KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 30 — It was an exciting day for 25 residents at St. Mary’s Nursing Home who were paid a special visit by eight handsome gentlemen and their ‘dates’.
Dennis Yin, Varhoon Vystra, Adery Chin, Joseph Lee, Nigel Chin, Cyrus Yong, Eden See, and Ilman Hakeem were previously listed on Lazada Malaysia’s website as boyfriends-for-hire in the ‘Slash’ the Leng Chai campaign.
On their personal Instagram profiles, the boys marketed their availability and encouraged their followers to bid for them in a “reverse auction” held on the Lazada Malaysia app.
Lucky ladies who managed to ‘slash’ the price of the guys from RM8,888 down to zero were chosen to ‘take home’ a leng chai (pretty boy) for a special reunion lunch with the elderly in Taman Persiaran Desa.
They were treated to a captivating lion dance performance before tossing yee sang with the home’s residents to usher in prosperity and good luck for the Lunar New Year.
The eight couples then spent quality time getting to know the seniors and their life stories over games of mahjong, karaoke sessions, and other fun activities.
Lazada Malaysia chief marketing officer Andrew Gnananantham said that the ‘Slash’ the Leng Chai campaign provided a fun way to engage with their customers while spreading festive cheer to the residents at St. Mary’s Nursing Home.
“At Lazada, it is important for us to stay close to our consumers beyond our services as an e-commerce player. This festive season, we wanted to bring people together via our social shopping feature ‘Slash It’.
“Shoppers were able to share their Lazada experience with friends and family by helping one another to ‘slash’ the leng chai of their choice. We are also glad to be able to extend this joy to a part of our community who needs it most,” he said at the event.
‘Slash’ the Leng Chai was inspired by common questions young people often face about their personal lives during family reunions.
Lazada Malaysia offered shoppers a chance to add a ‘boyfriend’ to their cart that would give them bragging rights over the festive season and hopefully silence any nosy questions from relatives.
The campaign was met with immense popularity and prices of the rental boyfriends were quickly slashed to zero over the two-day auction period.
Boyfriends-for-hire first cropped up in countries like China and Japan where single women have turned to the service as a way of dealing with social pressures to find a partner.
