Mamee Double-Decker’s CMO on why the brand did everything a snack brand shouldn’t do

For a while, Mamee Double-Decker felt like it was doing everything right.

The company was launching campaigns, rolling out SKUs and pushing limited-edition products. Yet despite staying visible, something was missing.

“Our problem was not really the attention or media - but meaning,” said How Yuan Yi during a recent case study presentation at the Content360 Malaysia conference.

Reflecting on the brand’s evolution, How said the turning point came when she revisited her own childhood memories of rushing out after school to buy a packet of Mamee Monster. The challenge, however, was that younger consumers today never had those same formative experiences with the brand.

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“The question then became: How do we make people feel something they have never experienced before?” she said.

According to How, the answer was not to recreate the past, but to make nostalgia feel culturally relevant in the present.

“The reason why the younger generation are still engaging with Mamee, is because they are not searching for the past, but for something that feels real in today’s fast-moving environment,” she explained.

Breaking the playbook

That shift in thinking led the brand to abandon conventional marketing approaches.

“We stopped following the playbook,” said How, adding that the team intentionally moved away from asking what new products to launch, and instead focused on how the brand can become something that “belonged” to the people.

The strategy initially felt risky. The company launched products that intentionally broke category conventions, including turning the iconic yellow Mamee packaging black.

In October 2025, in a colorful collision of fashion and nostalgia, Mamee Monster teamed up with Christy Ng for a new line of bags celebrating childhood memories and local culture.

The collection spotlighted the beloved “Monster” mascot and transforms it into trendy, functional accessories that are as playful as they are wearable.

“We did almost everything a snack brand shouldn’t do at that point in time,” she said. “However, those moments were exactly when people started talking about us, and we realised that when we broke the rules, our brand came alive.”

Monster, the influencer

Central to that transformation was repositioning the beloved Monster character, from a static mascot, into what How described as a personality that reacts to culture.

“We turned Monster into an influencer, not a mascot, but someone that has a personality, and someone that reacts to trends, and someone that joins conversation,” she said.

The character began responding to real-world moments and internet culture, from Covid-era jokes about overgrown hair to playful commentary on trends and pop culture moments.

More recently, in April, the iconic blue furry Monster appeared as a music video star alongside Iman Alyssa (@imantroye) in the brand’s latest “Crunchy” track, created to promote Mamee Monster’s new limited-edition onion flavour.

For How, the goal was never perfection.

“Belonging is not true perfection, because we realised that people do not talk about something that is better, but people talk about something that is different enough to be questioned,” she explained.

Beyond products, the brand also expanded into collaborations, customised merchandise and creator-led content.

The broader aim, said How, was to stop treating the brand as something owned solely by marketers.

“Participation is when people stop looking at you as just a brand, and start owning the brand to make it their own,” she said.

Ultimately, How believes nostalgia marketing today is less about reliving history and more about emotional connection.

“Nostalgia today is not about memory, it is really about belonging,” she added.


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