From logo impressions to lived experiences: Rethinking the partnership brief through Singapore Smash

This post is sponsored by World Table Tennis.

When Singapore Smash debuted in 2022 as the first Grand Smash in the World Table Tennis (WTT) Series, the question was not “how do we sell more inventory?” – it was whether a rights-holder, a destination, and the public sector could design a single experience that worked for a broadcast, for a live audience, and for a host city.

Five editions in, the clearest lesson is that partnerships lose value the moment they are treated like add-ons. The real work is in co-producing the journey.

The traditional model – logo exposure, perimeter signage, hospitality quotas – struggles to keep pace with how audiences behave. A major event now lives across fragmented touchpoints: trip planning, accommodation, wayfinding, venue moments, short-form highlights, and the days after, when people decide whether to stay engaged or move on. If a partnership does not influence those touchpoints, its value is cosmetic. The brand is visible, but the experience belongs to someone else.

Singapore Smash’s answer has been to treat the event as a designed product rather than a schedule of sessions. The one-table arena, the pace of play, the camera language, and the beats around the competition are built to feel coherent for a viewer on a phone and a fan in the arena. That coherence is where the partners plug in.

In 2026, that philosophy took a clearer shape with Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) as a presenting partner and official integrated resort partner. The point was not a bigger logo; it was a better journey.

The draw reveal was staged at RWS, creating a focal moment before the main draw. Hotel packages reduced friction for travelling fans by linking accommodation and event access in a single plan. Athlete services were mapped with recovery and logistics in mind. None of this was decorative. It was service design applied to sport.

A destination partner looks at the same brief through a traveller’s lens: what tips intent into action, how the gaps between sessions are lived, and which moments people choose to share. The most productive collaboration starts with those user journeys, not inventory.

As Lee Shi Ruh, CEO of Resorts World Sentosa, put it, RWS is built to “create experiences where world-class hospitality meets the thrill of global entertainment”.

In practice, that meant extending the narrative beyond the arena – anchoring the draw reveal at the resort and creating fan-facing touchpoints that made the event feel connected across the city rather than confined to a single venue.

Public agencies acting as co-producers make that approach more durable. In 2025, WTT and Sport Singapore set a five-year framework through to 2029 that connects three levers – sporting excellence, applied technology, and participation – so the season opens in Singapore, new tools are trialled with purpose, and event weeks convert interest into ongoing play. The city is no longer a backdrop, but a partner in product design.

That approach was visible during Singapore Smash 2026. Fans could follow the draw reveal on Sentosa and engage with table tennis through activities across the resort. These were not isolated promotions; they were extensions of the event itself. For visiting supporters especially, the experience unfolded across the city and the resort, showing how a destination partner can shape the narrative of an event week.

Data also matters because it shows whether the model is working. Following Singapore Smash 2026, our audience study showed that 53.7% of respondents were Singapore residents, while the largest overseas segment came from Malaysia at 25.1%, followed by China at 9.6%. Among all respondents, 63% said Singapore Smash was the main reason for their visit to Singapore, with a further 12% saying it was one of the reasons.

Of those who stayed in hotels, 66% stayed in four or five-star properties. Among the respondents who did not live in Singapore, 37% stayed for five nights or more, while 25% stayed for four nights.

Close to 40% spent SG$100 or more per person per day outside the event, and among those travelling into Singapore, more than half spent SG$200 or more on return travel. These are diagnostics. The question is not whether the event travels, but how the trip can be shaped more intentionally: whether fans spend more meaningful time across the city, whether the partner ecosystem captures more of that journey, and whether the event becomes a stronger reason not just to attend, but to stay longer and engage more deeply.

Experience quality is better read through behaviour and memory than through a single score. Encouragingly, 85% of respondents said attending Singapore Smash 2026 motivated them to play table tennis, while 88% said it motivated them to participate in sport or a physical activity more broadly. The lesson for organisers and partners is not to add more touchpoints for the sake of it, but to make each one feel like a meaningful extension of the event rather than a separate add-on.

Progress from 2022 to 2026 has not been linear so much as negotiated through trade-offs. WTT’s one-table Infinity ∞ Arena creates a distinctive stage and clear visual language, but it also concentrates supply, forcing greater precision in ticketing, session design, and broadcast pacing.

Turning the draw reveal into a showpiece adds narrative value, yet raises operational pressure because the timing must work for both fans and production. Co-creating with a destination partner expands what the event can become, but also raises the bar on measurement, accountability, and shared ownership.

That is the real shift five years in. Partners are no longer just buying exposure; increasingly, they are stepping in to co-own outcomes. That is good news for fans and for brands as well, but it demands more from everyone involved.

Singapore Smash 2026 showed that this co-produced model can scale without losing coherence: destination experiences felt integrated rather than bolted on, innovation supported the sport rather than distracting from it, and the event worked not just as a spectacle, but as a bridge to sustained engagement.

For marketers, the partnership brief has changed shape. The goal is no longer simply to be seen at an event, but to make the event better – technically, operationally, and experientially – because you were there. When that happens, exposure becomes an outcome rather than an objective. And audiences can tell the difference.

Singapore Smash may be one case study, but the broader shift is happening across World Table Tennis. Follow WTT to see how the sport is continuing to evolve on screen, in venue, and far beyond the table.