Not So Regular: From TikTok Phenomenon to a Boost in Sales

By: Michelle Liew

From just a short two-second video saying, "biasa, biasa maksudnya? (regular, regular meaning?)” who would have thought it would bring luck to the pisang goreng seller, Abdul Adib Aidil.

The line has now become an 'extraordinary' phenomenon on the TikTok social site where many were eager to follow up the video by 'stitching' their own responses to react to the 24-year-old's line.

Not only did the reactions increase their number of followers on social media, the impact of the short video also increased sales of Banana Dibs, something which he has been working on for the past two years.

Sharing with Astro Awani, the youngest of the three brothers said, he did not think that the viral video would be able to attract many customers to come and buy his product that was being made in Kajang.

Since it went viral last Saturday, Abdul Adib said that his pisang goreng cheese sales have doubled, from 30 kilograms (kg) of bananas to almost 70kg a day.

Even more exciting, the pisang goreng was sold out in less than three hours.

"I have a staff of three people, including me. Before, we would have one customer every two hours, it was slow. Now, suddenly sales have exploded and we were surprised.

"Since the last five or six months I've been in business, people have started coming less often. I really feel very depressed, even with (regular) work I can't get by.

"So, my plan this year is to try to grow the business, because I started this business two years ago, but nothing has changed.

"That's why I focused on doing 'live' on TikTok and Alhamdulillah after that sales started to increase," he stated.

In addition to sales, Abdul Adib said that he received offers as ambassadors and clothing models from certain parties.

Speaking further, Abdul Adib said that he started the Banana Dibs business after graduating from the Malaysian Flying Academy, Melaka in August 2020.

At that time, an offer as a pilot in a leading national airline had to be postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, armed with assistance of RM500 allocated by the government at the time, the young man started a pisang goreng cheese business in front of his family's eatery.

"Originally in 2020 I was studying in Melaka, and I like to eat pisang goreng with cheese... almost every month I will buy them.

"During the time of COVID-19, I received RM500 in aid from the government and I used 100 percent of it for this cheese-fried banana business. In terms of the place of business, I did take over the family shop.

"But with the help of the RM500, I made capital to buy bananas. Alhamdulillah, today the capital is getting bigger," he added.

Apart from the crunchiness, Abdul Adib added, one of the specialties of his pisang goreng is that they are fried in the size of 'popcorn' and use jackfruit bananas because they taste sweeter.