Entertainment > Branded Entertainment
MEDIA PALETTE, Taipei / SINGAPORE TOURISM BOARD / 2014
Overview
Credits
CampaignDescription
1. Conventional advertising in China or Taiwan reaches a lower effect as viewers often skip TV commercials while watching TV and do information or content searching on internet or mobile.
2. Capturing the attention of the audience is a daunting task as the media environment is dominated by high budget, high quality branded entertainment content vying for the attention of the audience.
3. The amount of branded entertainment content has grown rapidly in recent years, even prompting portal sites to create a sub channel for all the newly launched micro-movies.
4. The regulations restrict the creativity of branded content and stipulate how to tie-up with brand or product. The established restrictions for branded entertainment forbid close shots, stating the brand name in dialogue, and limit the content to describing product benefits. It is broadly used in TV dramas, news programs, variety shows and micro-movies.
5. Despite the rapid increase of micro-movies, the majority fail in the market due to:
a) Branded entertainment content in China is expensive and lacks creativity, sometimes it’s resulting in a low return on investment for the client.
b) The content often fails to create a bond with the brand, leaving consumers without a strong engagement with the brand.
c) Delivery of product messages are too obviously like a TV commercial but neglect the nature and emotive storytelling to touch consumer.
Effectiveness
Challenge & Objectives:
1. The number of Chinese tourists visiting Singapore had plateaued and the client - Singapore Tourism Board wanted to encourage repeat travel.
2. The client emphasized the need to promote Singapore with more efficient communication media.
3. The campaign needed to create new perspectives in an innovative way to differentiate Singapore in the competitive outbound tourism landscape to the target audience (core target of Chinese).
4. While our team and work is allocated in Taipei, Taiwan, we need to efficiently support the client to develop and extend not only mainly China but also cover to Taiwan and Asia tourism markets.
Strategy:
The strategy in this case revolved around three key points.
1. A recognized brand name - “In Time with You”
Use an unprecedented approach of creating a content to build on a popular Taiwanese TV series, entitled “In Time with You”, with over 100m viewers in China.
2. Celebrity effect - Ariel Lin
By featuring the actress “Ariel Lin”, from the original “In Time with You” series, the micro-movie could utilize her popularity in the Greater China area to capture the attention and interest of the audience.
3. Through emotive destination storytelling - Micro-movie, we created a campaign around the theme “New Discoveries“,and produced a micro-movie called ”Re-discover Love from the Heart”. The movie shows Singapore’s unique culture and stunning scenery to entice travelers to “Re-discover Singapore from the heart”.
Execution:
The campaign started with a warm-up teaser to bring back fond memories from the original TV series, followed by 15s & 30s teasers that left fans wanting more. Then conducted the promotion activities of kick-off in Sentosa and premier press conferences in Beijing to release launch news (blogs, articles, TV news) and generated significant word-of-mouth; showed the audience “Re-discover Love from the Heart” through internet, especially on Youku website, theaters, and even got free exposure on Taiwan GTV channel, brought them new discoveries of Singapore.
Implementation
1. Multi-screens and digital Media are the preferred methods for viewing content, surpassing TV as the primary method for customers to receive information. Customers are also accustomed to searching for and watching interesting content on mobile/tablet devices.
2. Social media (Facebook, Weibo, YouTube, etc) are highly developed in China and Taiwan. These media platforms are where users and brands generate their own content. Customers also frequently use popular portal sites (Youku, Yahoo) and other social media platforms to view content.
Outcome
1. Generated astonishing free media exposure
In 2 months, the campaign generated over $3.5m of free media exposure, 6 million online comments, and 31 million campaign site visits.
2. Drove significant 26% growth
A total of 2 million Chinese tourists visited Singapore in 2013, a 26% increase over the previous year. The growth demonstrates the campaign was successful in winning the attention of the target audience drawing them to Singapore.
3. Won client’s recognition - Extend “New Discoveries” series micro-movies in 2014
The campaign was so effective that the client send an appreciation letter to us, and the strong results prompted the client to extend the campaign in 2014 and develop a series of micro-movies around the theme “New Discoveries”.
From the client’s perspective the strong earned media and the growth of tourism demonstrated the success of the campaign. The campaign was also able to introduce Singapore by employing unique entertaining content and encouraging the audience to discover Singapore in new ways.
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