For enquiries, email our dedicated team at sales@thesmartlocal.com. The more detailed your email, the better we can assist you. Include your objectives, a rough budget, content you want (videos/articles, tiktoks) etc.
It’s 2024 and increasingly difficult to reach audiences through advertising. Singaporeans are savvier than ever, they sniff out ads in milliseconds and nope out of there before any messaging hits. This low retention results in ads being pushed even ad further down algorithms. More sophisticated readers (especially the youth) are the reason paid media gets more expensive every year and why their effectiveness continues to dwindle. People don’t like ads, precisely because they look like ads. Irritating, irrelevant, and not something they want to see disrupting their feeds. But what if brands were able to turn their messages into content readers loved? The art of engineering creative content to help our clients stand out is what we’ve been proudly doing over the last decade. It’s 2024 and it’s tougher than ever to get visibility, and we are still able to get amazing results. (Our case studies below have been updated to recent examples). Why are we able to? Since our early beginnings, we have been driven by this fundamental belief:
“People don’t hate ads, they just hate bad ads.”
When you create ads the right way, your followers will appreciate it and will even thank you for showing them an ad. Imagine that!
Good content is why some people even enjoy seeking out funny Thai ads to watch. You have to respect your readers and believe ads don’t have to be a painful experience, they can be enjoyable. Readers respect the effort put in to create a good ad. This is how we get clients results that they can’t get with other publishers.
This is currently the most popular content format in the world, thanks to TikTok which popularised this snappy video style that is usually under 60 seconds. Instagram, FB and YT have all followed suit and now prioritise shorts more than anything else. If you’re a brand, you have to be on shorts to stay relevant. But this format has been a huge obstacle for many clients, as it’s not easy to get visibility and messages in such a short time. But brands can get amazing results with the right approach. We help clients through two main ways.
Direct Shorts: Many people read TSL for ideas on what to do in Singapore. If it’s an event/place/opening, we use a vlog-style approach with our team’s personalities to help the viewers experience it through our lens. In the hands of skilled content creators with a strong following and reputation, you will get amazing results like the examples below.
This works best if the event/product is somewhat interesting. Such as a hotel giveaway or sales promotion. If your brand is a financial service or if the nature of your messaging isn’t the easiest to market, a direct style might not work. In those situations, our team works their creativity juices to come up with a tailored strategy to make your message pop. This is our speciality – we make ads fun for our community of followers by turning your message into exceptional content. Here are some examples of how we do indirect shorts to grab the attention of our viewers.
Indirect shorts:
Client: Scoot | Format: Challenge – Reuniting loved ones
Is it possible for airline ads to go viral on social media organically? The “Scoot with Heart” campaign message was about treasuring the human connections we all have in our lives. But that’s not the easiest message to get across if done as a straightforward ad. CSR messages like that usually don’t get visibility and definitely don’t go viral. Together with Scoot, we came up with this creative idea of going around the streets of Singapore, taking our time to seek out and approach people who might long for a connection. We ended up finding Uncle Wee, a jovial centenarian living in Singapore, who was separated from his family living in Indonesia and resigned to spending his days alone. With the help of Scoot’s ability to bring people together, we reunited them by flying his relatives over to Singapore, and filming the whole journey. This campaign went viral across Singapore and was mentioned on the radio and in marketing magazines. Comments were overwhelmingly positive and readers absolutely loved Scoot for this! And this storytelling was all done skillfully with the shorts format, that has limited time!
We had also previously helped Scoot stand out during the National Day period where it’s key for brands to want to be associated with the positive sentiments around this period. We flew to a Scoot destinations Seoul and Melbourne, and filmed a series of viral and heartwarming videos where we found Singaporeans who had made a life for themselves overseas. And we surprised them by making them Kopi, to give them a taste of home, as well as Scoot vouchers to come back.
But there are so many other ways that we can help airlines. You can leave it to our team of strategists to come up with a creative format suitable for your brand. Here’s a different style, where we focused on the destination and activties of a couple.
Client: Singapore Airlines | Format: Challenge – Travelling with a stranger
In this video, the hook was one of our talents approaching strangers on the street with a challenge… to go with him on a date to an unknown destination in under 24 hours. So for one magical day, these former strangers had an epic date in Paris, one of SQ’s destinations. Apart from it being a very wholesome and enjoyable video to watch, we also managed to show off key messages of the airline, like the free Wi-FI connectivity that passengers can now enjoy on SQ flights. And we did it very naturally as the couple kept their parents updated.
A major thing to note is that many of these videos were also shared on the brand’s page through the collab function e.g Scoot, helping them get a brand lift for their own socials. Given that we are one of the few to have a huge following across all the major platforms, we also posted the same video across multiple platforms to get the most mileage for the client. This allowed the brand messages to reach out to different segments and many of the videos did extremely well across multiple platforms.
Our ability to create content extends across any imaginable vertical. There are always ways to create content while showing brand messages. One of the most difficult verticals for marketing folks is financial services, especially messages from banks. In the videos below, you can see how we skillfully wove in core messages for our partners, while making the video still entertaining to watch.
Client: Citibank | Message: Citi Rewards Mastercard Points | Format: Wholesome surprise for strangers
This “Paying for Strangers” concept was so successful, it ended up being a 3-part series! Here’s another video we did for another bank. Because there are so many possibilities for creative content, we always ensure that brands are given unique formats/segments to be associated with.
Client: DBS| Message: DBS yuu card cash rebates | Format: Challenge: Cooking for strangers
Client: AIC | Message: Breaking The Silver Ceiling | Format: Challenge: Learning climbing for the first time.
Some of our reviews have been highly influential – a positive review went viral and caused so much hype for the restaurant that all the local newspapers covered the queues it was getting.
Our advertising translates into real-world results which are sometimes so huge they block the entrances of their competitors.
We have had the privilege of working with many MNC companies, large businesses, agencies and home-grown local companies.
We also have a long collection of testimonials that can be seen upon request. Should you wish to receive our latest media kit, have a look at previous case studies or have any further questions, send an email to our team at sales@thesmartlocal.com.
And if you want to learn even more about digital marketing in Singapore, check out my digital marketing blog.
– Written by Bryan Choo, founder of TSL.