The Campaign

Every year, SingTel hosts an internal CSR initiative called Project Less, to raise awareness and urge staff to use less paper, water, electricity and to recycle. In the past, posters were the main communication tools used, however, they didn’t capture attention or engage staff in any way. So, on a tiny budget, our strategy was to use an untraditional approach. We decided to show staff just how much they throw away, by collecting SingTel’s own waste (paper, e-waste & other recyclables) and creating eco-sculptures. For this, we enlisted the help from first year students at Temasek Polytechnic. During the creation process we seeded ‘making of’ videos of the students’ views on the issues, thoughts on the brief and their answers to the problem on SingTel’s social hub and online to build anticipation. In the end, 50 eco-sculptures were created making the medium the message. Of those, 25 were displayed throughout several SingTel offices exposing all 13,000+ staffers to the issue, raising awareness levels dramatically. Yet, it didn’t end there. Countless numbers of SingTel customers who visited the CommCentre daily were also exposed to our sculptures as well as those who viewed the online videos.

The Brief

The goal of this campaign was to raise awareness levels of Project LESS amongst SingTel’s 13,000+ staff. By raising awareness, SingTel hoped they would be able to convince employees to make small changes in their daily habits with an end result of using less.

Results

The final results were a resounding success. By creating and displaying the eco-sculptures, instead of posters, the medium became the message and awareness levels internally increased dramatically. Also, by using the voices of Polytechnic students it didn’t feel like the corporation was preaching to its staff – the importance of the issue became more potent. In the end, 13,000+ staffers voted for the three sculptures they felt best conveyed our message of using less. However, since the sculptures were on display in several offices around town, our message was also seen by countless numbers of SingTel customers. When you add the hundreds of students who participated in the project and their peers, along with viewers of our online videos, awareness of our campaign reached far beyond expectations.

Execution

Our first step was getting cooperation from Temasek Polytechnic to have their students participate. After eagerly coming onboard, they even rearranged their curriculum to accommodate the eco-sculptures as a final project. A brief was then given to students with instructions to use only the materials provided. SingTel contributed 200kgs of paper waste, 120kgs of e-waste (mobile phones/computer parts) and other recyclables to the students. The 250 students created 50 incredibly powerful sculptures. Throughout the creation process, ‘making of’ videos of their thoughts on the brief and views of the issue were seeded on SingTel’s social hub and online. In the end, SingTel’s Social Responsibility Department selected 25 eco-sculptures to display in several SingTel offices, with the intention of having all 13,000+ employees vote for the top three

The Situation

The SingTel Group is Asia’s leading communications network, providing a wide spectrum of multimedia and infocomms technology solutions to over 445 million customers globally. The Group employs more than 23,000 staff worldwide and has offices throughout Asia Pacific, Europe and the USA. Every year, SingTel hosts an internal CSR initiative called Project Less, to raise awareness and urge staff to use less paper, water and electricity, and to recycle. In the past, posters were the main communication tools used. Problem was, they didn’t capture attention or engage their employees.

The Strategy

Our strategy for this campaign was to take an untraditional approach to the problem. Instead of doing what was done in the past and simply telling employees to use less, we decided it would be more effective to show them. So, with a very small budget, we did just that by making employees aware of just how much they throw away, by turning SingTel’s own paper waste, e-waste & other recyclables into eco-sculptures. To create these sculptures, we enlisted the help of tomorrow’s generation- the generation that would eventually inherit the very issues we were attempting to stop. First year students from the School of Design at Temasek Polytechnic were briefed to help convey our message of using less, using the waste collected from SingTel.