Made In Singapore

What does it take to build a successful Singapore brand and what are the difficulties involved? Phil Radford takes a closer look at some familiar names.

Is most Singapore branding, well, completely rubbish?  That's the repeated verdict of a broad swathe of on- and off-the-record professionals in Singapore's marketing industry, so it is a question worth asking.

The charge-sheet is the familiar refrain left echoing after any courageous pitch hits the wall: Asian business culture demands investment in hard assets; marketing is devised by risk averse middle management who prefer an idea with a track record; if branding has to mean ‘communication', then the message has got to be rational, and nailed down with facts.

But when communication does stray towards the Holy Grail of an ‘emotional conversation' it is  - according to one of those off-record strategists - " sycophantic, cliché-ridden family stuff with sufficient inspirational charm only to caricature the most hackneyed ‘Asian Values.'"

"Totally untrue," says Labrynth Branding's Trudi Hartley.  "The art of invoking a strong emotional response has been the cornerstone of many successful marketing messages.  Many businesses realise a strong brand adds substantial value because it creates a unique market positioning." And maybe there is cause for a backwards glance. That Asian culture which is so readily mocked by Singapore's emphatically expat caste of self-proclaimed gurus is making steady branding headway back home. Witness the allure of oriental style and eastern therapeutics.

Anyhow, Trudi Hartley adds,"if these values are parodied in advertisements to successfully communicate a core message which works, why mock them?"

THE DILEMMA

The hazards of brand building in the Singapore market are familiar. A tiny domestic market provides insufficient economies of scale to indulge grand, brand strategists. And professionals and marketers themselves agree unanimously that there is absolutely no loyalty amongst Singaporean consumers for anything which relies on leveraging national identity.

So who can blame executives for training their energies on product rather than brand? The commercial copy-culture means that companies who find and define what Singapore Management University's lecturer and brand expert Jorg Dietzel calls the "white space" of a unique product placement can expect competitors to move in like locusts. According to Brandz Group chairman and MD Jovan Tay, when one of Singapore's leading health products distributors decided to take its original massage chair into China, they waited until they had numerous follow-on models lined up behind it, because they knew that anything they introduced would be copied and retailed within one to three months. Why create space for other people?

But the main accusation of disgruntled professionals is that local business remains immune to the philosophy of branding. In the words of John Shanahan, chief executive of Colmar Brunton, this means a reluctance to learn that a brand is a thing not a name. He suggests three levels on which a brand resonates: the rational (does it do the job?); the social (how does it make me look?); and the emotional (will it fulfil me?). Only the first, he asserts, is an easy sell in Singapore. Why? Some argue Singapore brands are shy of asserting their customers' core needs and values. The default ‘emotional conversations' are appeals to established cultural stereotypes and supposed national characteristics, regardless of what their product actually means. 

Is a platinum credit card really about being a grateful son? Or is it about status?

LESSONS FROM ABOVE

Defenders of Singapore brands can readily point to a number of success stories. So what do they tell us about the depth - or superficiality - of the branding philosophy in Singapore?

Superficially, Singapore Airlines (SIA) seems a slam-dunk for the efficacy of basing brand identity on Brand Singapore itself. ‘Efficiency', ‘safety' and ‘service' effortlessly leveraged into a truly global brand, and, incidentally, the world's fourth biggest international airline. The "Singapore Girl" has enjoyed formidable longevity. Never intended as a timeless mascot, her caring image has remained as constant as the uniforms she wears. 

But take a glance at their A380 strategy and it is clear that SIA's brand is also about having the confidence to fly into uncharted airspace. As SIA's Stephen Forshaw, VP public affairs, is happy to admit, pioneering the double-decker monster is a significant risk. Ushering this plane into the market will mean the airline shouldering considerable engineering and service responsibilities. Why are they doing it? "Because we want to be seen as an innovation leader, and this plane will give us global recognition."

In fact the "First to Fly" campaign always was a gamble.  As announced last month, French technicians have continued to make a complete hash of wiring up the production models, pushing back SIA's first delivery to well beyond its heavily plugged debut.  But in the longer term the gamble will pay off. When the plane finally takes up the Singapore - Sydney route next year, it will be the only route the plane will be seen on anywhere for many months afterwards.

But the branding value of the plane is not confined to novelty. Forshaw points out that the plane's qualities have other appeal to the international market-place. Fuel-efficiency commands a brutal premium, but the A380's startling low noise levels, and emissions are factors which its global customers will increasingly care about. 

HYBRID SUCCESS

Singapore's less elevated brands similarly seem to have got the knack of picking carefully from their home-base heritage and injecting it into a carefully melded brand identity. The Banyan Tree ‘Sanctuary for the Senses' mantra keys into folklore and Asian mythology, according to Shanahan. 

But it is also an appeal to the parts of Asian culture that the west is keen to fetishise. The natural context and homeopathic quality of their image is anchored in Asia, but the eco-friendliness and championing of rural arts and crafts appeal directly to an ethos which lurched out of California in the late 1970s. The "emotional responses and recollections from our customers" which co-founder Claire Chiang claims are central to Banyan Tree's brand success, are premeditated, carefully nurtured and scrupulously guarded. They are original, and owe nothing to any backwards-justified concept of Asian values or identity.

LOCAL FIRST

Both SIA and Banyan Tree were always going to live or die by how they engaged with the international market. Can home-grown brands live off local values?

Bread Talk is frequently cited as a Singapore success story. Says Dietzel, the company "is not particularly Singaporean", but the brand is still clear fusion. The products are mostly derivatives of Chinese pastries. But the atmosphere - quite literally, since the smell is an integral part of the brand experience - is deliberately western. 

The concept, according to Brandz's Tay, is quite new. Bread Talk wanted to appeal directly to the senses. Inviting you to see and smell the freshness is how they actually get the bread to talk to you. Positioning ‘bread' so that you "fall in love with it" is not an obvious brand pitch. But imitation is flattery, and the streets of Indonesia and Malaysia are full of clones, whilst Bread Talk commands premium pricing.

Surely the resurgent Tiger Balm can carry the flag for traditional Asian branding? Yes and No. The four-time Singapore Brand Award Winner has cracked markets in over 100 countries, and the brand unashamedly leverages herbal-inspired Chinese medicine traditions and its reliable Singapore heritage. 

But as deputy general manager Jasmin Hong admits, the heritage was also a millstone.  When Haw Par Healthcare regained the license in 1992, the brand reputation was "old and smelly". Brand awareness was huge, but then only in the context of granny's medicine chest.

Haw Par started to capitalise on their brand equity by looking and thinking carefully at lifestyle. Packaging the balm as a peel-on, peel-off patch allowed them to pitch successfully at the international mass sports-injuries market. Young Singapore has been re-engaged by liquidating the traditional design, repositioning the brand as ‘personal care' and appealing directly to the muscular stress of a generation that spends its days and nights hunched over a PC.

WHY DOES THE DEBATE MATTER?

The originality, or otherwise, of Singapore's advertising is an issue that will never die. But what is giving it a new edge is an awareness that the rules of the game are changing.  Whether or not brands are ‘riding' on a hazy concept of values, the tide of change washing over Singapore's marketing space is pulling on one direction. Better, clearer, more honest brand conversation is becoming an imperative.

"The internet is changing everything", says Y&R Brand's regional creative brand planner Robert Campbell. "Young people especially, are getting used to being communicated with on a philosophical and emotional level."  He takes Creative Technologies as an example: a fantastic innovative company, but to succeed they have got to be able to transmit their core values with the clarity, allure and force of Apple. Brands need to stimulate deep appeal or they will lose.

In any case, the dogged argument that Singapore consumers are emotion-immune ‘rational' consumers continues to unwind. If that is the case, why does Singapore have more luxury watch shops than any other city in SE Asia, he asks?  Is it because Singaporeans are wealthy, and rationally want to display the rewards of their hard work? Could be. But that does not explain how Starbucks has persuaded Jo Average to pay somewhere north of $5 for a cup of coffee in a cardboard cup. Singaporeans buy on emotion too.

Thirdly, a country the size of Singapore is never going to beat the copy-culture at its own game. "Any enterprise, even with innovations, can only set its own price until cheaper competitors emerge," says Banyan Tree's Chiang. "The only way we can remain above price wars is to leverage the brand to generate a price premium and customer loyalty." Embracing brand is the solution to competition, not a distraction from beating it.

Lastly, a brand which genuinely engages with its customers' ideals and values is going to be able to follow their lifestyles into their future. The brand exercise is like raising a periscope, according to Tay. "In five years there can be tremendous changes in customer segments. Brands will lose out if they do not know where they are going to be."

KNOW THY MARKET

So what should Singapore brand builders be doing? In the first instance, professionals suggest carefully weighing the balance of commercial focus between the product and the brand. Dietzel observes that "most brands are started by experts in a particular field, who concentrate on product." The result, according to Jovan, is that when Singapore companies launch, they classically over-deliver on the product (in terms of quality and distribution) and under-promise on its performance.

The balance requires constant attention. Tay says tends to happen is that once established, brands react to competition by elevating the brand promise, until it exceeds product delivery. This negative territory can only be entered when companies cease to have realistic dialogue with their market. Branding also means products listening to the emotional reaction of customers.

Knowing the market means finding a unique space, and then keeping it by communicating with it. New Urban Male (NUM) is a great example. Originally dependent on US imports, the store has tapped into youth dissent by plastering its clothes with provocative ‘in-yer-face' quotes of limited ambiguity.  

NUM's youth fashion market is ruthless and its customers, feckless. But they stay on target by really knowing their market. Their latest wheeze is a singlet with its own strap.  Why? So that its young urban male customers do not have to clumsily hang onto their shirts when they strip off at KM8 on Sentosa for a few hours' funking by the pool. In the right circumstances, functionality is the ultimate form of emotional engagement.

Lastly, branding is the path to power. A brand which captures or stimulates an emotional hunger can replicate its appeal into other products, and its product range across markets.  Osim is successful because its laid-back floor-lit lifestyle says ‘it's not just OK to spend thousands on a chair which vibrates, its OK to spend hundreds more on any piece of funky technology that simultaneously massages both body and ego.

ORGANIC GROWTH

The Banyan Tree is the exemplar for the role of brand in international growth. According to co-founder, Ho Kwon Ping, "building a powerful brand was the prerequisite to, rather than a reward for, our success."  Their hotels are the manifestation of the idea that people seek sanctuary in natural oases. By subjecting much of their business decision-making to an assessment of how it will impact their brand, they have been able to replicate their appeal around the globe.

Ho tells the story of how his 82-year-old mother admitted that she likes to skinny dip in the hotel's landmark pool villas, because she has never been to a place where she can be sure she has total privacy. The story is a parable. The brand image of natural seclusion, is powerful, because it has delved to the heart of what we really want, not how we think we are expected to behave.

So the message to Singapore's brand entrepreneurs: ask not "what can I give to tomorrow's customers?" Don't even ask "what instincts can I appeal to?" Ask instead, "What do they really want me to make them feel?"