Marketing Featured Southeast Asia

GIC turns bus stops into urban farms for 40th anniversary

by MARKETECH APAC

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December 17, 2021

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Singapore – GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, has released a new campaign for its 40th anniversary, and this time, turning bus stops island-wide into bumper crops of urban farms.

In October, GIC has already launched its flagship digital campaign in celebrating its anniversary, created with creative agency 72andSunny Singapore, which assigns innocuous symbols meanings to retell the sovereign fund’s long history.

Similarly developed with the agency, the living installations transform bus stops into flourishing crops of butterhead lettuce, and Chinese broccoli (kai lan), as a statement of the sovereign wealth fund’s bold future vision for the future of sustainability.

GIC turns bus stops into urban farms for 40th anniversary

72andSunny developed the green bus stops in partnership with local urban farmer Gardens with Purpose, which brought in gardening enthusiasts from the community to grow and maintain the crops over the month-long activation. Harvested vegetables, expected to weigh over 100kg, will also be donated to Willing Hearts, a community kitchen, that delivers meals to thousands of needy families.

Mah Lay Choon, GIC’s head of corporate communications, said that the Bold Vision campaign was planned to engender an understanding of GIC’s history as well as its commitment to Singapore’s future, which will include tackling sustainability challenges.

“We wish for these urban farms to spark ideas on more ways to incorporate growing fresh vegetables at home or in the community,” said Choon.

Johnny Tan, 72andSunny’s ECD for APAC, shared that the agency considered today’s saturated sustainability communications, and developed the campaign in a way that would diminish the risk of white noise.

“We wanted to help GIC show up in a surprising, modern way and effectively inspire people to picture the possibilities of growing food in the least expected of place,” said Tan.

Meanwhile, Joanne Ng, owner of Gardens with Purpose, commented, ”We have been creating awareness of urban farming through classes with members of the public and students. We are very excited to work on this as I believe it will get people to reimagine urban farming and how they too might start growing their favorite vegetables.”