After almost a year of the global pandemic where the future was uncertain, where no one could travel or spend quality time with family or friends, where malls were closed and everyone was encouraged to stay home, Paya Lebar Quarter (PLQ) wanted to bring the community back together to spread joy and festive cheer during December, to close out the year on a positive note. The goal was to bring shoppers back to PLQ Mall and make Christmas wishes come true through a socially driven activation that took visitors on a magical hunt around PLQ.
PLQ’s Roam for Gnomes campaign involved 75 hand-painted gnomes being hidden across the venue, each with a QR code that linked to retail offers worth over $90k from 16 selected stores, all accessed through the Lendlease Plus app. To add some celebrity flair, we partnered with a mix of 8 local celebrities, artists, designers, and influencers including Oon Shu An, Ezzam Rahman, Jeremy Jiang and James Rainer, who each designed and decorated a gnome with their own interpretation of a Christmas wish. Clues and teasers were shared on the celebrities’ own social channels to drive awareness and participation, bolstered by regular posts on Paya Lebar Quarter’s own pages.
Additionally, ALIVE brokered and managed a partnership with a Singaporean social enterprise – The Social Kitchen – whose mission is to benefit the vulnerable community by creating jobs, through food. Four youngsters connected to The Social Kitchen got the chance to express their artistic side and decorate a gnome which featured as a part of the overall hunt.
As the lead agency, ALIVE handled the creative development, strategic and operational planning, partnerships, production, logistics, execution, reporting and evaluation across the month-long campaign. The first live weekend saw unprecedented results with 90% of retail offers being redeemed in 48 hours, prompting PLQ to more than double the deals available for the campaign to maximise sales for participating retailers.
Building and growing the social base for PLQ and generating awareness for the campaign was also a priority, so we produced two short video advertisements for PLQ’s social use, directing and managing the content creation, video production and direction, talent management and post-production. The campaign achieved online outreach close to 180k with 4,300 in-person engagements.