From "Kecik" To "Ka-Chingg"
Since 2016, Laparpo Production has been producing digital content on YouTube. They are now among one of the known honest food reviewers among Malaysians. The production started their journey aiming to introduce traditional Penang gastronomy to both local and international tourists. In the beginning, the production was made up of only three people who were willing to hop on the bandwagon, namely Abu Mamu, Man Belon and a hired cameraman. Abu, an Alumni of School of Art, in Universiti Sains Malaysia befriended Man Belon since their schooling days. They then launched their own restaurant, Laparpo Café in Georgetown succesfully. FOMO team checked out the place, sampled the dishes and they did not disappoint. Their specialty and highlight of their menu is their Cheesy Char Kuey Teow. It was inspiring to see the growth of their small team of three, strive and manage to open up their own café using the funds from doing food reviews within the short span three years.
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Today, the growing production is manned by team comprising of 15 including hosts and video editor, a team of managers and marketing departments as well as an accountant. Laparpo’s Business Development Manager, Mohamad Fazril Izzuan says that the original purpose was to introduce Penang street food to both local and international tourists, as they would usually go for commercial food as their first choice. “If you happen to search for restaurants in Google, more well-known shops will appear in the recommendations, when there are actually plenty more stalls and shops that serve local delicacies at a much cheaper range.
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After three years of doing food reviews around Penang, Laparpo stepped up its game in digital content by exploring delicacies and cultures from other regions. “Content wise, we have explored around 90% of delicacies in Penang. It is about time for us to explore the other region's delicacies. From our last experience in Negeri Sembilan, our content on Nasi Kandar received positive feedback from our viewers. In fact, some of the locals also acknowledged the place as one of the best Nasi Kandar in Negeri Sembilan”, says Fazril.
Laparpo Team had started out vlogging by reviewing food. They use Youtube as their main platform for video posting.
Known for giving honest reviews on their Food Polize segment, Laparpo Production became the first food reviewer among Malaysian YouTubers to be invited to TV3 to be featured in Malaysia Hari Ini segment. “Previously, our reviews has always been positive until we decided to start being blunt in our food reviews, by featuring McDonalds and other famous restaurants”, says Fazril. He also stated that their intention was not to bring down the restaurant’s reputation, but instead to improve the quality of the food. As well as to ensure that food is truly worth every cent of its price.
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On average, the production produces 15 to 20 digital content monthly, with each content garnering an average of 80,000 to 100,000 viewers. “We earn our revenue from YouTube through the number of views per vlog. That includes advertisements for corporate companies such as SIRIM, Digi, and Ministry of Health, Malaysia,” says Fazril.
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In addition to that, there are also restaurants and big companies that would pay the company to review them. “However, most of our reviews are not based on paid invitations like this, but mainly to promote local merchants and fare to the viewers,” Fazril clarified.
Laparpo Team is the first food reviewer among Malaysian YouTubers to be invited to TV3 to be featured in Malaysia Hari Ini segment.
Fazril also emphasized that subscribers are not just important to Laparpo, but to every other Youtuber as well. “The higher the number of subscribers, the higher the tendency for users to view your content. On top of that, collaborating with other vloggers will indirectly help to increase the channel’s views,” he said. Laparpo have collaborated with other local vloggers such as Kchup, ASMR Syedot, Fendi Kitchen, Abam Bocey and Delimawati in the past, just to name a few.
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Today, the production boasts a total of 72,500 subscribers and a total of over 8,000,000 views. With such a large number of subscribers, Fazril believes that they need to keep up with the current trends to maintain their viewers. In addition to their main segment, Food Polize, there have introduced other segments such as the First Club, Good Items Popcorn Time and their latest, Social Experiment.
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Regarding their plans on the future, Fazril hopes that Laparpo Production could expand their focus from their food review cocoon as of now. That is partly because they want to be versatile in terms of digital content, and not to be caught up in creating food reviews only. “The public these days do not even know what they want to see in their content, and as vloggers we really need to be versatile and religiously improve our content all the time. If the content fits the public’s taste, then it will fit the trend”, says Fazril.
