Some may have wondered why the heck I titled this short article as “Tudung Ekin”. It is actually a Malay phrase for hijab which is a head cover or head scarf worn by Muslim women all over the world. “Tudung” in this case is referring to hijab while the word “Ekin” is referring to one of the famous actresses in Malaysia. I am not here to tell you a story about a tudung belongs to that actress but rather a story of why Tudung Ekin is so popular in my beloved country Malaysia.

First of all let me tell you why is Tudung Ekin so popular in Malaysia. “Tudung Ekin” is actually referring to one type of tudung which is formerly known as “tudung awning”. The tudung has two parts; the outer part which makes up the whole body and the inner part which stands out a bit above the forehead. Due to its purpose of shading the forehead, it creates an awning-like shape and thus the name tudung awning. However, the tudung did not receive much popularity when it was first distributed in the market.

Ekin who I mentioned earlier was not that popular long time ago when she starred in few TV shows. At those times, she didn’t wear any tudung or hijab. However, when she was spotted dating with the most popular reality show singer in Malaysia, Mawi, she began to be noticed by a lot of people. Just for your information, Mawi was popular due to his wonderful voice as well as his down-to-earth personality. Apart from that, he is also popular since he is also a religious person. Many had criticized when he dated Ekin since Ekin did not wear tudung; in which situation contradicted with his personality.

After few months dating, Ekin had created a stir in Malaysia’s entertainment world by appearing in public with tudung. Coincidently, she chose the so called “tudung ekin” and somehow she looks nice and sweet with the tudung. Pictures and images of her wearing the tudung has been distributed all over the net and newspapers including entertainment magazines and eventually women flocked to garment stores to find that tudung. Unfortunately, they had no idea what does tudung called, so they only refer to it as the one worn by Ekin. From there on, tudung sellers began tagging the tudung as Tudung Ekin to make it easier for people to find it and on the other hand they could gain more profit by promoting the tudung.

The moral of the story is, well, if you do have a product to sell and named it as something unique, you might not be able to sell it efficiently. If the product is something so useful, then perhaps you won’t have to do much since the product sells itself. However, if the product is something common in the market and can easily be found, you might not be able to sell it since there are too many competitions. In this case, you have to use another marketing strategy to defeat your competitors. You have to promote it in a way that people could easily notice. For instance, you can use celebrities to promote your product either by signing contract with them to be your product ambassadors or just acting in one of your product advertisements.

In Tudung Ekin case,  the original creator has no intention of popularizing the tudung using celebrities. It was merely a coincidence when Ekin chose that tudung to wear. In other words, tudung Ekin gains instant popularity by mistake. However it does approve one thing where celebrities could create some trend in fashion whenever they appear in public with anything they wore or anything they used. If you are a serious marketer and you do have some budget, this might be your best bet to promote your product. It doesn’t matter if your product is crappy as long as you know how to market it properly. Many products out there are crappy products yet the sales are high and people keep on demanding them.