3 incredible launch campaigns in Singapore that drove results

With the easing of pandemic restrictions in Singapore, finally in 2022 the market was ripe for launching or relaunching new products. While rightfully marketing trends increased in digital distribution this year allowed marketers to unleash creativity in a myriad of different ways from gamification, to user-generated content at in-person events to drive engagement and word-of-mouth recommendations.

For some brands launching products in 2022, it was about capitalising on the lifting of restrictions. For others, it was about attracting back consumers after a lockdown boom. With marketing tools at brands' disposal, the year showcased some incredibly creative, unique and effective launch or relaunch campaigns.

MARKETING-INTERACTIVE turned to our results for Marketing Excellence Awards Singapore 2022 to find out which ad campaigns impressed the judging panel. These were the top five brands that dazzled with their out-of-the-box ad campaigns.

1. AIA Singapore

AIA is not just in the insurance business. It is also committed to helping people live healthier, longer, better lives by 2030. AIA Vitality was first launched in Singapore in 2013 as a holistic wellness programme that helps members keep track of their fitness milestones. Members also get to redeem rewards such as vouchers at partner outlets when they complete their weekly challenges.

With numerous competitors in the market and members trying to game the system for rewards, the challenge for the team AIA Singapore was to demonstrate that AIA Vitality is a more comprehensive programme that helps members achieve better health — guiding them with health tools and encouraging them to make behavioural change to live healthier, longer, better lives.

With this in mind, the AIA Vitality app was revamped to introduce first and foremost a new format of weekly fitness challenges with weekly targets personalised to an individual’s performance; and new ways of earning and redeeming weekly rewards through a spin-the-wheel game. And finally, the app also introduced new partners that have come on board.

To connect with its audience, AIA Singapore positioned AIA Vitality as a pacer, tracker and lifelong health partner that’ll be by their side, helping them Live With Vitality. To motivate and encourage people to be part of the programme, the campaign was fronted by real members who benefited and have now become key opinion leaders of the programme.

Real people were chosen to tell real stories to show how achieving better health is doable and can be achieved with small steps. And how these small steps transformed their health journey with AIA Vitality and became a lifestyle and commitment for them. Four members were chosen to front the campaign, with each representing a key pillar (vitality, health checks, fitness, and food choices) . 

AIA Singapore interviewed four of its members and showcased their health journey alongside AIA Vitality’s key features in a short film showcased on social media. To share how these members made a change in their journey, AIA Vitality encapsulated their "before" and "after" stories through a strong headline treatment and created the message construct with “Once” and “Now” to denote the change.

The messages also drew out key insights into people’s approach to their fitness and health matters. AIA wanted people to be able to relate to these stories and insights. These stories\ went on to become the driving force behind the entire campaign.

AIA Singapore also leveraged the people featured in the campaign's social media following which helped infuse the campaign with a sense of authenticity, and how AIA Vitality produces real results for real people.

Digital media and social media were the main channels chosen because of their versatility in storytelling with video. By tapping into social media, it could reach out to existing followers, while paid media will boost its reach to more users. But more importantly, social media helped reach like-minded, health-conscious individuals and audiences with an affinity for AIA who could connect with the brand on a deeper level.

The campaign kickstarted with a teaser post that shared updates to the AIA Vitality programme and app. The brand launched the campaign with a feel-good, snappy video that celebrated how small steps with the support of AIA Vitality can lead to lifelong health. It was posted on AIA’s official YouTube, AIA’s social media channels, as well as that of its talents’. The brand also amplified the main video on YouTube and Facebook. Featuring all four members, the video was a way for AIA Singapore to introduce its profiles to its target audiences and provide context for the product.

Following the launch of the main video, it amplified the individual member profiles through strong click-through native formats on Yahoo, Google, Facebook and Instagram. Native formats were chosen as the main traffic driver as they allowed AIA Singapore to position the content well with descriptive headlines. 

AIA also refreshed its website to feature the transformation stories of its talents in interesting bite-sized snippets, that allowed viewers to view their story in small bitesize frames. Plus teaser social media posts were curated to draw attention and direct viewers to the website to read the full story.

Digital posters on each of its real-life talents were created, and how AIA Vitality supported them on their journey to better health through a different feature offered by the app – from complimentary health check-ups, healthy diet planners to a step tracker. These were displayed in its AIA offices as well as customer centres to create more awareness for the campaign.

To give ample airtime for each personality, it staggered their profiles to be amplified two weeks apart. This ensured that its campaign creatives were refreshed regularly, and avoided ad fatigue.

The campaign showed how AIA Vitality pulls ahead of the competition by offering features in-app that help actual workouts, and a holistic view of health that goes beyond fitness to include sleep and dietary habits. 

2. Health Promotion Board

The National Steps Challenge is an ongoing initiative from the Health Promotion Board (HPB) to help Singaporeans increase their levels of physical activity. It does this by using vouchers and prizes to incentivise participants to exercise.

To get people moving again. Even though the NPB recorded consistently high scores for awareness in post-campaign surveys, it was clear, however, that people knew about the programme but they remained unmoved - literally and figuratively.

HPB felt that the National Steps Challenge was no longer providing enough motivation at precisely the moment it needed Singaporeans to move more. It decided it needed to breathe fresh life into the initiative.

Instead of offering an increase in the value of rewards, HPB decided to switch its strategy and focused on the emotional rewards of moving more. Previous research has shown that a significant reason people give for not regularly participating in physical exercise is that it sacrifices time that could be spent doing more pleasurable, sedentary activities. However, after ample time to lie on the sofa during lockdown and watch TV, it was time for HPB to get Singaporeans moving again.

HPB's solution was to help people be more attuned to their own bodies. The idea was that If you understood how great your body feels when it’s moving, you would let it. For the first time, it showed the emotional rewards of the National Steps Challenge. 

A 60-second advertisement took people inside the body to see its internal workings. It opened with a highly relatable scene where a man is lying on the sofa, idly gaming. The audience is then transported inside his body to dramatise the effects of being sedentary and the subsequent feel-good effects of moving.

In digital channels it used contextual banners and native ads to "hijack" its audience’s favourite sedentary pastime activities, persuading them to try something new for a feel-good fix.

On social media, it reminded people of those feel-good moments they are missing out on by staying inactive. HPB also provided easy-to-follow exercise tips and videos that could be done at home in between work-from-home meetings, home-based learning sessions, and even while watching TV or doing household chores.

In out-of-home areas of transit such as train stations and bus stops, HPB put out opportune messaging to remind people of how a little movement can be a great mood booster. It also made full use of partner placements in parks, which were busier than ever thanks to limited leisure options due to COVID restrictions. This was on top of media channels that continued to be relevant during the pandemic, such as TV and physical sites in HDB lift lobbies.

Of course, the more you move your body, the more you enjoy it, and the more you’ll believe NPB's message about the emotional benefits of physical activity. So regular nudges and reminders in the Healthy 365 app and email were vital, especially in the first days and weeks of the challenge.

The goal for this campaign was a straightforward one, to get Singaporeans moving again. Levels of physical activity recorded in the Healthy 365 app returned to the World Health Organisation’s recommended levels during the campaign period. In fact, it exceeded the KPIs HPB set for itself.

The barrier to increased participation in the National Steps Challenge was not due to the lack of awareness, it was the diminishing effectiveness of the vouchers and prizes to incentivise. Instead, HPB got inactive Singaporeans moving again by tapping into their fresh memories of sluggishness and low mood caused by becoming physically less active during the COVID-19 restrictions. For the first time, HPB had presented the emotional benefits of movement offered by the National Steps Challenge and it worked.

3. NCS

NCS was born in Singapore 40 years ago as part of a government initiative to make the country one of the most technologically advanced in the world. If you’ve lived, worked, studied, travelled, or done just about anything in Singapore, you will have interacted with something created or enabled by NCS technology. It’s 10,000 people strong, with a strong foothold in Singapore.

With origins back to the names National Computer Board (NCB—1981) and National Computer Systems (NCS—1996), there are strong undertones of IT systems delivery, a public sector (government) vendor, and Singaporean nationalism. However, it had bold ambitions to compete with leading consultancies and roll out a new transformation strategy to expand regionally. NCS was searching for a bigger, more connected, and more purposeful way to tell its story.

Through its audience and stakeholder research, it learnt that its previously established tagline, “Make IT Happen” had become a rallying cry internally and was even used by clients to highlight the trust in the team to always deliver. However, it became clear that NCS’s audience was confident in their abilities to deliver on the "traditional" projects but didn’t necessarily expect innovation or exciting new ideas from NCS. This is what it set out to change.

NCS needed a new, vibrant, trustworthy brand that highlighted its capabilities – now and in the future – for clients, employees, partners and industry talents. 

A new logo and branding was designed to paint a vision of where NCS is going as a business, aligned to the ever-changing societal and commercial priorities of governments and enterprises across Asia Pacific. This brand transformation framework consisted of three stages: redefine, rebrand reposition.

A) Refine

Refining meant harnessing fresh perspectives from within the business and throughout the market to find original ways to reframe NCS’ brand purpose and beliefs. NCS looked to its existing relationships between NCS, staff, customers, partners, and target audiences to establish alignment between commercial context and cultural contingencies. A new brand purpose statement serves as a guiding principle for everything NCS does.

“We advance our communities by partnering with governments and enterprises to harness technology. We do this by bringing people together to make the extraordinary happen,” the company said. This reinforced that NCS is part of something bigger and it can make a real and lasting impact in the world.

Using that as a foundation, it evolved "Make IT Happen" to "Making It Happen" which extended to replacing "it" with the many verticals and services NCS offers, from education and healthcare to transport and industry. Inspired by NCS’s story as "no ordinary company" and the countless exciting innovations happening around the business at any one time, the new tagline, “Make Extraordinary Happen” was born.

B) Rebrand

When it came to rebranding, its new logo gave NCS a contemporary mark rooted in its technological heritage. The new identity is designed to be visually unique, easy to remember, trustworthy and dynamic. Inspired by the visual language of technology, the // forward double slash gave NCS an iconic and universal symbol, rooted in the idea of forward motion and momentum of change and innovation of NCS work as they advance communities. Alongside this, new brand colours, typography and imagery completed an energised look for revitalised organisation that really means business.

C) Reposition

With NCS’s story as "no ordinary company" and the exciting innovations happening around the business at any one time, the "Make Extraordinary Happen" brand campaign acted as the call-to-action for prospects to contact NCS and learn more about how they could help them shape the future.

To mark this moment of change and elevate NCS’s impact, it used this statement to apply to a whole world of possibilities. “Make extraordinary happen” served as a narrative thread across all its communications and a brand film. Exciting new technologies and compelling case studies were made the heroes of its campaign. With hopeful and joyful tones as Singapore was emerging from the pandemic, NCS wanted to make the marketplace and take note.

In architecting a  seamless brand launch, its teams across marketing, client services, and human resources were all co-authors of this brand re-launch. This idea was for these teams to create one brand experience for everyone from clients and employees to the public.

The new brand was officially relaunched at a hybrid event at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore with government representatives, key industry leaders. Clients and employees in attendance watching online were over 4,000.

The relaunch showed a keen interest with close to 100% registrants attending the launch online while employees took to social media to share their new brand with the world. Moreover, 450 senior leaders across 15 cities participated in a pre-launch leadership team training programme on the new brand purpose and beliefs. While a brand awareness campaign engaged audiences across Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, China, and India.

Social performance was double the industry average for engagement. Its videos outperformed benchmarks and the campaign received regional coverage including interviews, articles and features across print and online including national papers and TV networks in Singapore and Australia. The campaign saw an uplift of more than 10% in online brand sentiment tracked by Meltwater. 

NCS saw huge exposure, reached new audience, and provided assurance to clients who were ready to move their business forward and partner with NCS for a new start.