The Campaign

In Singapore, apart from the regulatory guidelines by Media Development Authority (that safeguards the young from undesirable materials) and the Film Censorship regulations, there are no guidelines pertaining to branded entertainment.

Results

Challenge: The drastic change in media consumption trends particularly by the increase in computer, tablet and smartphone usage led to a decline in circulation and advertising revenue for Singapore Press Holdings (SPH). As Asia’s leading media powerhouse, SPH has evolved from a print company to a multimedia conglomerate to stay relevant. The challenge is to showcase the efficacy of their integrated multimedia solutions to both agencies and advertisers. As an organisation, SPH has also lost affinity with Singaporeans due to its perceived pro-government editorial. Objective: How do we demonstrate the power of its integrated multimedia platforms to advertisers and reconnect Singaporeans with SPH? Strategy: Leveraging on SPH’s 30th anniversary, we invited Stephen Wiltshire, an autistic savant and world-renowned architectural artist, to draw our Singapore skyline from memory on a 4-metre long canvas in full view of a LIVE audience over a period of 5 days. The event also exhibited his past works, his inspiring story and achievements. We launched the integrated campaign using SPH owned media platforms over 3 phases: Teaser, Reveal and Countdown. Paragon, a property under SPH Reit, was the host venue and SPHRazor, the production arm, covered the event. This presented a rare opportunity for a case study to showcase the power of SPH’s multimedia platforms to advertisers. One week prior to launch, we rolled out the Teaser phase through press, outdoor, online and mobile media platforms driving consumers to the campaign microsite housed under AsiaOne (another SPH digital portal). Facebook, Instagram and Twitter were used to seed information and facilitate conversations. For Reveal and Countdown, a clever mix of SPH owned media channels were employed along with radio spots and live roving reports via SPH owned radio stations (HotFM 91.3, UFM 100.3FM and Kiss 92). SPH newsstands, the Buzz Kiosks, were deployed to raise awareness.

To pique the curiosities of Singaporeans and draw their attention to the campaign, a unique and proprietary content was needed to create that ‘wow’ factor. Stephen Wiltshire, an autistic savant and world-renowned architectural artist, was invited to draw the Singapore skyline from memory in full view of a Live audience in a weeklong live drawing event at Paragon. The very nature of the content entertained the audiences’ sense of wonder and excited their imagination with almost 150,000 people visiting the 5-day Live Drawing event at Paragon along with ministers, dignitaries and even the President of Singapore.

Awareness was phenomenal. Almost 150,000 people were present over five days to witness the Live Drawing at Paragon. Even ministers, dignitaries and the President of Singapore graced the event. The campaign generated 80 million media impressions with only S$1.8million media spend. It also garnered over 4.5 million Facebook impressions and elicited 99% positive comments on the event and the brand. This is a great showcase of how an integrated campaign can have a social impact across multiple media platforms. The largest Live Drawing event in the history of Singapore, it even created a world’s first with our President Tony Tan being the first ever to ink on a Stephen Wiltshire panorama. Beyond the key objectives, the campaign benchmarked SPH as an inclusive responsible corporation, demonstrating its ethos to foster community spirit by rallying Singaporeans to participate and support this phenomenal gift to the nation’s 50th birthday in 2015. Pathlight (first autism-focused school) was appointed official curator for prints and merchandise of the event for fund raising purposes. Inspirational, relatable and emotional, the campaign reconnected Singaporeans with SPH and showcased how SPH’s multimedia platforms can give advertisers great reach and awareness.