post made by Asus Israel to be taken down. She tagged Asus Malaysia on Instagram, saying as an endorser for Asus’ creative programme, she is “truly disappointed and disgusted with the post made by @Asusisrael.”

She also said that the post by the Israeli branch does not reflect the company’s professionalism and demanded that the support post be taken down.

Her original post gained 300.8K views as of 6 November 2023.

Asus Malaysia responds to her original post

About one day later, she posted an update where a local marketing representative from Asus Malaysia DMed her. In the messages, which she shared on her account, the Asus Malaysia team is aware of her post, and they understand the severity of the situation on the global stage.

The team also is in the midst of working closely with their HQ in Taiwan to solve this. Asus Malaysia reiterates that they are only managing Malaysian content and are not linked to any other branches globally.

It ended with no admonition or requests for AzyanDraws to take down any posts on her side, which is great for the account owner.

This shows that while global brands are, well, global, the local offices are still autonomous enough to set their own tone and language of the content posted on any social media platform. The brands are representing themselves locally via the local office, but it is the local people who set the tone for content. However, as a global brand, Asus can dictate the communications for each market and can instruct them to take down posts that don’t align with their values

Asus Malaysia is not the only one affected

McDonald’s Malaysia was in the same boat recently as McDonalds Israel posted support for the IDF, and because of that, boycott chants started appearing online against McDonalds in Malaysia. The Malaysian team replied with a statement saying that the Malaysian Franchise is fully local and is not beholden to the franchise holder, nor it is echoing what the Israeli franchise is saying online.

The same thing happened to Grab as the wife of the CEO shared her admiration towards Israel, and shared their family holiday photos on social media. This has the effect of an immediate response by loyal Grab users who shared their intention to boycott Grab. The company then issued a statement that they are not picking any sides, and in fact they are donating RM1 million to Mercy Malaysia for their cause in Gaza.

In this tumultuous times, companies will need to thread carefully as brands can be targets for boycott, even if they are only tangentially related to the other branch that uttered the statement. Asus Malaysia is lucky that they managed to contain everything in a swift manner. It need to be seen if any other global brands in Malaysia will take note and learn to seize the moment before they are thrown to the pit of boycott. — SoyaCincau