To introduce an uncommon product to our target audience, we spoke in a language that is commonly used amongst mobile users today: emoji. SingTel created Movie Emoji that captured the latest blockbusters in emoji form, and then sent it out to all their customers. First, they’d receive a Movie Emoji text message on their mobiles to guess the movie title. Next, customers reply via text and if they are right, SingTel sends them a link to redeem and watch that movie. All without leaving one’s mobile phone.

Within its first week of launch, Movie Emoji generated 11% reply rate and a 43% increase in video-on-demand viewership. The campaign piqued social interest and was well-received by SingTel customers, leading to user-generated movie emojis. With that, SingTel’s Movie Emoji showed that all it took to promote new-age TV were good old-fashioned text messages.

SingTel, Singapore’s largest telco, launched mio TV on mobile so users can watch movies on the go. Whilst Singapore’s smartphone penetration is the highest in Asia at 87%, consumers were not accustomed to watching movies on their mobiles (Source: Nielsen). Not only did SingTel have to reach out to this fragmented group of consumers, it also had to get them to change their habits and watch movies on mio mobile TV.