Changi Airport and Sports Hub talk about their moment of glory on Nas Daily

Brand Singapore has had a good run with PR the past year, with the high publicity surrounding the Trump-Kim Summit and Crazy Rich Asians movie. This week, Singapore came into the spotlight once more when renowned international vlogger Nas Daily (real name Nuseir Yassin) made a visit to talk about the country. This saw the vlogger post as many as six videos about the little red dot in just a span of one week.Nas Daily is a vlogging channel by Yassin, known for his short one-minute snippets and vlogs about places he visits. He is also known for his hyper positive energy and ability to be informative yet engaging at the same time.Yassin’s visit saw two brands – Changi Airport Group and Sports Hub – being thrust into the spotlight, with Changi Airports getting one entire video to itself and drawing five million views at the time of writing . Meanwhile, Sports Hub served as a backdrop to his highly publicised fan meet up, which drew around 3.6 million views in one week, at the time of writing.In a conversation with Marketing, Ivan Tan, group senior VP, corporate and marketing communications said that the group’s social media team had been following Nas Daily’s travel experiences for a while. As such, when the vlogger posted a shout-out to his Singapore fans on 21 August 2018, CAG proactively took the opportunity to reach out. Yassin then accepted the group’s invitation to visit Changi Airport which happened on Sunday.“Given the short notice, this required quick planning by our social media team. The result is the video which he posted [on Monday], which we absolutely love,” Tan said.When asked about their approach to working with social media influencers, Tan said that CAG is open to working with those with a “good following and interesting ideas”. This saw the group engaging influencers not only based in Singapore but also overseas.“We see our partnerships with influencers as win-win – we give them access to Changi Airport (including the transit areas) while they help us reach their fans and audience. For influencers with special interests (e.g. aviation, beauty), we do customise our programme for them,” Tan explained.For the case of Nas Daily, CAG liked his short and shareable videos which it felt was positive and upbeat, often providing unknown facts about a place.“He is an effective influencer who engages with his fans and at times, even educates them on what he has learnt about his experiences. We are thankful to him for working with us and wish him all the best as he continues his journey to 1,000 videos,” Tan added.When contacted by Marketing, a Sports Hub spokesperson explained that the company too learned about Nas Daily’s appearance in Singapore through Yassin’s announcement on the channel’s Facebook page.Sports Hub had come up top in a scramble to host Yassin’s meet up with his fans, a race which also saw contenders such as Gardens by the Bay, CapitaLand, Downtown East and more volunteering their locations to host the meet up. This was following fan concerns over the permits surrounding his meet up.The conversation was also joined by the Singapore Tourism Board through its VisitSingapore Facebook account, Singapore Grand Prix, Singapore Sailing and ofo, which gave Nas Daily recommendations on where to go.“Nas Daily’s videos are widely watched and the content is positive. We felt this was a great opportunity to showcase a Singaporean icon in his one-minute video. The Singapore Sports Hub is a destination where extraordinary experiences and memories are created and enjoyed by all,” the spokespersons said. He added that the organisation was happy to be part of Yassin’s travel journals as a backdrop for his visit.Following the publicity surrounding the videos, Yassin has since put up a statement to clarify that the videos were not sponsored and that he was not paid to come to Singapore and make positive videos. He added that he came to Singapore by himself, spent his own money and felt the need to make this fact aware to everyone."It is disheartening to see people discredit my work because of unfounded allegations. I know most of my videos are positive. But what can I do? You guys [Singapore] actually have some stuff figured out that many countries don't have figured out!" he said in a statement addressed to Singaporeans.He explained that he was also here to show his followers the best of the world because mainstream media "focuses far too often on the negative and [he] wants [his] videos to focus on the positive. He added that no one should take credit for these videos except the people that follows videos and come to his meetups. He said:These videos I made for you [his followers] - not for any government, company or tourism board!Social conversations surrounding Nas Daily’s Singapore visitAccording to data from Isentia, there were four brands which surfaced in social conversation during Nas Daily’s publicised Singapore visit. Coming up first place was Changi Airport, which gained 52% times more exposure compared to other brands.This was because Nas Daily’s video had stirred netizens to discuss how Changi Airport has always been a symbol of pride for Singaporeans. Conversations surrounding the Changi Airport vide also include netizens comparing their experiences at different airports around the world.Meanwhile, Singapore Sports Hub garnered around 27% exposure, while Happy Fish Swim School garnered around 20%. NEWwater meanwhile, garnered around 1% exposure.Overall, one single post from Nas Daily garnered 80,475 engagements, 31,136 shares and 4,944 comments that caused the largest spike on 23 August 2018, which was when his “Why I Hate Singapore video was released.The top three channels on social media where users were talking about Nas Daily includes Facebook (77%), Twitter (15%) and Forums (8%)