TimeOut gets footloose

Singapore – TimeOut Singapore is plotting a unique marketing blitz in November to help boost its brand name.

TimeOut Singapore, which launched into the market last year and is published by Ink Publishing, is launching a viral campaign from 10 to 16 November to create greater awareness of the title. The campaign involves unleashing young brand officers – TimeOut 'footloosers' – in MRT stations and popular spots in the city.

The brand officers will be wearing black clothing tagged with just the TimeOut logo, and on busy MRT trains in peak times will sit next to each other reading the magazine. In public places such as Orchard Road, Raffles City Mall and Centrepoint, the officers will be seen sitting and reading TimeOut amidst the retail action and shopping business. If approached at any time by a pedestrian, personalized postcards will be handed out.

Honey Lee, marketing manager for TimeOut Singapore, said the campaign is “a brand awareness initiative”.

“The new marketing direction is to inject the Singaporean market with a healthy dose of brand recognition. So next time, when even a hawker center uncle sees the magazine, he smiles or maybe lashes out thanks to the nice review we wrote about him,” Lee said.

The marketing push ties in with a drop in the normal newsstand price of $3.95 to $1.95 for November.

Lee said from a business sense “we hope people will remember it so well, they’ll think of us when deciding how to brand their own entities”. 

“Across the board, our new strategic sales direction is to offer creative solutions beyond straight-forward ad packaging,” she said.

TimeOut magazine, which originally was started in the UK, also launched a Hong Kong edition earlier this year.