Awards

Two issues of a magazine I worked on have picked up some international recognition — which is extremely gratifying and makes this somewhat crazy life somehow worth it.

>  The Nov/Dec 2012 issue of Lifewise (right) received an Honourable Mention under the Best Healthcare/Medical Publication category in the international Content Marketing Awards 2013. I contributed five articles, including the cover story, to this issue. You can view the entire issue here.

> The Jan/Feb 2013 issue of Lifewise (left) won for One-of-a-Kind Health & Medical Publications at the 25th APEX Awards — an annual competition that celebrates the best publications, campaigns, design and media internationally.  I contributed the cover story to this issue. You can view the entire issue here.

The wins were also reported in a national Singaporean newspaper. You can view the article here.

 

Sacred Music / Tapestry 2013

In 2013, I was commissioned to write a series of pieces for Tapestry 2013 — a  festival of sacred music organised by Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay, Singapore’s largest performing arts centre. Each piece was a look into a featured performer, the context within which their work is situated, and a description of what audiences can expect. Click the links below to read a selected few pieces from the series:

• Songs of Hope and Freedom – The Harlem Gospel Choir
• Body of Faith – Uisig, Spirit Of Dance
• Chulalongkorn University’s Wong Khrueang Sai Pi Chawa Ensemble

Bone Health

“There are no visible signs, no pain and no symptoms in the early stages. In fact, most people don’t realise they are suffering from osteoporosis until they break a bone.” This is a story I wrote on osteoporosis for Lifewise Magazine, a publication of the National Healthcare Group and produced by Mediacorp Customised Publishing. Click on the link to view the full article: Breaking Points.

“Expect The Xtraordinary” Ngee Ann Poly 2011/2012 Ad Campaign

While working for Ngee Ann Polytechnic’s Corporate Communications Department, I was tasked with managing the polytechnic’s yearly advertising campaign. Ngee Ann Poly is a publicly-funded institute of higher-learning in Singapore with a student population of approximately 15,500. As such, the objectives of these campaigns were to inform prospective students — students leaving secondary school having completed their GCSE “O” Levels at the age of 16 or 17 — of the benefits of further education at Ngee Ann Poly and to boost enrolment.

For the first two years, we left the creatives of this campaign to advertising agencies. My job was to manage the agencies by helping them understand our brand messaging, balance the budget, fine-tune media strategies, and gain internal approval from key decision-makers.

For the 2011/2012 campaign, we decided to go in another direction. We decided to create the campaign ourselves.

“PlusPoint” Magazine for Frasers Centrepoint Malls

 

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Series of retail magazines produced for Frasers Centrepoint — one of the largest owners and operators of shopping malls in Singapore. Each issue centred around the current shopping season (be it Christmas or Chinese New Year) and covered fashion, beauty, food and lifestyle trends.

Stop The Spread

Story on sexually transmitted infections for Lifewise Magazine. Writing this one was interesting just because I had to call up the DSC Clinic to find out some information on their opening hours. You get a good sense of how taboo this topic still is in Singapore, even to someone like myself, that I felt a tiny bit uncomfortable doing so. This was written for the Nov/Dec 2012 issue of Lifewise – a publication of the National Healthcare Group and produced by Mediacorp Customised Publishing. Click on the link to view the full article: Stop The Spread.

Retail Campaigns For Frasers Centrepoint Malls

 

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These are just some of the many retail campaigns I have conceptualised for Frasers Centrepoint Malls, one of the largest owners and operators of shopping malls in Singapore. These include The Centrepoint, Waterway Point, Changi City Point, Northpoint, Bedok Point, Anchorpoint, Robertson Walk, Valley Point and more.

For these campaigns, we work with the individual marketing departments of each mall and begin with a creative concept (as seen in the slideshow above). These creative concepts are then adapted to other collaterals such as press ads, direct mailers and in-mall items. Each job also requires me to write copy  for planned activities as well as edit dining and shopping offers.

Trelleborg Pipe Seals DrainPlusLiner 2.0

There are differences between how a product is marketed in German and in English — an insight that became clear to me when I first started working with Trelleborg Pipe Seals to translate their marketing collaterals from German to English. For example, marketing copy in German tends to use the passive voice much more than English marketing or advertising copy.

As a marketing professional, I also understand the importance of understanding a product before writing copy for it. So it is important to me that I don’t just translate any text given to me — I take the time to understand the product, translate the copy and “optimise” it for an English-speaking market.

And this is a value-add that is appreciated by clients such as Trelleborg Pipe Seals, whom I have worked with to translate a wide range of materials ranging from press releases to case studies and marketing brochures.

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This particular marketing campaign for the DrainPlusLiner 2.0 was particularly interesting for me because it was a new product with exciting new features. To launch it, I worked with the marketing team to translate — and transform — the German copy for the marketing brochure, flyer and case study to English.

Academic Abstract (Translation/Übersetzung)

This is a brief German-to-English translation I did of an academic abstract while working at the Friedrich Alexander University of Nuremberg/Erlangen, Germany.

Is Poly Education For Your Child?

In 2009, I was asked to conceptualise and manage a campaign to promote Ngee Ann Polytechnic’s Parenting Seminar.

Entitled “Is Poly Education For Your Child?”, this campaign included print advertisements in local newspapers, radio spots, electronic direct mailers and online advertising on local news portals such as AsiaOne.com and StraitsTimes.com. A handbook for parents and a direct mailer to invite them to the event were also produced.

I managed this entire campaign from budgeting to copywriting to media strategy. Click on the links to view:

• a PDF of the parent’s handbook: Parents’ Guide To Poly Education.
• the invite to the Parent’s Seminar here.

NP News (Ngee Ann Poly)

My duties as a Corporate Communications Officer at Ngee Ann Polytechnic (a public tertiary institution in Singapore with a student population of 15,500) included producing marketing and corporate publications such as course brochures, direct mailers, tertiary education handbooks and newsletters.

This was one of the many publications I managed during my time there. I personally oversaw the entire production of this publication; from conceptualising the editorial direction to budgeting for production to managing the agency in charge of design.

Click on the link to view the full issue: NP News Issue 142.

Cancer Control

Regular screening and early detection — two things you need in your fight against the big C. This is a story I wrote for Lifewise Magazine, a publication of the National Healthcare Group and produced by Mediacorp Customised Publishing.

Click on the link to view the full article: Is That A Lump?

Beating Depression

Did you know that:

– Suicide is one of the top ten causes of death in Singapore.
– In recent years, suicide has increased among the elderly and the young. In 2011, the elderly made up 23% of all suicides, even though they constitute only 9.3 % of the population.
– From 2010 to 2011, the suicide mortality rate doubled among those aged 65-74 and those aged 85 and above.
– From 2008 to 2009, suicide among those aged 10-29 also rose by 70%, increasing from 64 to 91 deaths.

In Person

Profile (written in the first person) of Dr Kumaran Rasappan, who climbed Mount Everest for a worthy cause. This is a story I wrote for Lifewise Magazine, a publication of the National Healthcare Group and produced by Mediacorp Customised Publishing. Click on the link to view the full article: High Hopes.

Giving Voice To Cancer

I think of all the different types of articles I write, I love doing profiles the most. Even a simple one like this can be quite interesting — the process of meeting an interviewee, whether famous or not, getting them to open up, and finding out what makes their story tick — it’s a rush. With this story, I loved the opening. And I didn’t even have to “dig” for it, it was just something the interviewee said which I felt was very powerful.

This one was for HEARTBEAT (formerly known as SPRING), a publication of Singapore’s Northeast Community Development Council. Click on link to read full article: Giving Voice To Cancer.