Singapore Branding

This is supposed to be a blog on Malaysia, but I'm living in Singapore now, so I'll lump in Singapore's topical issues with this blog.

This was a letter to the readers' letters pages of The Straits Times, which was not published. Singapore just announced it was engaging consultants to come up with the new, integrated brand for Singapore.

Excerpt :

Companies with revenues a fraction of Singapore's GDP pay millions for a large rebranding exercise, so Singapore investing $3m in this is not unreasonable. Branding is seen by progressive companies as an investment, not cost, that will generate extra, sustainable, long-term sales, so why not Singapore, where even more is at stake (investment, jobs, citizens' livelihoods).

1. Its too early to tell if "Incredible India", "Malaysia, Truly Asia" are examples of a successful national branding campaign (personally I prefer Australia's "Where in the Bloody Hell Are You" campaign). My favourite example of a successful national branding campaign is Taiwan's "Made-in-Taiwan" campaign in the 1990's. then, Taiwan was already moving up the electronics value added chain from basic contract manufacturing to design and more sophisticated production. However, its image still lagged behind and Taiwan was still perceived as a electronics sweatshop. With a clear branding objective (change our image from sweatshop to high tech so that our companies can get more high-margin business), Taiwan embarked on series of advertisements in international magazines, displaying a series of cutting edge electronic products, and each ad was signed off as "Made in Taiwan".

I remembered my reaction to each of those ads : "Wow, I didn't know that was made in Taiwan", exactly the reaction that the branding campaign was designed to evoke. Today, Taiwan's image truly reflects its capabilities as an electronics high tech design and production centre.

So what are current perceptions of Singapore?

Positive ones -efficient, stable, great place to do business, good managers, transparent, good governance.

But here are some bad ones:
"nanny state"
"sterile" (at birth rate of 1.2, this has new meaning)
"boring"
"small market, so ignore it"
"repressive" (IMF 27, Gomez issues do not help)
So why not do as Taiwan did and face the negative image head-on? And take the opportunity to add some wit and spice to it (the very nature of doing this will dispell the notions of boredom and sterility). Here's a suggestion (deliberately facetious to prove the point):

Umbrella campaign: "So you think ..."

Sub-campaigns

1. "So You Think We're a Nanny State" campaign: Advertise risque, controversial images of Singapore (bare-cladded Crazy Horse artistes, a typical night at Orchard Towers or Geylang, hmmm... I'm running out of examples here....) and sign off each ad with "So you think we're a Nanny State".

2. "So You Think We're Boring/Sterile" campaign. Images of Crazy Horse again (indeed, Crazy Horse images are proving to be very versatile...), future casinos, night markets, (ooops, haven't seen these for a while), Clarke Quay al-fresco dining (with maybe Hooters seen in the distant background). Sign off ads with "So you think we are boring" (you get the picture)

3. "So You Think We're Small" campaign - Counter with images of our connections to more than half of the world's population through our multicultural heritage and current business interests in India, China, Indonesia etc (a sub-sub-campaign could be "Singapore: 4 million Asians. Connected to 4 billion more."). Any examples of the theme of "Gateway to Asia" would be appropriate here.

4. "So You Think We're Repressive" - Display news headlines clippings of "Singapore Reverses Decision on IMF 27", "Ministers Drop Libel Suits", "PM Regrets Gomez Overkill"
(yes, yes, all of this is currently theoretical). This particular campaign can sign off slightly differently: "We're Trying"
So there you have it - my little two cents on Singapore's single brand to the world.....

Post Script :

Crazy Horse shuttered its doors barely a year after its grand opening so maybe our boring image is beyond redemption....

Pay Malaysian Ministers $5million each!

This was an email to the readers' letters section to the leading Singapore English broadsheet - The Straits Times. Singapore just had announced increase of salaries for its ministers and civil servants. IN the case of ministers, their salaries were increased from about $1.2 million a year to $1.9m a year.

The letter was published in the forum section of The Stratis Times on 11th April, 2007

No second guesses as to which country I'm referring to below:

Excerpt:

I am a national of a neighboring ASEAN country, though a Singapore resident. This is my take:

The principle of paying competitive salaries for ministers and civil servants is fair. If this ensures integrity, zero-corruption and reasonable competency, then it is well worth it.

I would gladly pay S$1m, S$2m or even S$5m for each minister of my country if they can guarantee one thing: Integrity. The cost of lack of integrity runs into billions of billions of dollars in wasted government expenditure. This expenditure is driven not by genuine citizens' needs, but by juicy procurement contracts and associated kickbacks. Leave alone the cost of the culture of corruption that corrodes the whole civil service.

The only issue Singaporeans should debate is what is the relevant benchmark. Whether its two thirds of the median of top 8 earners in each profession or of the top 80 earners in each profession', should be up for parliamentary debate. To me, my benchmark for my country is how much it would cost my country's taxpayers to make sure our ministers and civil servants do not stray off the narrow path of integrity. This, currently, is a very, very large figure.