Singapore Bores
AdAsia Magazine, Singapore, July 2004 issue
Don’t you sometimes experience that sinking feeling when you open, say, the Straits Times? I do. It’s not about the journalism. It’s about the ads. Almost every day of the week, you are confronted with an endless stream of advertising drool – safe, standard, compromising commercial messages that half-heartedly try to convince you to buy some product without offending the Marketing Manager in charge.
The worst ones are the mobile phone ads. Mobile phones are fun! Or aren’t they? Well, not if you open the newspaper. I call them cemetery ads. The newest handphone models, lined up like gravestones, complete with epitaphs. I’ve seen financial reports that offer more fun than this.
And I’m not the only one. The other day I ran into one of the VPs of Marketing for a big multinational headquartered in Singapore. I asked him what was the one thing that he missed in the Singapore marketing scene. He didn’t need to think for a moment: creativity.
But then take a look at this year’s Cannes Lions, and the picture becomes radically different. When this was written, no winners were announced yet, but I had a look at the few shortlists that were available. After all, if you have the gumption to send in your campaign and then make it to the shortlist, there must be something to it, isn’t it? The numbers speak volumes about our roaring, oops sorry, unique city.
Cannes is traditionally Europe-dominated so to be fair, we’ll only consider entries from our own region. Guess who dominates that list? Of the 150 or so Asian entries that made it to the shortlists at the time of press (Media, Direct, Press and Outdoor Lions), 60 came from Singapore! In comparison, Thailand, that hotbed of creativity in advertising, manages only a meagre 14. Advertising giant India comes in a distant second at 27. The scoreboard rather looks like the current rankings in Formula (yawn) One, with one player sporting a dominant score. So were did all these campaigns go?
Clearly, Singapore has an image problem here. Once a year it is the Michael Schumacher of Asian advertising. But during the season, to stay with the analogy, my mind’s eye sees Kimi Raikkonen, arguably the one F1 driver that’s in clear need of a personality bypass.
My feeling is that this is part of a wider problem. Let’s face it; Singapore has a hard time shedding its boring image. This is not helped by recent tourism advertising. ‘Singapore Roars’ was a nice campaign but a bit too much over the top to convince innocent bystanders. It was also pitifully short-lived, which stands in the way of durable image-building. So what’s the alternative the Singapore Tourism Board came up with? Uniquely Singapore! Sounds to me like Long Live Lameness.
Problem is, Singapore’s current image has come about over a long period of time. So you don’t just shed it on a rainy afternoon. What you need is time. Singapore needs a long series of eye catchers. And a bit more consistency in good advertising. Especially for itself. And perhaps a personality bypass.
Don’t you sometimes experience that sinking feeling when you open, say, the Straits Times? I do. It’s not about the journalism. It’s about the ads. Almost every day of the week, you are confronted with an endless stream of advertising drool – safe, standard, compromising commercial messages that half-heartedly try to convince you to buy some product without offending the Marketing Manager in charge.
The worst ones are the mobile phone ads. Mobile phones are fun! Or aren’t they? Well, not if you open the newspaper. I call them cemetery ads. The newest handphone models, lined up like gravestones, complete with epitaphs. I’ve seen financial reports that offer more fun than this.
And I’m not the only one. The other day I ran into one of the VPs of Marketing for a big multinational headquartered in Singapore. I asked him what was the one thing that he missed in the Singapore marketing scene. He didn’t need to think for a moment: creativity.
But then take a look at this year’s Cannes Lions, and the picture becomes radically different. When this was written, no winners were announced yet, but I had a look at the few shortlists that were available. After all, if you have the gumption to send in your campaign and then make it to the shortlist, there must be something to it, isn’t it? The numbers speak volumes about our roaring, oops sorry, unique city.
Cannes is traditionally Europe-dominated so to be fair, we’ll only consider entries from our own region. Guess who dominates that list? Of the 150 or so Asian entries that made it to the shortlists at the time of press (Media, Direct, Press and Outdoor Lions), 60 came from Singapore! In comparison, Thailand, that hotbed of creativity in advertising, manages only a meagre 14. Advertising giant India comes in a distant second at 27. The scoreboard rather looks like the current rankings in Formula (yawn) One, with one player sporting a dominant score. So were did all these campaigns go?
Clearly, Singapore has an image problem here. Once a year it is the Michael Schumacher of Asian advertising. But during the season, to stay with the analogy, my mind’s eye sees Kimi Raikkonen, arguably the one F1 driver that’s in clear need of a personality bypass.
My feeling is that this is part of a wider problem. Let’s face it; Singapore has a hard time shedding its boring image. This is not helped by recent tourism advertising. ‘Singapore Roars’ was a nice campaign but a bit too much over the top to convince innocent bystanders. It was also pitifully short-lived, which stands in the way of durable image-building. So what’s the alternative the Singapore Tourism Board came up with? Uniquely Singapore! Sounds to me like Long Live Lameness.
Problem is, Singapore’s current image has come about over a long period of time. So you don’t just shed it on a rainy afternoon. What you need is time. Singapore needs a long series of eye catchers. And a bit more consistency in good advertising. Especially for itself. And perhaps a personality bypass.
posted by Jos. at Thursday, July 01, 2004
