It may be April Fool’s Day, but turning a seemingly silly holiday into a veritable marketing success story is no joke. That’s why we’re digging into the Effie archives and uncovering Jetstar and lead agency AKA Asia’s clever campaign that tapped into the hearts of Singaporeans and won a 2017 Bronze Effie Award.
To make their brand feel like one of Singapore’s own, Jetstar, a low-cost airline based in Melbourne, spoke their language. For April Fool’s Day, the brand tricked the nation into believing Jetstar Asia was introducing Singlish on its flights.
“Singaporeans are incredibly proud of their heritage and culture,” said Chantal van Wijnbergen, Effie Worldwide’s Chief Operating Officer and Jetstar’s Head of Marketing & Public Relations at the time of this campaign. “Living in a melting pot of cultures, traditions and languages, the one thing that binds every Singaporean together is Singlish, Singaporean-English, their shared local language which to date is not officially recognized.”
The brand’s mockumentary of its “Singlistics Training Programme” fooled their audiences. And when consumers begged them to do it for real, they listened. And as van Wijnbergen shared, it wasn’t a difficult sell to make this fictional idea take flight.
“We were all up for it immediately,” said van Wijnbergen. “Luckily, there was a lot of heart and appreciation for the idea from the rest of the organization as well, which helped to overcome logistical challenges to make the magic happen.”
Jetstar made Singlish flights a reality for Singapore’s 51st birthday. This drove over 3.7 million views, 32,000 shares and 200+ pieces of media coverage that glowed with national pride.
“The insight rooted in culture makes the creative idea timeless,” said van Wijnbergen. “However, back then ideas could still go viral as all the earned media was more than 90% organic. Today we would for sure need to put media spend behind the campaign to help it take off on social.”
