Having launched its “Passion Made Possible” brand last year, the success of which depends on unleashing the passion of Singaporeans and residents, the Singapore Tourism Board is investing in building an industry of marketers and storytellers.
Lionel Yeo: “No learning, no change; no change, no learning”
As a first step, it has opened its internal Marketing Conference to the industry. The one-and-a-half day event, which kicked off today, was attended by more than 300 people, one third of whom came from the trade.
Lionel Yeo, chief executive, said that given that “Passion Made Possible” was for the longterm, and which will be animated through stories, it was a good time to “reflect on how to keep brands alive” and that STB would be investing in learning.
There are also plans to open up the STB Marketing College, launched last year for internal staff, to the industry, but Yeo said more details would be shared at the Tourism Industry Conference in April. (Watch video of STB Marketing College here).
The STB has signed a three-year contract with global marketing and sales capability firm Brand Learning to build its college which it says will deliver “a pioneering and leading-edge learning programme, blending face-to-face and digital learning across priority marketing competencies”.
Yeo, citing his previous experience as Dean of the Civil Service College, said that adult learning and corporate training was different from the education of children. “You have to be very focused and purposeful in adult learning and corporate training. You are not here to pass an exam but looking for ideas that will allow you to change the way you work when you get back to the office.
“That’s the real measure of a learning conference. Does it result in change? No learning, no change, no change, no learning.”
Singapore’s new brand campaign depends on animation through storytelling, and the STB recognises the need to build up industry capabilities
Opening the conference, Brand Learning’s co-CEO Nevine El-Warraky and managing director, APAC & Partner, Harriet de Swiet, spoke about how brand purpose and positioning are critical today. “Brand purpose is timeless, positioning is timely,” said El-Warraky.
They gave examples of brands that had done this well. Their examples were mainly of big brands and Western companies which prompted an audience question of how they felt things had changed given the emergence of consumer brands in China, such as Huawei, and if branding had to be looked at through a new prism.
Their reply: “Brands from India and China build different experiences and activate in different ways but the core principles remain the same.”
Their advice is to make sure you build these four capabilities in your team.
- Scientists – people who are not just analysts but are curious, open to experimentation and looking at data in interesting ways
- Strategists – a job that’s harder than ever before but people who can look across all aspects of the customer experience
- Story Builders – people who know how to deliberately create content that consumers can use and share
- Socialisers – people who can socialise customer experiences and content, and then evolve them through continuous two-way conversations.
As I listened to their talk, the most common refrain in my head was, how can these principles be applied to smaller businesses, which form the majority of the travel industry?
During a break, I asked the question of El-Warraky who said that it’s easier today than ever before for small companies to compete. Big companies are like super tankers, the small are more agile and technology has become much more affordable, she said.
Hopefully, as the conference drilled down into individual workshops in the afternoon and as the STB Marketing College opens up to the industry later in the year, these answers will become clearer, and insights more actionable so that, as Yeo envisions, it will produce change in the way Singapore’s travel industry works and market “Passion Made Possible” individually and collectively.
See related article: Best practices in storytelling