Results and Effectiveness

The results were astounding! Within hours of launching the outdoor campaign, we received a barrage of responses from the public. The Health Promotion Board Health PhoneLine and mailbox were inundated with calls and emails on the campaign. "Stop The Horror With Soap & Water" was the talk of the town during the campaign run. Newspapers ran reports on the campaign and readers passionately debated about it in the forums pages. The cyber frontier was abuzz with banter on views and feedback on the campaign. The word-of-mouth generated on the social media networks was infectious, pun intended.

Creative Execution

A visually impactful message was crafted and broadcasted through mass-congregation areas like bus interchanges, and train stations. Another layer of coverage was via bus stop posters which blanketed roads all across the island, reaching out to drivers and pedestrians. The message was delivered in 4 languages (English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil) to engage our multi-racial society. On top of that, nothing beats delivering the message at the point of behavior adoption. This is where we leveraged on toilet advertising to enhance our efforts. All aspects of the public transport channels carried our message. Whether it was the vehicles (buses, trains and taxis) that transported Singaporeans or the locations where they awaited for their transport (bus interchanges, train stations and bus stops). For the toilets, the message was creatively imbued onto the mirrors, cubicles and urinals of major shopping centres, bus interchanges, train stations and hawker centres.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

In April 2009, the H1N1 flu outbreak took the world by storm and Singapore was not spared. The Ministry of Health declared a national health crisis and there was a compelling need to educate Singaporeans on the importance of personal hygiene as the first line of defence against the virus invasion. We need to get to all Singaporeans fast before the virus does! Our media strategy was to inoculate the community with the message in a speedy manner. The very nature of Singapore’s population distribution meant: 1. The HDB heartland and it’s satellite towns are congregation points for majority of the population. 2. Within each satellite town, transportation networks are designed in an outward concentric manner, resulting in pockets of high density at the heart of each estate. Various facts and findings directed us towards Singaporeans commuting habits as a crucial leverage to achieve our goals.