Singapore Civil Defence Force at PR Awards Singapore 2023 for trailblazing campaign

This post was sponsored by SCDF.

Courage and compassion when life matters. Be part of The Life Saving Force today!

This tag line is the key message from recruitment campaigns run by the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF). But do you really know what it takes to be a SCDF officer?

Over the years, SCDF has committed substantial resources to reach beyond its current audience base to get this message across. SCDF has since ventured into other mediums such as out-of-home and digital advertising, on top of publicity on SCDF’s own social media platforms.

Research has shown that word of mouth is the most influential and impactful form of persuasion/marketing on human behaviour. According to a Forbes study in 2022, 90% of people are more likely to trust a recommended brand, even if the recommendation did not come from their inner circle of family and friends.

In this vein, SCDF has leveraged on influencers, specifically micro and nano-influencers, to increase awareness of career prospects in the SCDF, as well as the associated challenges and technological advancements.

Although these influencers have a significantly smaller following compared with mega or celebrity influencers, they have correspondingly high engagement rates with SCDF’s targeted recruitment age group – leading to a stronger connection and engagement with their followers.

The recruitment campaign – #GearUpWithSCDF – which ran from August to September 2022, served to persuade our target audience to consider a career with the SCDF.

Throughout this campaign, SCDF officers met up with influencers at Punggol Fire Station and shared their personal life experiences as firefighters, as well as how exciting new technology has augmented their work on the front lines.

Influencers were invited to experience the technology themselves, putting on SCDF’s wearable tech and controlling its autonomous robots. Through this hands-on and interactive experiential session, influencers then translated their personal experiences and engagement with SCDF onto their own social media posts on Instagram, providing an authentic and heartfelt account of their experiences.

Behind the scenes during the influencers’ visit at Punggol Fire Station, where they interacted with SCDF officers and learnt more about SCDF’s technologies.

Through the production of 35 distinct pieces of content across 10 micro/niche influencers, #GearUpWithSCDF attained an outreach of more than 400,000 unique users and an engagement rate of more than 5% on Instagram. This suggests that audiences were receptive to the influencers’ account of their experiences with SCDF, and that the content resonated with them.

SCDF was humbled to be one of the finalists in the Best Use of Micro/Niche Influencers category at PR Awards 2023, among many prominent names.

Examples of social media posts by micro influencers @raozijie, @justispao and @_sabbyxoxo.

The success of the #GearUpWithSCDF campaign laid in the concept of tapping on the wide audience base enjoyed by influencers. This allowed SCDF to reach out and initiate conversations with these followers through these influencers.

In addition, the emphasis that influencers placed on visuals and aesthetics also helped to draw attention, acknowledgment and positive comments from netizens. SCDF also cast its net wide, working with influencers from various backgrounds and social circles.

Each influencer has his or her own niche area such as fashion and lifestyle, and most of them have strong fan bases that straddle different platforms such as YouTube and TikTok. This helped SCDF to reach out to a wider target audience when communicating its recruitment message.

SCDF’s decision to leverage micro and nano-influencers may come across as unconventional and unprecedented for a uniformed organisation. However, we believe this bold trailblazing approach injected fresh energy and opened new possibilities in reaching out to a much younger audience. We will continue to explore more opportunities to work with such influencers.