Singapore – As part of the National Library Board’s (NLB) ongoing ‘National Reading Movement’, the statutory board under the Ministry of Communications and Information of the Government of Singapore, has launched a new campaign to encourage Singaporeans to “read more, read widely, and read together.”
The campaign, which was created in partnership with advertising agency Ogilvy Singapore, aims to inspire people to read more books, both fiction and non-fiction, through the NLB mobile app.
Titled ‘Read More. Be More’, the campaign includes activity across Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, as well as OOH in MRT stations, and digital display banners, reminding people how reading can turn day-to-day mundane situations into unexpected adventures.
Moreover, the campaign includes two films – ‘The Unmasked Superhero’, where audiences discover how an unassuming supermarket employee mysteriously knows everything about superheroes, and ‘The Space Explorer’, which reveals how a humble tennis coach is also a budding astronomer. The two stories show how through reading books, people can expand their worlds and be so much more.
Chris Koh, the program director for National Reading Movement, noted that this year’s campaign continues to bring a fresh take in asking people to read more and widely.
“Our intent with this year’s campaign is to connect with audiences in specific everyday moments and demonstrate how reading can unexpectedly help you to be interesting, and this is true no matter what genre, language, or format reading can take,” said Koh.
Nicolas Courant, Ogilvy’s chief creative officer for Singapore and Malaysia, shared that the approach was to introduce reading as the source of how someone becomes interesting.
“By reading, you gain knowledge and knowledge leads to stronger connections with those around you,” added Courant.
Elrid Carvalho, Ogilvy Singapore’s creative director, further shared that the campaign used physical books to create their protagonists, in an aim to pull audiences into the world of books.
“If we’ve inspired those who may have given up their reading habits, to pick up a book again, then we’ve succeeded in this campaign,” said Carvalho.
The campaign will be running until March 2022.