MCYS plugs couples into Facebook

Client Singapore’s Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS)

Project Beautifully Imperfect

Brief To use social media to get couples to appreciate the imperfections of their significant other half.

People At Leo Burnett: Kurt Viertel, group managing director; Saurabh Varma, chief strategy officer; Chris Chiu, ECD; Margaret Leong, account director. At Dragonsgate: Yasmin Ahmad, writer and film director. At ZenithOptimedia: May Loong, media director; Calvin Wan, Senior Planner. At Fulford PR: Linda Fulford, managing director; Izzie Salleh, business development director.

Duration April 8 - 28, 2009

Background The marriage rate in Singapore has been falling over the years, despite Government efforts to get Singaporeans to think of marriage. In the Marriage and Parenthood Study in 2007, commissioned by the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports to understand the attitudes and perceptions of Singaporean residents towards marriage and parenthood, it was found that most young Singaporeans did want to get married, but were not doing so because they had yet to meet the perfect partner.

Aim MCYS wanted to inspire marriage-minded singles to find that special person based on character and personality, instead of applying society’s checklist of beauty, wealth, education and family background. In the longer-term, it wanted to persuade Singaporeans to get married and have children.

Execution MCYS wanted an interactive campaign that would encourage singles to make the effort to go out and meet their special someone, and not wait for others to seek them out.

To that end,the Ministry ran a contest to celebrate the imperfections that make a relationship perfect on Facebook. The social network was selected as the campaign’s touch point due to its popularity among young and internet-savvy adults. According to comScore Media Metrix, Facebook is Singapore’s favourite social networking site with 1.25 million active users in Singapore. More than half of the users log on to Facebook at least once each day, suggesting that 25 per cent of all internet users in Singapore log on daily.

MCYS created a ‘Beautifully Imperfect’ public profile onFacebook to run the contest. Fans were invited to upload a photo of themselves with their partners and to share what makes them a beautifully imperfect couple. The 10 couples with the most votes would win S$400 (US$274) in cash.

A vanity URL for the contest page was created for easy recall, while awareness and engagement was generated through fan ads and video comment ads on Facebook. The campaign ran for three weeks from April 8, 2009. The contest itself started on the same day and remained open for a week. A prize-giving ceremony for the winners was held on May 16.

Results During the 21-day campaign, close to 400 contest submissions were received. More than 100,000 unique visitors visited the Beautifully Imperfect public profile, while more than 14,000 users became fans of the profile, supporting the campaign and spreading its message to their friends.

In addition, there were more than 100,000 engagement actions such a comments and posts. “The campaign created an impression among Facebook users within a short period of time,” said George Foo, chief operating officer, ihub Media, the official sales partner of Facebook in Southeast Asia and Taiwan. “The results were fantastic and it would not have been possible if not for the touching and high-impact advertising campaign, as well as the close working relationship we had with the agency.”