Singtel once again tackles elderly loneliness with Chinese New Year campaign
Another Singaporean campaign for Chinese New Year has channeled the theme of grown-up children flying the nest as Singtel releases its effort, ‘Mr Lim’s Reunion Dinner’.
Following last week’s offering by Tiger Beer, which showed a father being alone for the annual festival, the Singaporean telco’s ad also shows an elderly man hoping for his overseas children to come home.
Played by actor Lim Kay Tong, the father is shown preparing for CNY, only to be told that his son and daughter will not be coming home.
Both mistakenly assume that the other sibling will be around to celebrate the occasion with him.
Though Lim is shown to be disappointed, he faithfully continues preparing a feast of his family’s feast in their absence.
The ad ends on a happy note when Lim’s children learn the truth and hurry home in time to eat with their lonely father.
Conceptualised in-house, the ad was made by Akanga Films and filmmaker K. Rajagopal, and will be aired on Singtel TV and social media channels until March 2.
Rajagopal also directed Singtel’s Christmas ad, which also relied on the theme of elderly loneliness and disengaged children.
The campaign, dubbed ‘Ah Ma’s Christmas’ reached more 5.3 million views during the seasonal period and likewise told the story of an elderly Singaporean feeling alone and isolated from her family.
Speaking about the subject matter, Singtel’s vice president from group strategic communications and brand Lian Pek said “nothing beats having family present during important holiday seasons.”
“As a company devoted to connectivity, we also believe in making endearing and meaningful connections. We are big believers in keeping traditions alive, keeping ties strong, and staying connected to home.”
Eleanor Dickinson is the editor of Mumbrella Asia. Eleanor joined the Asia platform from Dubai, where she acted as senior reporter for Campaign Middle East.
Better than the Christmas spot.
Over to you StarHub.
Replywell done, RajagoBBH
ReplyCorny, cliched, generic rubbish. Wait, here come the piano keys. Does nothing to differentiate the brand.
Where is the imagination?
ReplyIs there a point to this?
ReplyAnother vanity project that has no commercial or consumer relevance.
Who says only agencies creates scams?
Not much originality and creativity here.
Can’t wait for the lonely aged-parent waiting for the Easter Bunny annual gathering. Oh, and how about Ramadan, International Grandparents day, or
====
“Now whether the decision to repeat a similar themed ‘sadvertisement’ so close to the earlier one is a result of Singtel mining the vast data that crosses its network every minute and finding children aren’t phoning or visiting their parents often enough; purely because the last one racked up so many views; because somewhere inside Singtel there’s an elderly person whose children never come to visit; or because Singtel have a lot of lonely elderly customers who phone operator services when their children don’t come home for special occasions therefore stopping them from going home to visit their parents we don’t know.
But the casual Singapore observer will be forgiven for thinking that the average Singaporean Millennial is a self-centred, uncaring, self-absorbed, inconsiderate, narcissist with little regard for their elders.”
https://aecnewstoday.com/2018/singtel-takes-aim-at-self-centred-singaporeans-again/#ixzz54yx1ftid
=====
Well done Singtel, and here everyone was thinking Singapore was the center for banking, finance, services, but instead its just an island of parent abandoning, narcissists.
ReplyThere may be a slight inaccuracy on the beginning of the ad. The 1st few shots featured a song by mainland Chinese singer Zhou Xuan (1920-1957) which was probably recorded between 1936 & 1949 as well as a 1980s style radio casette recorder.
In other words, the house background seemed to portray a WW2 generation elderly man of the 1980s whereas the character portrayed by Mr Lim Kay Tong (b 1954) appeared to be of the post-WW2 baby boomer generation. This is mixing Lee Kuan Yew with Lee Hsien Loong.
If the character is still alive as of 2018, he will be at least 90 years old. The make-up team should have made Mr Lim Kay Tong appear far older.
ReplyThis is the second time in two months that Singtel appear to be trying to guide the social conscious by taking a swipe at the younger generation.
More regimenting of Singapore society, and this time it is not the government leading.
It would seem to indicate that someone at Singtel doesn’t have a very high opinion of Millennials who, unlike their parents who may have spent their entire life in the city, are busy with families and careers often far removed from their homeland — generally sending money home each month for their parents.
It almost amounts to a shaming campaign for those who are not able to get home for CNY or Christmas or any other occasion.
The message to Millenials is fairly clear: If you do not go home for Christmas/ CNY — even if you have to go into debt to do so — you are a bad offspring.
“Oh Mr Lim, poor you. Your children are so horrible for not coming home”.
I have no idea how it promotes their core business. What ever happened to “phone someone you love this Christmas”, etc?
ReplyHave your say