Colin Koh

Colin is a creative director and copywriter from sunny Singapore, who grew up suffering the heat and humidity of his little island. He hopes to travel overseas to work and broaden his horizons – but mostly to escape the weather.

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Manulife – Museum of Claims What if historical figures had insurance?

Insurance campaigns in Singapore are made up of either sappy stories or feel-good moments. We decided to shake up that formula with a crazy thought: what if famous figures in history had insurance? 

We worked with a sculptor to replicate four famous statues with various ailments and afflictions, consulted a doctor to diagnose them and treated them as actual Manulife customers.

We then held an outdoor exhibition where people could scan the statues with their phones (via Facebook Spark AR) to learn about their conditions, as well as the insurance payout they would have gotten.

Each statue recounted their story and explained to people how their predicament came about, before inviting people to scan and find out.

Film

We even created an online film that captures the essence of the campaign for those who missed the outdoor exhibition.

Impact

Brand awareness jumped from no. 6 to no. 4

4.3 million reach during campaign period

400+ weekly leads (5x the brand’s average)

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Spotify – Culture Code Responding to culture through music.

Spotify Codes is a new way for users to share music as easily as taking a picture. More than just a code, it’s a visual reminder for users to discover on-demand music. So how do we launch it in an interesting way?

We tapped into the year’s biggest stories and brought them to life – all on just 23 lines of code.

Dotard vs. Rocket Man? Check. Musicians dropping like flies? Check. The Pink Dot LGBT fiasco? Check. When scanned, each code generated a unique playlist that perfectly captures the mood of the story, letting Spotify weigh in on the subject. Without saying a word.

Try it out: 1. Launch the app and tap ‘Search’ at the bottom 2. Tap the camera icon on the top right 3. Scan a code

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Nissan – Self-braking Baby Walker A revolutionary idea in seek of funding.

Nissan’s Intelligent Mobility comprises a suite of features like self-parking technology and predictive collision warning. But instead of featuring all that in a typical car ad, we wanted to create a whole new product instead.

Enter the Self-braking Baby Walker. The baby walker has remained largely unchanged since 1874 – they’re still as dangerous with babies crashing into things, tumbling down stairs and more. But what if we invented a baby walker that’s fitted with Nissan’s technology that could prevent such accidents from happening?

We embarked on the idea and even built a prototype, but we had to put it on hold due to funding issues. So here’s an official shoutout to the next Elon Musk and James Dyson: let’s make this idea happen!

Prototype Testing

We worked with our brilliant Head of Technology in the Shanghai office to build a working prototype.

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Standard Chartered – Smart Goals Liverpool U23 vs. SC Mobile App

Standard Chartered wanted to launch its mobile banking app. The bad news: banking apps are kinda meh. But the good news? They recently renewed their sponsorship for Liverpool FC.

We thought a little 5-on-1 action is in order, so we challenged the LFC U23 players to navigate the app using nothing but their football skills.

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Airbnb – Content Creation Marketing at the speed of culture.

Airbnb had a problem: how to stay on top of everyone’s minds even when they weren’t travelling? We tapped into everything that was happening in culture around them and found ways to remind them of our brand. If they knew about it, we talked about it.

To do that, we set up an operating system that listened in on social conversations, curated calendar events and spotted cultural triggers in APAC (especially Japan, India and Australia). Then we published content that was shared in each market – all in a span of 48 hours. Every. Single. Week.

Here are some examples.

Diwali in India

We produced content videos for bigger cultural triggers and events, like Diwali in India, where we captured the experience through the eyes of a traveller.

Premium Friday

When the Japanese government introduced ‘Premium Friday’ to battle the country’s long working hours, we tapped on that to talk about the best staycation spots in Japan.

Ganesh Chaturthi

To mark the arrival of Ganesh Chaturthi into the homes of Indian families, we created a simple GIF that marries our logo with Lord Ganesh’s iconography.

Halloween

For something as universal as Halloween, we showed how the brand plays to the different nuances of each culture.

Our Operating System

In just 48 hours, we go from spotting a trigger and writing a brief, to ideation and creation – every single week.

Impact

More than 500 triggers spotted

Over 150 pieces of content created

Top of mind recall even when people weren’t travelling

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Spotify x STB A soundscape through our landscape.

Singapore has no lack of world-class attractions. But ask any local and they’ll tell you that the charm of our city lies in the back alleys and neighbourhoods. The question is, how do we get people off the beaten path?

Singapore Tourism Board collaborated with Spotify to create unique codes for each neighbourhood, and invited people to look out for them. Upon scanning a code, an audio trail leads them to explore the neighbourhood – one that’s timed to their real-time location and accompanied by music that brings to life the history of each place.

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Standard Chartered – Threads Casting a light on a global problem.

From Black Friday to Singles' Day to Double Day sales, it seems like there's a sale every other day. But what fuels this e-commerce engine? A global supply chain is what.

Standard Chartered has committed to only fund business with clean supply chains, so we created a film to remind people that everything they touch, see and buy is the result of this invisible network of connections.

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Standard Chartered x LFC – Stand Red Great things have small beginnings.

Full disclosure: I'm not a football fan. But my client and bosses are. So they thought it'd funny to get me to create a global brand campaign to unify the Standard Chartered and Liverpool FC sponsorship.

Turns out, the solution is hidden in plain sight and the rest is history. 'Stand Red' has officially been adopted by Liverpool FC and will be driving all their campaigns in the future – reaching millions of fans around the world with a unified, yet versatile belief.

The result: a massively happy client, an extremely grateful football club and very proud me (who remains clueless about football).

Impact

Unified all Standard Chartered’s LFC sponsorship efforts 

Reached 580 million LFC fans around the world

'Stand Red’ is now global and has evolved to fit different markets’ needs

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Spotify – New Free Tier Creativity driven by data.

Data. It’s like the boogieman that scares advertising creatives into submission. But every now and then, data actually becomes interesting enough to drive a campaign.

We studied the streaming habits across APAC and created a customised campaign for each market. From the most popular songs, to the most listened-to playlists, we created targeted ads, wrote humorous scripts and served listeners with personalised messages – all to encourage them to love the music they love.

Films

These spots ran as TVCs, cinema ads and social media content to drive our campaign launch.

Hyper-personalised Ads

Based on listeners’ streaming habits, we created digital ads with personalised messages for each market.

Retargeting Ads

Further downstream, these ads were served to listeners who "Liked” particular music genres.

On-boarding Ads

Upstream, we targeted newcomers with ads that encouraged them to use Spotify more often.

Impact

Spotify is now no. 1 in Indonesia (replacing Joox)

Reconnected Indonesia youth with dangdut

Kickstarted Spotify on Stage in Thailand

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Mastercard – Contactless Campaign That time we said no to long-form films.

The clients asked for a 1-minute film about contactless payment. We said, "If contactless payment was so easy, we don't need a minute." It could have been a case of famous last words, but thankfully we pulled it off.

When Mastercard launched its contactless payment system, it was really as simple as tapping your card (not exactly the most riveting message). So instead, we focused on what that simple action could lead to – all in just 15 seconds.

Impact

Accelerated contactless payment adoption in Thailand

Almost 90% of Thais have adopted some form of contactless payment today

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Facebook – Blueprint Using Facebook tools to sell Facebook.

It was like working for the enemy. Despite what the numbers say, advertising agencies still refuse to embrace Facebook’s suite of creativity tools – after all, what will become of us if it actually worked?

So in the spirit of self-deprecation, we created a social media-led campaign that pokes fun at ourselves. We took a long, hard look at the (old) way we work and showed how Facebook tools offer a better and more efficient way to do the same.

Content Videos

We selected the three most important tools and featured them in short 15-second films as part of the campaign launch.

Social Videos

True to a Facebook campaign, we retargeted our audience with thumb-stopping “boomerang” videos that looped infinitely, while communicating our message within the first three seconds.

GIFs

And just to showcase Facebook’s latest ad offering (then), we also repurposed the videos as GIFs, and featured them in carousel ads.

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Singapore Repertory Theatre – Modern Classics Selling out a thespian in the name of advertising.

When I started writing these spots, I knew then that my lack of respect for literature had come back to bite me in the ass. When it comes to theatre, most Singaporeans consider it too highbrow and don't regard it as a form of entertainment (not one that they're interested in anyway). But what they don't realise is, a lot of movies they know and love actually have their roots in theatre.

“Pretty Pygmalion”

“Warm Romeo”

“White Earnest”

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Samaritans of Singapore – Empty Spaces A short film on the people who are left behind.

In the second year of our successful “Plaster the Silence” campaign for the Samaritans of Singapore, we shot a poignant film that focuses on the people left behind. After all, suicide doesn’t end the pain, it simply passes it on to someone else.

This film ran alongside our black plaster movement, which continued to be a symbol for suicide prevention.

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Samaritans of Singapore – Plaster the Silence A simple plaster that became an icon for suicide prevention.

More than one person commits suicide in Singapore every day. The first step to preventing suicide is to talk about it. But how do you start the conversation in a conservative society like Singapore? Well, by giving them a reason to. 

Just as you would ask someone wearing a plaster if they were alright, we created black plasters that simply asks, “How are you?” Worn on the inner wrist, it became a powerful symbol and a conversation starter to check in on our friends and family with a simple question.

Case Study

Behind-the-scenes

Celebrities’ Outreach

The number of influencers we engaged was nothing short of astounding.

Campaign Print and Posters

Even the former President of Singapore rallied to our call.

Impact

SOS’ most effective campaign to date

Adopted as the symbol for Suicide Prevention Week every year

Hotlines registered a decrease in callers (before Covid)

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Singapore Airlines – Premium Economy Class Building a Rube Goldberg machine in a week.

After years in the making, Singapore Airlines finally decided to launch their Premium Economy Class. For them, it was a daunting task to bring everything together in a short time, just so they could launch before their competitors. So for us, it’s only fitting that we did the same.

The Rube Goldberg machine

Building the machine

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Michelin – Pilot Sport Experience 2015 Turning the entire F1 experience into a game

For years I’ve only ever played games, now I finally got the chance to create one. The Michelin Pilot Sport Experience is an annual racing event that rewards customers around the region. The question is, how do we separate the hardcore racers from the rest?

Case Study

Call-for-entry Ads

Impact

5000+ players from 6 countries registered in the first week

1,400 hours of play time

Covered a total of 220,000km

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Singapore Tourism Board – Philippines Campaign Selling Singapore through a music video.

Filipinos love music (pretty much every Filipino I know holds a decent tune). We also know many of them think Singapore is just another Southeast Asian country. So we collaborated with popular Filipino indie band, Up Dharma Down, to convince them otherwise.

Up Dharma Down “All the good things”

Behind-the-scenes

We also shot a making-of video that captured the band’s adventures in the city and the experiences that inspired them.

Curated Content

And we worked with each band member to curate their personalised itineraries that Filipinos can share, depending on the type of traveller they are.