December 2022

SPH Media’s Content Lab bagged two awards at the International Content Marketing Awards 2022, including the gold prize in the Best Content Campaign category, for the Singapore Tourism Board campaign titled How To Not Waste Your Annual Leave. The multi-format campaign competed against nine other agencies from around the world to win the award, and also won silver in the Best Use of Video – Series category.

Content Lab is the content marketing unit of SPH Media. Its campaigns for JTC and Yeo’s were also shortlisted in the Best Specialist Campaign and Best Use of Video – Series categories.

Organised by the Content Marketing Association, the annual International Content Marketing Awards honours the best content marketing campaigns, strategies and talent working in the content industry around the globe. The 2022 winners were chosen by 138 industry leaders from various sectors, with the winners honoured via a virtual award ceremony out of London, England on Friday (Dec 2).

In a video played at the ceremony, a representative of the Best Content Campaign judging panel praised Content Lab’s How To Not Waste Your Annual Leave campaign as being memorable, effective and “beautifully simple”, commenting on how its multi-format content brought the concept to life with “humour and buckets of charisma, resulting in extremely impressive results”.

The tongue-in-cheek campaign was conceived to inspire pandemic-fatigued Singaporeans – who’ve been unable to indulge in their love for travel – to use their SingapoREdiscovers Vouchers (SRVs) and explore their own backyards. To meet that objective, How To Not Waste Your Annual Leave asked the audience a simple question: Would you rather waste your precious annual leave days by taking yet another Zoom call at home? Or would you rather spend them on doing things you actually love with your SRVs?

This multi-platform, multi-language content campaign featured a video series in both English and Chinese – hosted by local personalities Chua Enlai and Michelle Chia, respectively – and proved to be a hit with the audience, eventually exceeding its set KPIs by over 30 per cent.

Key to the project’s success was its utilisation of SPH Media’s extensive network. Videos and articles were anchored on the digital and social platforms of The Straits Times and Lianhe Zaobao, with Malay and Tamil language extensions in Berita Harian and Tamil Murasu. The campaign was further amplified via radio stations Kiss92 and UFM1003, and the social reach of lifestyle media titles The Singapore Women’s Weekly and NUYOU.

SPH Media’s Head of Content Marketing and Lifestyle Media Phin Wong said: “We are thrilled for Content Lab’s campaigns to be recognised on the international stage by a panel of content marketing experts. More than that, it is a privilege for my team to be able to represent all the awesome talent that exists in our little corner of the world.”

The International Content Marketing Awards mark the second time Content Lab’s How To Not Waste Your Annual Leave has been honoured. The first season of the series won Best Native Advertising / Branded Content Campaign at the WAN-IFRA Digital Media awards in 2021.

How To Not Waste Your Annual Leave eventually earned over 7 million page views and video views over two seasons.