Tag: Marketing Campaign

Singapore – To showcase its high-speed 5G network, Singaporean telco Singtel held its first-ever 5G-enabled musical performance. The concert was live-streamed from an underground MRT cabin on February 23.

The performance featured local band Sobs, who performed some of their most popular indie rock songs transmitted over Singtel’s social media platforms from 17 metres underground.

The event is part of a larger six-week campaign involving content across various MRT lines and Singtel’s social media channels to drive awareness of Singtel 5G’s capabilities and benefits to consumers from how they communicate, work, and play with technology.

“As the only telco to reach nationwide and underground coverage across the most travelled main MRT lines, we are excited to have commuters experience Singapore’s most powerful and fastest 5G network first-hand,” said Diana Chen, managing director for customer value at Singtel.

She also said that by ensuring ‘high-quality and uninterrupted connectivity’ on trains and stations, Singtel’s consumers are in for an exceptional digital experience. 

“With the Singtel 5G network’s ultra-fast and low latency capabilities, consumers can upload and download content, watch live video streams, or play games in high definition while on the move,” she added.

Singtel is also set to release a series of videos expounding the advantages of Singtel 5G. These will be posted on its YouTube and Facebook pages and will run until the end of March 2023.

Previously, Singtel has also released a Chinese New Year campaign highlighting its commitment to providing prompt and quality service to its customers.

Singapore – Popeyes in Singapore has launched a new campaign to promote its new Buttermilk Chicken Nuggets—in a rather quirky way. The catch? The chain invites Singaporeans to call its hotline and bare their life vents and complaints, in exchange for chicken.

Conceptualised alongside creative consultancy agency Happiness Saigon, a hotline was set up which gives callers a six-piece chicken nugget order for free.

Jazz Tonna, partner and creative director at Happiness Saigon, said, “We know people love to vent about life’s little problems. It makes you feel better. With stress levels rising globally and good food being proven to reduce stress, we set up the Popeyes Chicken Hotline. Now when life gives you problems, Popeyes gives you chicken.”

Happiness Saigon is also the agency behind a recent campaign with Carlsberg in Vietnam, which rewards someone with a free pint of Carlsberg beer if they manage to say the brand name right. 

Hong Kong – Financial services company HSBC has launched an augmented reality (AR) campaign alongside Wunderman Thompson Hong Kong to empower Hongkongers to move towards their goals this new year and open up a world of opportunity.

The campaign depicts a virtual wishing tree that carries the wishes of seven million Hongkongers. The wish-making tradition was gamified together with a lucky draw to incentivise city-wide participation. This is all supported by a full suite of product offers including payment, account opening, and investments, amongst others.

Hongkongers can participate by pointing their phone towards the HSBC Main Building, selecting the seed that befits their wish and tossing it towards the building to add their ‘blossom’ to the ‘HSBC Wishing Tree for 7,000,000.’ 

Participants are then prompted to register for the Lucky Draw with a total prize pool of $1,230,000 RewardCash.

“Each seed of the Wishing Tree for 7,000,000 is a visual representation of the wishes that people make, which then blossoms into an auspicious flower to symbolise how their dreams would come true with the support of HSBC. The words of blessings were creatively crafted to be witty and culturally relevant to engage with local audience in an entertaining and resonating way,” HSBC explained in a press statement.

HSBC also recently launched a campaign alongside MSL Hong Kong, which turned Hong Kong into an ‘open canvas’, coinciding with the launch of HSBC’s Metaverse Gallery, targeted at giving local emerging artists more exposure.

India – Made in collaboration with marketing communications agency Wunderman Thompson India, Indian English-language newspaper The Times of India (TOI) has launched its new campaign that elevates unity despite the diverse differences in India.

Titled ‘The Idea of India’, the campaign featured a short film that invites every Indian to participate and celebrate their perspective of India in their own way through the hashtag #WhatMakesUsOne.

The visual thread for the film is the festival of lights captured by cinematographers and drone photographers and timelapse content creators throughout the festive season. It also included a narrative taken from the speeches of India’s inspiring leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, Subash Chandra Bose, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel, Indira Gandhi, AB Vajpayee and Narendra Modi — the voices that set fire to the ‘Idea of India.’

“In this context, our new initiative from TOI – #WhatMakesUsOne, focuses on the many unifying threads that make up our Idea Of India. Despite our diversity and multiculturism, the threads that unite us also drive our growth in the world today powerfully,” said Kaustuv Chatterjee, brand director at TOI & Languages.

He also added that through the campaign, TOI hopes to spark conversations and connections around what makes Indians one as they celebrate the country’s 74th year of becoming a Republic.

Meanwhile, Wunderman Thompson India’s Chief Creative & Film Director Senthil Kumar also commented, “India was an idea long before it became a free nation… It is the same thread that continues to bind us as one nation, in spite of our diverse differences. It is the invisible ektara that stirs our souls and ignites our hearts. This binding thread of tolerance and inclusivity is represented as the thread of light cinematically and metaphorically in the powerful Times Of India narrative form.”

Joy Chauhan, senior VP & managing partner at Wunderman Thompson Delhi added, “The idea of India is a campaign that makes you pause and yet again fall in love with our magical nation… It was an opportune time to celebrate our diversity and #WhatMakesUsOne. We are proud to partner [with] the iconic Times of India in this celebration.”

The campaign is live across national news media, social media, and various digital platforms. 

‘The Idea of India’ follows TOI’s ‘Maa Aashcen. Tumi Kothaye?’ campaign in October 2022, which was targeted at celebrating togetherness and connection between loved ones during Hindu festival.

Singapore – With just a few days before the Lunar New Year celebrations, streaming platform Netflix goes an understated but no less unconventional route of developing a bespoke piece of paper artwork to commemorate the festivity. The artwork, which was done together with global creative company Mash and Malaysian artist Eten Teo, aims to highlight the value of ‘togetherness’.

Framed with the symbolic elements fish, coins, and peonies, which mean abundance, wealth, and prosperity, respectively; the artwork by Teo showcases interactions of the cross-generational family when celebrating the Lunar New Year, a tradition that is deeply rooted in the history and culture of Asian communities.

Rich Akers, Mash Director and Project Lead of Creative Services in Asia, said, “We’re always excited to work with Netflix. Building a virtual creative studio and partnering with an incredible artist, like Eten to deliver on such an ambitious vision, is not a project you get to do every day.” 

In order for the artwork to be an authentic representation of the Asian festivity, Mash curated a Virtual Creative Studio that brought together seven creatives from Mash’s global network. Each one dug deep into their experiences in order to uncover that one key theme that spoke to the true essence of the celebration—the tumultuous and chaotic beauty of cross-generational families over the most important holiday of the Asia calendar. 

The papercut piece is the first physical artwork that is digitised and featured on a local moment on Netflix, a specially-curated collection of titles that celebrates seasonal moments or social events that are important to local audiences.

The artwork will be live on the Netflix screens of viewers across Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Hong Kong and Taiwan for the duration of the holiday. 

Singapore – For the Lunar New Year celebration, beer brand Tiger Beer, together with Le Pub APAC, has launched an interesting campaign that is somehow an antithesis of its own brand messaging—but also not quite. Called ‘A Bolder Tomorrow’, it involved passersby stopping and being ‘frozen’ in their tracks. 

In order to convey its message to learn to celebrate the ‘now’, a normal day at Tanjong Pagar in downtown Singapore was disrupted when young professionals who are busy as they can be, suddenly froze en masse. What seems like a deviation from its communication of always being bold is indeed a support for such courageous character – being brave to stop endlessly chasing the next big win. 

Sean O’Donnell, global brand director of Tiger Beer, said that while the brand believes that we all have a ‘Tiger’ inside of us, they understand that sometimes the more we achieve, the further we’re expected to go. 

“This inspired last week’s stunt: by freezing hundreds of people in their tracks in one of Southeast Asia’s busiest downtown areas,” said O’Donnell. 

A report was, in fact, commissioned by the brand in order to understand better the challenging chapters in the lives of Gen Z and Millennials. The research, carried out by YouGov, showed that 90% of Gen Z and Millennial Southeast Asians admit to putting pressure on themselves, with more than half – 58% – feeling pressured to live up to an ‘impossible standard’. Surprisingly, the study also revealed that social media is a factor in such feelings of anxiety. 

On the study, O’Donnell said, “As a brand that encourages everyone to pursue their passions fearlessly, we wanted to understand why young adults in Asia are putting an unprecedented amount of pressure on themselves. We were shocked to discover that many people aren’t stopping to celebrate life’s small wins, which inspired ‘A Bolder Tomorrow’” 

Aside from the stunt, the campaign comes with a film to launch the message globally. Directed by Felipe Mansur of Alice Filmes, the film tackles people who are strongly focused on their pursuit of tomorrow and run straight past crucial moments in their life – such as graduations, victories, dream jobs, promotions and accolades.

Cyril Louis, APAC Executive Creative Director of Le Pub, added, “People spend the year restlessly chasing a better future. But during the festive season, afraid of the judgement of their wider family, they end up building more generic versions of themselves instead of being proud of and sharing their accomplishments and future dreams. By stopping people in their tracks, Tiger Beer is reminding everyone to come together to celebrate their achievements and talk openly about their dreams this year.”

India – German automotive maker Volkswagen in India has released a new campaign aiming to demonstrate the safeness of their cars. But there’s a catch: the campaign doesn’t feature any cars at all. 

Conceptualised by the DDB Mudra Group, the campaign leverages the brand’s affinity for simplicity and human storytelling through crisp, amusing home life metaphors for the safety features on every Volkswagen.

On a more technical level, the campaign was launched on the back of the Volkswagen Taigun model recently scoring a five-star rating in Global NCAP’s crash tests. Taigun has become one of the first car models in India to achieve five stars, for both adult and child occupants’ protection.

Speaking on the work, Rahul Mathew, chief Creative Officer, DDB Mudra Group, said, “As a brand, Volkswagen has been built around human stories. It’s in the name of the brand itself. Therefore, we thought the best way to illustrate our safety features would be through examples of how we navigate our every day.”

Meanwhile, Abbey Thomas, head of marketing and PR at Volkswagen India, commented, “Safety is at the core of Brand Volkswagen. We build our cars with lots of emotion and passion, the same goes for our communication; emotional and light hearted. Together with our creative team, we hope to deliver this very important messaging on safety in an interesting and engaging manner to our consumers.”

Hong Kong – Aimed at transforming and modernising people’s access to art and the way they experience various forms of art and culture, financial services HSBC has launched its year-long ‘Open to Art’ initiative in Hong Kong.

The initiative will be done via turning Hong Kong into an ‘open canvas’, plus the launch of HSBC’s Metaverse Gallery, which is targeted at giving local emerging artists more exposure.

Kicking off the campaign, HSBC has transformed a 3D digital billboard in Hong Kong’s Tsim Sha Tsui Star Ferry Pier into an immersive art experience. The art piece was done in collaboration with MSL Hong Kong and new media creator Henry Chu.

Meanwhile, the Metaverse Gallery is a new platform where local artists can showcase their work and transform traditional art into immersive digital experiences. Local artists showcasing their work include Flyingpig, Wong Ping, and Yeung Hok Tak.

“Stemming from our HSBC brand promise of ‘Open up a world of opportunity’, this will also serve as a long-term platform where HSBC aims to open up the community to more things, like Open to Sports, Open to Tech, and beyond,” said Brian Hui, head of customer propositions and marketing at HSBC.

Alexis Chiu, group managing director at MSL Hong Kong, also explained that the initiative was done to show the company’s support for the city’s local art scene and to make contemporary visual culture more accessible.

“This installation is part of the bigger picture of transforming the city into a canvas for people to access and appreciate art in a new way,” he added.

HSBC has also previously launched its duo real-world and metaverse music show experience titled ‘DuoVerse’, which featured two Hong Kong artists Tyson Yoshi and Serrini.

Singapore – Singaporean telecommunications company Singtel has released its new Chinese New Year film that emphasises Singtel’s commitment to providing prompt and quality service to its customers, which serves as a key differentiator of its services.

Titled ‘Don’t Worry, Be Hoppy!’, the sitcom-style short film featured two rival families, who got competitive at first but eventually bonded over the results of Singtel’s quick service. 

“Customer service lies at the heart of the Singtel customer experience and this film underscores our commitment to providing personalised, empathetic and accessible service to our customers,” said Anna Yip, chief executive officer of Consumer Singapore at Singtel.

She also added that Singtel intends to keep investing in its people and processes to deliver quality service that sets them apart from competitors. 

Lian Pek, vice president for group strategic communications and brand at Singtel, also said, “In today’s hyper connected world, technology plays a critical role in connecting people and supporting their digital-first lifestyles. But as played out in our latest festive film, sometimes things don’t go as planned and that’s where a committed service provider makes all the difference.”

Singtel has also previously released its Singapore’s National Day ad titled ‘The Making of a 5G Nation’, which illustrates how its infrastructure and engineering expertise have been vital to the National Day Parade since the 1960s.

Manila, Philippines – McDonald’s in the Philippines is jumping into the gaming space for its latest campaign. Called ‘Unbranded Menu’, the new campaign aims challenge gamers to hunt for McDonald’s ‘food-alikes’ across video games and then swap their inedible discoveries for actual McDonald’s items.

The campaign, made in collaboration with advertising agency Leo Burnett, began when the Philippines’ popular gaming personality Alodia Gosiengfiao found a Big Mac look-a-like inside Grand Theft Auto V and posted a screengrab of it. She then challenged her eight million followers to do the search. 

More gamers and streamers joined in and tagged their discoveries #ThisIsMcDonalds, which signalled the start of the hunt. 

Some of the Philippines’ top gamers and their fans are also already sharing pictures of unbranded and logo-free virtual food items that resemble the iconic French Fries, Big Mac, and Quarter Pounder sandwiches, amongst other McDonald’s food items. These have been found in classic video games like The Sims and Resident Evil; online multiplayer games like Fall Guys, Roblox, and PUBG; role-playing games such as Genshin Impact, Final Fantasy, The Last of Us, and Persona; and giant titles like Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Cyberpunk 207, and Guardians of the Galaxy.

Raoul Panes, chief creative officer at Publicis Groupe Philippines and Leo Burnett Manila, said that the campaign was targeted at connecting with the Philippines’ 40+ million strong gaming community.

“Then we stumbled upon an amazing discovery: so much food in the gaming multiverse looks just like McDonald’s products, despite being unbranded. Why not hack this unbranded space to build brand love for McDonald’s through the gamer behavior of screen-grabbing milestones and discoveries for posterity or bragging rights?” he added.

To fuel the hunt, McDonald’s has also been giving gaming credits, consoles, and other gaming merchandise in exchange for screengrabs of food-alikes with the #ThisIsMcDonalds tag.

“It has been fascinating to follow this virtual hunt and watch gamers exchanging virtual food clones for the real deal. Leo Burnett’s idea taps into the relationship between gamers and food, which is a big part of gaming culture, and helps us to connect with a huge gaming audience in the Philippines and beyond,” Oliver Rabatan, McDonald’s Philippines chief marketing officer, further explained.