The Campaign

We had the seemingly impossible task of engaging a diverse audience, from late millennials to baby boomers, and jolting them out of complacency. Because Singaporeans love complaining to authorities to solve their problems, we decided to use an unexpected voice of authority. Justice Bao. He is a fictional judge in Chinese history, known for his extreme no-nonsense attitude. He is also a household name in Singapore, due to his 1990s television series, popular amongst all ages. Now, he needed a catchphrase. We used a popular Singaporean phrase “You Think, I Thought, Who Confirm!?”, which is a sarcastic retort to someone with a flippant attitude, and is fond of saying “I think” this and “I thought” that. For him, it was a retort to travellers’ flippant attitudes. The fiery catchphrase and Justice Bao’s fearsome demeanour was the perfect way to appeal to all Singaporeans, and show them ‘tough love’.

Creative Execution

To evoke nostalgia and achieve high impact, we knew we had to use original Justice Bao TV footage. We worked for weeks to negotiate with Chinese Television System (CTS) for the rights. Upon successful negotiation, we hunted for suitable footage. Instead of merely re-cutting footage, we reimagined the courtroom scenes by hilariously re-dubbing the dialogue in Singaporean English. Each video depicted a different unpleasant situation that travellers might face when they are unprotected by travel insurance. Justice Bao would retort sarcastically at their flippant attitude with the “You Think, I Thought, Who Confirm!?” catchphrase. The content was unexpectedly humorous because it took original scenes out of context, and turned serious drama into comedy. With its high shareability, we launched the videos on Facebook, the most used social platform in Singapore, then retargeted audiences with a Facebook Canvas that educated them with actionable tips and advice.

Results

Justice Bao raised awareness of the importance of travel insurance, delivering 17,949,337 impressions, 2.03X our target KPI. The videos reached 2,569,416 unique audiences on social media, equivalent to 54.7% of Singapore’s digital population, with 17.1% engagement rate, exceeding industry benchmark by 7.6X. Notably, our influencer partner SGAG (Singapore's meme community) chose not to 'jazz up' our videos and instead uploaded them untouched, which spoke of their natural appeal to the meme generation. It became their best performing organic content (16.2% engagement). Most importantly, the campaign increased consideration amongst Singaporeans to buy travel insurance, with 6X traffic on STB's travel precautions site and 17% increase in time spent. It created a halo-effect on the industry, with businesses in travel and insurance appropriating our content. Beyond the campaign, it positively impacted brand sentiments towards Singapore Tourism Board. Many praised the government body for stepping out of its comfort zone by embracing humour.

Travel insurance is a boring topic no one talks about. However, this is a story of how Singapore Tourism Board made it part of popular culture through an unexpected ambassador – 1990s television icon Justice Bao. We re-cut his old TV footage using Singaporean humour, turning a serious drama into outrageous educational videos about travel insurance. The campaign achieved 2,569,416 unique audiences on social media (54.7% of Singapore’s digital population) and 17.9 million impressions. It increased consideration amongst Singaporeans to buy travel insurance with 6X traffic on STB's travel precautions site, and changed perceptions of government campaigns as straight-laced.

Target Audience: Singaporeans of all ages travel. Visa’s 2015 Global Travel Intentions Study states that Singaporeans are among the world’s most frequent travellers. Our brief was to create a campaign that will appeal to millennials in their late twenties to seniors aged fifty and upwards. To speak to this diverse audience, we tapped on a uniquely Singaporean insight. Audience Insight: Singaporeans take their protection for granted. The 2016 Edelman Trust Barometer showed Singaporeans have one of the highest government trust index in the world, with 74% of Singaporeans indicating they trust the government. Singaporeans are used to having their safety protected from cradle-to-grave by the government. Our in-depth interviews showed their complacent attitude extends to travel. They often do not purchase travel insurance, and are slipshod when checking details of bookings, making them vulnerable to scams. STB’s 2016 survey showed only 14% of Singaporean travellers claim they read T&Cs.