Secret Lives of Singaporeans issue #2: Priyanka, property tax and placement of ads

SECRET LIVES OF SINGAPOREANS Issue #2 – Week commencing 28 February 2022 Authored with pride by Zhang Weitian, Daniel Liu, Paolo Alvarez, Frederick Tong

OGILVY

Secret Lives of Singaporeans is an ongoing collection of marketerfriendly briefs on the fascinating people of the little red dot, by planners and PR consultants from the big red agency. It’s not “thought leadership”, it’s “DO inspiration”.

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Each issue comprises • One thing people in Singapore are talking about • One thing people in Singapore are searching for • One thing that’s in the news in Singapore

OGILVY

One thing people in Singapore are talking about:

SAJC VOTING

Image Credits: Saint Andrews Junior College brochure

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WHAT

OGILVY

Saint Andrews Junior College student Priyanka brought some levity to a gloomy online space this week with her Spice Girls-themed student council election video on TikTok. It could be the moves, the “I put the P in emPathy”, her sidekicks’ “she’s a real G” or just knowing how to laugh at herself. In two days, her video racked up over 752,000 views and 1,750 replies, got picked up by the mainstream media, and made “SAJC voting” and “SAJC Priyanka” breakout search terms on Google.

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Not bad for a 17-year-old.

Watch Priyanka here.

Opportunity for brands to engage in some good-natured “Be like Priyanka”-type trendjacking on social while the attention lasts.

SO WHAT

OGILVY

One thing people in Singapore are searching for:

RISING PROPERTY TAX

Image Credits: Unsplash

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WHAT

OGILVY

Searches for “property tax” are at a five-year high following the government’s announcement that tax rates for high-end properties will be increased significantly from 2023.

Property has traditionally been seen as the surest form of investment for wealth accumulation in Singapore. But with tax increases, it’s set to become less attractive in the next two years.

If you’re targeting the wealthy, they are likely to become more amenable to other forms of investment. Good time to start communicating the merits of these alternatives.

SO WHAT

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OGILVY

One thing in the news in Singapore:

#RUSSIAUKRAINECONFLICT

Image Credits: Unsplash

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WHAT

OGILVY

With Russia commencing military action against Ukraine from 24 February, every new channel has been filled with regular updates.

But this post isn’t about Putin, politics, patriotism or even plunging stock markets. It’s about the unfortunate brand placements that can happen thanks to programmatic buys, where and when people read such news.

In this instance, Lego and Shopee’s ad was triggered by contextual keywords on the conflict.

It’s not the first time such placements have happened.

Have you planned your contextual keywords in detail for your ads to only appear in situations you’d want them to?

And when such news events happen, perhaps it’s time to proactively review your keywords through the lens of “could something go wrong?” before something indeed does.

SO WHAT

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Hungry for more?

Talk to us at secretlivessg@ogilvy.com