Results and Effectiveness

With a 100% engagement rate, the message by the Samaritans reached out to everyone and anyone, making it far more effective than traditional media. In just two months, a total of 141,840 tones became our message worth $1.4 million in media space. The Samaritans raised 17 times the donations they received the same time last year and a 450% increase in the number of volunteer enquiries. For two consecutive months, SOS' message was the most downloaded tone of the month. All that without having to spend a single cent on media.

Creative Execution

StarHub decided to turn to its biggest asset – 2.5 million mobile subscribers, and turn them into messengers of good. Introducing Donate-A-Tone: A non-profit innovation that lets you turn your ringback tone into a message by SOS. Utilizing a previously unused media channel that taps into Singapore's largest mobile network, StarHub users can now help SOS spread their message. On top of that, callers listening to the message can also adopt it and make it their own, thus helping to amplify SOS' call for volunteers and donations. In this case, the medium truly is the message.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

StarHub is one of Singapore's largest mobile carriers. Every year, StarHub does its part for society by raising money and calling for volunteers on behalf of its adopted charity, the Samaritans of Singapore (SOS) – Singapore's only 24-hour suicide prevention hotline. Unfortunately, media space is limited and costly, and there is only so much time and money that StarHub can give. Therefore the brief was to help the Samaritans without spending more money. StarHub found that the average caller makes 6 calls a day and spends 6.2 seconds waiting for his call to be answered. So a population of 2.5 million mobile users will spend a total of 25,000 hours listening to ringback tones each day. How can StarHub harness the power of the ubiquitous ringback tone and turn it into a tool that helps raise awareness for SOS?