But one Proton salesman has found an unexpected way to stand out – by selling cars entirely in Arabic.
With his smooth delivery, videos by Muhammad Zainul Arieff Noor Azlan shared via his account @zaynproton have gone viral online, with some social media users initially mistaking his clips for religious sermons or prayer recitations.
In actuality, the 27-year-old is talking about Proton models and their features, from dashboards to sport rims.
The sales advisor at a dealership in Setapak said the idea came after he realised his Malay-language content was struggling to gain traction.
“When I first started at Proton, I was creating the same type of content as everyone else,” he told Bernama. “I thought, if everyone is making similar videos, how are people going to remember me?”
Hoping to create something different, he decided to revisit the Arabic he had learnt years earlier while studying at Darul Musthofa, an Islamic-studies institution in Yemen.
Although he admitted he is no longer fully fluent and had to relearn some vocabulary, the gamble quickly paid off.
“I was shocked by the number of notifications coming in after uploading my first Arabic video,” he shared. “That’s when I realised people really enjoyed the uniqueness of it.”
Some of his videos have since surpassed 500,000 views. Part of the appeal, he posited, comes from viewers trying to figure out what exactly they are watching.
“Many people initially didn’t realise I was promoting cars because they couldn’t understand me,” he said with a laugh.
As requests for Malay subtitles poured in, Zainul began incorporating translations while casually introducing automotive terms in Arabic to viewers. Among the words he has translated are “sport rim”, “dashboard” and “engine bonnet”.
After returning from Yemen in 2021, Zainul worked various jobs including as a Quran teacher, Grab driver, barista, and livestream host before entering the automotive industry.
He believes those experiences helped build his confidence and willingness to experiment creatively, even if it has meant filming content with nothing more than a smartphone and tripod.
And although he has only been with Proton for about a month, his unconventional strategy is already showing results, with potential customers reaching out to him directly after watching his videos.