| |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
RHB-THE STRAITS TIMES NATIONAL SPELLING CHAMPIONSHIP, Singapore (Singapore Press Holdings Ltd, Singapore). |
|
| |
|
|
|
| |
Project name |
|
| |
RHB – The Straits Times National Spelling Championship
|
|
|
| |
General Publication Info |
|
| |
The Straits Times, the English flagship daily of SPH, has been serving readers for more than a century. Launched since 1845, its comprehensive coverage of world news, East Asian news, Southeast Asian news, home news, sports news, financial news and lifestyle updates makes The Straits Times the most-read newspaper in Singapore.
Quality news, in-depth analyses, impactful commentaries and breaking stories are packaged to give readers riveting accounts of events in Singapore, the region, and beyond.
The Straits Times also has an online presence at www.straitstimes.com. The site features top stories, blogs and an online forum threads. Also under The Straits Times' umbrella are citizen journalism site Stomp and online television service RazorTV.
|
|
|
| |
Idea and Implementation of your special project |
|
| |
RHB - The Straits Times National Spelling Championship 2012 originated from an annual spelling competition organised by the Ministry of Education. The competition received a few hundred participants each year, and the Ministry faced difficulties convincing schools to participate because of its low profile.
The editors of The Straits Times had always been invited as guest judges and talk of undertaking its production had been in the works as a spelling competition not only encourage students to read more and spell better, but also make the broadsheet synonymous with literacy promotion. The timing was just opportune when the RHB Banking Group approached SPH to explore a possible partnership to promote literacy.
The launch was held at Lido Theatre on Orchard Road. A month-long call for entries resulted in the highest participation rate ever. About 1,192 pupils participated in the Preliminary Round with the top 108 advancing to the Zonal round and finally 29 advancing to the Grand Final. The champion walked away with $5,000 cash and a Challenge Trophy for his school.
The “SPH IS ON” cross-media approach was adeptly demonstrated in this campaign as SPH’s comprehensive suite of media platforms and capabilities - daily broadsheet The Straits Times, online television channel RazorTV, radio station 91.3FM, online portal ST.com as well as event management services SPH Media Box Office - was well placed to deliver a cross-platform experience for audience and sponsor. “SPH IS ON” is a solutions-based cross-media ideology that brings together the most-ideal combination of media products and services to satisfy advertisers’ multiple touch-point requirements.
The full details of the RHB - The Straits Times National Spelling Championship 2012 campaign are as follows:
ON PRINT
In order to generate interest and encourage participation, call-for-entry ads and advertising blurbs were placed on The Straits Times and The Sunday Times (Sunday Edition of The Straits Times).
In addition, the project team also ran a series of one-page feature on interesting words and spelling techniques on Little Red Dot (The straits Times’ weekly school magazine for primary school pupils) to prime students for the quest.
Other printed collateral include leaflets distributed via partners.
ON LINE
An official website (www.straitstimes.com/bigspell) was created specifically for the contest. The public were invited to visit the website to check out details on the contest, view videos of the various rounds and even test their spelling ability through an online game.
Online banner ads were also strategically placed on popular portals such as www.straitstimes.com and www.stomp.com.sg. The latter is a citizen-journalism website that is very popular with students and youths.
The Straits Times’ multimedia news portal The Straits Times RazorTV also showcased video clips of the preliminaries, zonal rounds and grand finals.
ON AIR (RADIO) AND SOCIAL MEDIA
SPH radio station - 91.3FM were tasked to ran info capsules on word of the day, spelling contests on air and even visit shortlisted participating schools during the recess time.
They also helped to promote the contest via their official website and Facebook page.
ON GROUND
SPH’s event organisers sourced and selected ideal locations to hold the massive number of participants during each rounds. They also developed and executed game play, and managed the recruitment of student volunteers for the task of ushering, playing contest “police”, and traffic control.
They developed a strong staging identity and consistent mechanics, as well as event collateral, such as The Big Spell trophies.
Please refer to supporting Annexes for visuals of the campaign.
|
|
|
| |
Project results and results monitoring |
|
| |
1. Singapore Press Holdings (SPH)
In terms of monetary gain, this project bought in approximately $800,000 for SPH. Brand awareness and preference towards The Straits Times were also raised among pupils and we also see more educators using The Straits Times as an authentic learning resource in class.
The circulation for The Straits Times’ Little Red Dot also increased by 8,000 copies per week during the contest period, reaching more than 60,000 subscribing schools weekly as teachers used its content to prepare pupils.
2. RHB Banking Group
An improvement in brand awareness and brand preference towards RHB was also observed among the pupils. After its highly successful inaugural partnership, RHB is already in talks with The Straits Times to develop the programme for subsequent years, as well as across the border.
3. Ministry of Education (MOE)
The Straits Times’ marketing and publicity efforts amplified the campaign and brought it to a national level, doubling the participation rate from 600 in the previous year to about 1,200 pupils. Its involvement allowed more semi-finalists and finalists to compete, increasing the visibility of the competition.
4. Target Segment (Pupils)
An improvement in pupils’ spelling proficiency was observed by the teachers. This could be attributed to the heightened interest in spelling as well as the various aids (spelling guide and online game) developed by The Straits Times for The Big Spell.
|
|
|
| |
Additional comments |
|
| |
Please refer to the supporting annexes for more details on the project.
|
|
|
| |
LINKS |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
| |
|
| |
General contact and feedback address:
Ms. Raquel Meikle
Programme Manager Events
WAN-IFRA
Darmstadt, Germany
Phone: +49-6151-733.927
E-Mail: raquel.meikle@wan-ifra.org
|
|
|
|
|
|
|