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Once upon a time, public relations relied on television, radio, newspapers, and magazines – but now, people are spending more time on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok, and brands are increasingly finding the role of social media crucial to their strategies. 

That said, traditional aspects of public relations such as press releases and media alerts will remain. Brands now need to integrate these varied aspects of PR and social media to maximise their reach. It is challenging, of course, with an evolving social media landscape and shrinking newsrooms. 

However, herein lies the importance of a 360° PR strategy, which helps brands ensure their audiences have an immersive, well rounded experience. This takes into account not only the following listed elements, but also factors in an open communications channel with industry experts: 

• Earned and paid media: a form of third-party endorsement through traditional media relations or paid advertising
• Shared media: social media and content partnerships and owned media channels 
• Owned media: content controlled by the brand such as its website
• A tailored pitching approach that emphasises the brand’s key messaging

Beyond reaching out to media, a holistic approach to PR also means being open to feedback from journalists, as their input will be beneficial to future (if not ongoing) pitches. 

Be open to feedback, learn as you go

When it comes to working with journalists, editors, and other media friends, it’s important to treat them as part of the team and to listen to their input. This is not only motivating, but can also improve your campaign strategy and performance. 

This is especially because public relations professional’s bread and butter is media stories and there is a general rule of thumb when it comes to building great relationships with our media friends – do your due diligence when researching topics of interest to our media friends, identify relevant angles during pitching and be courteous! These relationships should also take into account the editorial preferences or timing required for different publications – which includes the need to amend pitches every now and then. And to do that, feedback is required.

Without specific feedback, it can be hard for a PR team to know how best to build a compelling article for a target title. Do not be afraid to follow up with editors after a pitch to verify their interest (or lack thereof!) and seek their feedback. Be open to suggestions that come your way, be it tweaking your focus, bringing onboard a different spokesperson, or simply holding off until a more appropriate time. 

Proactively engage your media friends to remain on their radar. Drop a casual text message to share a seasonal greeting, soft-sound them on potential stories or offer support on ongoing stories. Accommodating their preferences for methods of communication, keeping up to date on their topics of interest and even engaging them on their personal social media can give you greater insight into what they value in a solid media story. Ultimately, the bottom line is to always acknowledge feedback and messages, and to value their time by thanking them for their replies. 

Keep your eyes and ears open online

With a little tweaking, this same strategy can be applied across social media. Use your community management strategy to shape public opinion about your brand and engage with customers directly. Some tips include actively responding to private messages, comments and tags, and keeping your brand voice authentic and consistent throughout all content. Knowledge is power, and gathering public sentiment will add value to your campaign strategy, to help refine it along the way. 

Ultimately, it’s important to keep in mind that a 360° public relations strategy requires room for flexibility and agility. There may sometimes be a piece missing to your pitch or an angle you haven’t tried yet that may resonate better with your target audience. Perhaps the public’s priorities or timing is not right. Only by actively engaging with your media contacts and online communities, and being receptive to their feedback, can you continue to learn, remain aligned to your brand’s (or client’s) goals, and design well-rounded strategies that get the best results. 

Need help with your 360° PR strategy? Talk to us at hello@mutant.com.sg

It is an exciting time to be alive.

We are living in an age of fast-paced innovation that demands waves of technological breakthroughs. With more data being generated than ever, the future is promising, but it’s looking a lot like the past. 

Somehow, brands are moving backwards with ‘nostalgia marketing’ to engage with consumers, and it is everywhere. Whether it’s the Netflix series Stranger Things, Burger King’s rebrand, or Blue’s Clues 25th anniversary video, it’s clear to see these brands are successful vessels of nostalgia that highlight the value of #throwback marketing. Defined as a strategy to develop an emotional connection using contents from the past, a well-thought-out nostalgia marketing campaign is as impactful as it is inclusive. Through aligning marketing strategies with consumer emotion, these brands are able to leverage bygone days to humanise themselves, creating positive associations and effectively building social connectedness.

Why is there so much pulling power in reminiscing about the past?

Old is Gold

Nostalgia marketing resonates with people of all generations because psychologically, it is experienced as an overwhelmingly positive emotion. We tend to look back fondly in search of simpler times, and our present just never looks as good. The past is more often than not, romanticised – our minds easily flush out the bad memories to preserve the good ones, because yesteryear is more malleable than our present worries. It feels good to go on an indulgent escape to grasp at things we once had; we crave for new experiences, and when our earliest memories are brought back to life, our brains double reward us: both for novelty, and familiarity.

And that’s exactly why nostalgia is a highly effective emotional hook that invokes positive association and feelings of security, comfort and trust. We know emotional marketing provokes emotional responses – it’s a tried-and-true advertising formula that triggers consumers to achieve gratification in the form of happier times. 

With the pandemic resulting in severe social isolation, now is a timely opportunity to bridge the gap with sentimental content by tapping into a desire for a sense of familiarity. Here are a few tricks to take your audience down memory lane with the perfect dosage of nostalgia.

Have a better understanding of your inspiration

Before you ask if your ‘90s design looks the part, you should question why it needs to be inspired from the ‘90s. How do you identify the remarkable moments that matter? First, consider the relationship of that particular time period, and how it will be relevant to your brand and target audience.

Start with one of these reasons: Pulling inspiration from brand heritage to build on authenticity, resurrecting products from the past that were either retired or discontinued, or even to celebrate your milestones to reaffirm brand values and authenticate your current messaging.

These are the defining moments that will matter to your audiences, and each of them are all opportunities to drive for connection.

Say hello to Fauxstalgia (and Newstalgia)

It doesn’t matter if your audience didn’t live through a particular bygone era, because you can always opt for Fauxstalgia – a false nostalgia for the past even though we have never lived through it.

Take a look at Pokémon Go, an augmented reality mobile game developed by Niantic that took the world by storm in 2016. It was Millennials who grew up capturing, battling and trading Pokémon with the catchphrase “Gotta catch ’em all!”, but Pokémon Go’s wild success was also driven by Gen-Z. As the generation that grew up with digital devices, rifling through your prized collection for a rare Pokémon card is something they’ve never experienced, so through a combination of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) and a yearning to be part of a beloved cultural movement, they’ve got a recipe for success.

And if you have a new release with no heritage to talk about, well, you could always go back in time and reinvent history. Pizza Hut calls this Newstalgia; its campaign channeled a pop culture from the past by teaming up with PAC-MAN to produce limited-edition cardboard pizza boxes, featuring an augmented reality version of the classic arcade game you can play on your smartphones via the QR code. This partnership is one that works for both companies; PAC-MAN was inspired by the image of a pizza with a slice taken out, and its gobbling nature goes hand-in-hand with Pizza Hut’s business.

Dip your toes with social media

Already feeling inspired and ready to take a trip down memory lane? 

One of the advantages of nostalgia marketing is that there are many ways to incorporate nostalgia marketing into your strategy, even without a hefty budget. So if your business has just emerged off the back of a turbulent year, you can always start small with social media – participate in memes, or take advantage of trending hashtags such as #tbt (Throwback Thursday) – these stepping stones will help to spark engagement with your followers.

Always keep an eye out and use social listening to monitor activities not just around your brand, but the latest trends and industry news as well. You’ll never know when opportunity knocks at your door.

Be sure to hit all the sweet spots

Nostalgia marketing can be extremely successful, but it’s also easy for your attempts to go awry. Don’t rush into deploying a #throwback campaign without having a timely and relevant context – or you’ll risk being spotted as an inauthentic brand that’s trying to piggyback the latest trend for ‘likes’.

Aching for the past? Telegraph us at: hello@mutant.com.sg

Less is more…

…boring, indeed.

Every now and then a company unveils their shiny, rebranded logo, and it seems like all we see is a flat, minimalist overhaul that is stripped of all its previous visual quirks, and devoid of any charm. Sure, one could argue that form follows function; trimming all frills and flounces to its most essential form will help with legibility, allowing the logo to be easily scaled to a variety of formats in this digital age. In theory, this makes a lot of sense, but not so much in practice.  

Logos are starting to look similar to each other as more brands follow the same principle. This loss of distinctiveness makes it increasingly hard for companies to stand out in the eyes of their customers(who are likely exposed to multiple brands in a day). 

When flat design emerged, it flourished – its stark minimalism was a breath of fresh air. It preceded the derivative Skeuomorphism concept, and ushered in a wave of values that shifted the mindset of designers to the other end of the spectrum. The sheer impact of minimalism has had far-reaching effects, with its influence permeating into many realms such as architecture, fashion, and even lifestyle.  Minimalism (when done right) emerged as an elegant solution to complexity in a time of oversaturation, but where do we draw the line between being minimal, and being uninspiring?

Oversimplification is the main issue

Simplicity doesn’t necessarily equate to being boring. Design should always strive to be functional and not rely excessively on aesthetics. Take a look at Malika Favre, an illustrator whose artworks prove that you can be a master of simplicity, but still deliver impactful moments by balancing precise shapes with  bold usage of colours. 

The ideology of minimalism challenges us to be intentional with our choices, it requires one to have a discerning eye to create a disciplined piece of work.  To a novice, it’s a slippery slope to becoming formulaic. Knowing exactly how much to reduce is hard, but not impossible.

Remove complexity, not context

A minimalistic approach generally starts by stripping away the distracting bits, until it snowballs into a piece of design that’s barely there. Let’s give your customers some credit – not everything has to be overly simplified into hieroglyphs to be easily understood. When too much context is hidden away in the guise of minimalism, this can potentially lead to confusion and leave your customers disinterested. 

What good is a functional design, if it’s not visible? For everything you eliminate, consider keeping one descriptive element that will help to reflect your company’s personality, humour or values. There is nothing inherently wrong with a flat, simple logo,  but don’t let it replace  an otherwise good logo that had no issues to begin with. 

There’s no blanket solution

Minimalism is timeless; it’s a great approach to laser focus communication with deeper meaning. Before you commit, do consider the ramification an extreme reduction will entail:what will differentiate your brand from your next competitor? Is there a sentimental value attached to that element? How will your target market react?

Clean design doesn’t guarantee success, it only enhances and highlights your brand values that are already deeply tied to your identity. Prioritise the message you want to convey, and then figure out how you want to deliver it. Once the messaging has been crafted, be consistent with your approach. Don’t capitalise on the clean, modern aesthetic just to force relevancy onto your brand. 

In a maximalist world, minimalism triumphs with its enduring appeal, but as trends come and go, it’s important to ensure you’re not compromising your brand’s messaging. That doesn’t mean minimalism is a bad practice, just that it isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution you hope for.

Minimalism or maximalism, we can help: hello@mutant.com.sg

Recently, we launched an ocean conservation project under our inaugural corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative, Mutant for Good. Titled Peering Into Our Future: A Series of Unfortunate Short Stories, our project is a collaboration with prominent Singaporean writers that delivers five short, unsettling, dystopian tales that imagine what might happen if no action is taken to conserve the ocean and marine life, in hopes of inspiring more people to champion ocean conservation.

This is how we became part of the Waves of Change Festival 2022, which is happening at the ArtScience Museum until 9 October. Organised by one of our partners, Coastal Natives, the Waves of Change Festival is an annual celebration of the big blue through film, art and storytelling.

Whether you’re an ocean lover or simply looking for a cool hangout idea for the weekend, here are three reasons why you should pop by the Waves of Change Festival 2022

1. You get to catch a variety of ocean-related exhibitions, films and art

Art enthusiasts, this one’s for you. From illuminating underwater photography by Singapore’s dive community to multimedia art, embroidery and entertaining films, there is lots for you to explore!

Remember to drop by our mini reading corner, where you can read the five evocative short stories while surrounded by ocean art.

2. You will learn more about ocean conservation

After going through the installations, dive deeper into the minds of the exhibits’ creators and learn practical ways to save our sea through a series of talks and workshops. This includes podcasts, meet-the-director sessions, and interactive short courses!

Check out the full event schedule here.

3. Entry is free!

Is there anything better than a free event? This means you can always revisit your favourite exhibits, or pop by again to catch the latest workshops. Waves of Change is also family friendly, making it a fun way to expose everyone in your life to the importance of saving our ocean.

Do your part for our waters by learning more about ocean conservation at the Waves of Change Festival 2022 today!

It wasn’t just another Thursday night at the Mutant office. Dozens of smiling guests flooded the room, accompanied with a delectable plate of refreshments and a drink in hand. Lively chatter drowned away the thumping music.

This was the launch of Peering Into Our Future: A Series of Unfortunate Short Stories, our first project under our new CSR initiative, Mutant for Good. To celebrate, we invited partners, clients, media friends, authors and influencers over for an epic evening on September 8th. Here’s how it went down:

Mutant’s Regional Managing Director Lina Marican kicked the party off with a heartfelt speech on how the ocean conservation campaign was born, and how all the Mutants came together to use our expertise for good.

Our partners and writers shared the spotlight with personal stories and anecdotes.

But, what does this all mean to you and what can you do to protect our ocean? 

To start, you have five evocative short stories to enjoy!

In support of Coastal Natives, Our Singapore Reefs and Ocean Purpose Project, this project is a collaboration with prominent Singaporean authors — Amanda Lee Koe, Joshua Ip, Neo Xiaoyun, Pooja Nansi and Suffian Hakim — who have written unsettling short tales about Singapore’s bleak dystopian future if we fail to conserve our ocean.

Believing in the power of storytelling, we hope that these haunting yet data-backed tales will inspire you to advocate for change in your homes, workplaces, and communities.

Read them on our webpage here.

What else can you look forward to?

Until 9 October, drop by the ArtScience Museum for the Waves of Change Festival 2022 hosted by Coastal Natives! Catch our reading booth among inspiring artworks, including film, photography, and embroidery, by other ocean enthusiasts.

We are also working closely with our partners, and are looking forward to supporting their initiatives that help to save the sea.

Meanwhile, read our stories, and check out our Instagram and Facebook pages, where we’ll be sharing more informative ocean conservation-related content.

The last couple of years have shined a spotlight on the many challenges the world collectively faces: climate change, social justice, weakening democracies, and war, amongst others.  

Personally, it’s pushed me to address hard issues, not the least because I have two children and want them to grow up in a world that is equitable, safe and sustainable. So when Mutant decided to launch Mutant for Good (MFG), its first-ever CSR initiative around ocean conservation – I wanted to ensure that the campaign was not only successful, but affecting. 

As we continued to brainstorm and discuss campaign ideas, we knew that the campaign shouldn’t be a splashy event that garners some headlines – it needed to be impactful and inspire people to take action. That’s how we landed on a content-focused campaign that revolves around great storytelling. 

Our content team works to craft compelling, digestible content for clients every day. When the time came to create content for MFG, we already knew that the same detailed care that goes into every case study, thought leadership article, and whitepaper would need to be applied to this project. 

As we prepare to launch next week, I’m excited to share that our content team has done a remarkable job bringing to life Singapore’s dystopian future through five unsettling and evocative tales, should we fail to protect our oceans. 

Purposeful storytelling

A well-told story not only entertains, but resonates with people and can drive both action and results. It’s not hard for most people to recall a book or article you’ve read or a documentary you’ve watched that made a lasting impact on you, and perhaps even inspired you to make a change. As a team, we talked a lot about content that made an impression on us, from Charlotte’s Web to Dumb Ways to Die to episodes of Black Mirror and Welcome to Nightvale.

Going back to our roots as storytellers felt natural and the best way for us to create a campaign that not only attracts attention, but that moves people, motivates them to be more thoughtful in their everyday decisions and actions, and inspires them to make permanent changes for the betterment of the ocean and environment.

It’s a hard brief to nail. We’ve worked thoughtfully and with intention, establishing content pillars, partnering with local, award-winning authors who are passionate about conservation, and ensuring all content ties back to scientific, data-backed research. Above all, we’ve kept in mind the purpose of this campaign: to create content that resonates with people and encourages them to take action.

To do this, we focused on a few things:

Authenticity is key: It’s crucial that the content you create and post for this type of initiative comes from a place that is genuine. If people don’t believe you truly care about the initiative you’re championing, then your CSR campaign will never get off the ground.

Amplification is paramount to success: Unfortunately, creating great content isn’t enough – you have to identify the platforms that will most effectively host your content and reach your audience, and then amplify that content to see results.

Longevity is the real goal: A CSR initiative is not a trend or moment to capitalise on, and because of that the goals you set for your campaign should be tied to long-term efforts. Ask yourself not just what you hope to achieve, but how you’ll achieve it, how you’ll measure success, and the precise outcomes you’d like to see. 

As this campaign comes to fruition, I’m encouraged by the personal reflection and activism it will spark. 

Here at Mutant, we all have superpowers — be it PR, content, branding or design. And if you’re familiar with superhero movies, you’ll know that superheroes are the strongest when they join forces to use their powers for good. 

With Mutant for Good (MFG), our first ever CSR initiative, we’re doing exactly that. MFG’s first campaign is titled ‘Peering into our Future’, and all the Mutants involved are all driven by one common purpose – to make ocean conservation personal enough for people to care. 

By bringing together some of Singapore’s most talented writers to craft dystopian futures, we hope to inspire and remind people to protect our oceans. Through the added elements of experiential storytelling and events, we hope to replicate what is happening to our oceans here on land and inspire a personal connection to these happenings. And finally, by harnessing the power of PR and storytelling, we aim to amplify this important message to as many people as we can and get them involved.

While we drive many integrated campaigns on a day-to-day basis, Mutant for Good provides a rare opportunity for all Mutants to showcase their cross-functional team capabilities and work closely together for an aligned cause.

How do we do it? Allow me to shine a spotlight on the amazing teams that are championing this epic campaign.

Building an eye-catching brand from scratch

For our first CSR initiative, we built  a whole new brand from scratch. This meant creating an entirely new identity for ‘Peering Into Our Future’ that resonates with a wider audience. Under the magic touch of our senior designer, Jeremy Yap, our branding team has created a series of digital and print visual assets, including brand logos, posters and a stunning webpage. 

Importantly, the branding team conceptualised and directed a campaign trailer that reflects the eerie, mysterious, and yet slightly hopeful tone of the brand.

“I want to see how people would respond to the various touch points of our project,” Jeremy says. “Will they be so deeply moved that they start to make sustainable lifelong changes for the sake of our future? I’m looking forward to that.”

Creating first-class content

We believe in the power of words, and wanted our campaign to leverage heavily on storytelling.

Mutant has always prided itself on a strong content team that comprises former editors and publishers. Formerly from a publishing background in New York, Bethany Bloch, Mutant’s senior editor, collaborated with five local writers on short stories about ocean conservation. She’s done a phenomenal job, working with each writer to develop their initial ideas into data-backed stories that are bound to send chills down your spine.

“Being able to work with authors directly again and edit fiction has been really fun for me!” Bethany shares. “The fact that this whole project is based on creating more awareness for ocean conservation brings an extra layer of excitement — it’s always nice to know that what you’re doing truly means something and will have a positive impact.”

Besides the short stories, Bethany’s leading the project’s content efforts, including developing a website, blogs and thought leadership articles.

Putting ourselves out there with solid PR

With more than a decade in PR, we obviously pulled out all the stops! Senior consultant Shannen Tan and team have been quietly working in the background to bring this project to life in the best, most meaningful way possible.

Beyond traditional media pitches, Shannen is working on amplifying the impact of the project through key partnerships with local organisations that we’re thrilled to work with. “I hope that the stories compel readers to not just reflect on the world beneath the waters, but also embolden them towards demanding change in their own communities,” she explains.

Influencing on social 

It’s not a 2022 project if we’re missing a social media presence. Senior Manager Abraham Christopher, who has a depth of experience in consumer communications and social media, leads the social media team’s content and influencer management, making sure that we tap on the right advocates to amplify our message.

As part of the social strategy, Mutant will be carefully curating posts on Peering Into Our Future’s social media pages and collaborating with key opinion leaders to create awareness and drive action.

Delivering exciting events 

On the events side, we have two major events lined up: an exhibition at the ArtScience Museum, as well as a Singapore Pavilion representative at the upcoming UN Climate Change conference in Egypt. These events are opportunities for us to share meaningful messages and highlight ocean conservation needs with our network. 

A huge shoutout to our Manager Jaclyn Phan, who juggled multiple moving pieces to make this happen! On her role in Peering Into Our Future, Jaclyn says: “Being able to work with Coastal Natives on an exhibition for the ArtScience Museum is really cool. I hope more people will be aware of the terrible things happening to our ocean, and will hop on board to protect it.”

As you can tell, we’ve had our hands full in the last couple of months, and I’m beyond excited to see it all come to life this September.

To learn about Mutant for Good and stay updated with our efforts, please watch this space for more, and follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

Sandy beaches and sea breeze; beautiful blue oceans that are teeming with life. I’m not talking about a remote tropical paradise, I’m talking about our home – Singapore. 

As a certified and avid diver, I’ve had the privilege of perspective from beneath surface waters. If you’ve been diving yourself, I’m sure you can identify with the eye-opening experience of having a whole other world revealed to you, with nothing to take you away except the sound of your own breathing (and that distinct crackling of underwater life). The magnitude and multitude of life in our oceans is breathtaking (pun not intended) but so is the damage being done to it. We may feel separated from it on land but life in the oceans is just like ours – complex and resilient but fragile, and in need of tremendous care. 

With my gained perspective, it’s easy to be surprised when friends tell me they’re craving an island getaway and remind them that they live on one. It’s easy to wonder at just how separated people feel from the waters that literally surround our island-city. But if I looked deeper, I was just the same. I equally shared this perspective before I was shown differently – before I personally experienced it.

This got me thinking – how can I get others to think differently about our oceans? About our home and its place amongst the oceans, about our role in protecting not just the land but the waters that sustain us. 

Enter, Mutant for Good. 

Making ocean conservation personal

With a decade of experience in PR and communications, campaigns, key messages and storytelling are second nature for me. But after years of watching our amazing Mutants in Singapore and Malaysia leading our clients to success, my needling thoughts about the ocean finally came to a head. I asked myself, “What if our agency harnessed the power of storytelling for good?”

In true fashion, our leadership team responded emphatically. Ideas snowballed into plans, plans culminated into partnerships and our project, Peering into our Future, came into shape. 

Peering into our Future, and all the Mutants involved, are all driven by one common purpose – making ocean conservation personal enough for people to care. By bringing together some of Singapore’s most talented writers to craft dystopian futures, we hope to ignite imaginations and remind readers of just how easily our idyllic city could be ravaged by the destruction of our oceans. Through the added elements of experiential storytelling and events, we hope to replicate what is happening to our oceans here on land and inspire a personal connection to these happenings. And finally, by harnessing the power of PR and storytelling, we aim to amplify this important message to as many people as we can and get them involved.

Does Singapore need another CSR project? Yes, yes it does

As anyone in the conservation space knows, trying to encourage change isn’t straightforward. Despite being a life-affirming source of support for millions worldwide, marine ecosystems are under immense stress from global warming, overfishing, and pollution. As an island nation, Singapore has a responsibility to care for its rich coastal and marine biodiversity. However, media coverage on the issue has been surprisingly scarce, and most coastal conservation efforts have been isolated and inconsistent. 

It takes great tenacity, passion and dedication to persevere in this space, and we are grateful to work with some amazing NGOs who do exactly this, to help translate our lofty ambitions into impact. They have entrusted us to build a platform that educates people about the importance of ocean conservation, and in return, they gain support in continuing to do what they do best. 

The main challenge that lies ahead of us is conveying the importance of ocean conservation to the distant or disconnected layman, and creating an active community of advocates for this cause. Our approach is understanding that we all want change, and that nothing ignites change like personal stakes. What is happening to the oceans affects us all, and through Peering into our Future, we hope to educate, facilitate and revive the deep connection that we Singaporeans, as island dwellers, have to the marine world. 

And we plan to have a lot of fun doing it.

To learn about Mutant for Good and stay updated with our efforts, please watch this space for more, and follow us on socials.

Cover photo: A juvenile Cuttlefish photographed in Singapore waters – Photo Credit: Matthew de Bakker

This year marks Mutant’s 10th anniversary. 

It’s been an incredible decade of growth, successes, valuable lessons, and failures. We’ve had plenty of struggles, but have always worked together to find ways to effectively navigate muddy waters. 

When we launched Mutant, the goal was to build one of the best PR and content agencies in Southeast Asia, and then continue expanding. Looking back, while I can confidently say we have achieved these goals, there’s one area we haven’t focused on as much – and that’s ensuring our work has an impact that extends beyond clients, to make a mark and leave a legacy. 

Giving back to the wider community

Throughout my life, I have fought for what I believe in. I’ve run ultramarathons for charity, joined protests, volunteered around the world and, back in my days as a journalist, written articles about worthy causes to amplify voices that needed to be heard. Doing something positive for society that creates a lasting impact is important, and so we thought it was high time to wrap this into Mutant’s values and mission. 

That’s why Mutant is launching its inaugural, team-driven CSR initiative, Mutant for Good. 

While we have been focused on leading award-winning work, I am acutely aware of the state of the world and the need to create something that addresses key concerns, while also ensuring everyone at Mutant has the chance to be part of making a difference. We see Mutant for Good as an ongoing movement that will galvanise a generation of passionate and enthusiastic advocates, who in turn will continue to educate and inspire their communities to take action and make change.

Empowering Mutants to showcase their cross-functional team capabilities 

Team satisfaction is of paramount importance to us, and we’ve been able to create the work we do because we focus on a healthy work culture that prioritises inclusion and talent development. Mutant for Good aligns perfectly with our goal of offering staff an exceptional professional experience, where they can take pride in seeing their efforts come to life. 

Mutant for Good offers our Mutants an opportunity to work on an exciting campaign that pushes their limits creatively and exposes them to different skill-sets.  A unique opportunity to exchange knowledge and collaborate on meaningful work, this initiative will see them work together to bring it to life — regardless of whether they work in PR, content, branding, or design.

We want people to use their skills for a good cause, and try their hand at developing capabilities and exploring new functions.We work with a slew of unique clients across multiple verticals, and with Mutant for Good we also hope to inspire them to support our causes. This includes exploring potential content partnerships, thought leadership from key eco-conscious decision makers, and even volunteering opportunities with our non-profit partners. 

We will be officially launching our first Mutant for Good campaign in September, where you can see the final results of months of hard work from the team. I won’t give too much away, but it has been an ambitious endeavour, and I’m proud that we have all become involved with something that’s bigger than all of us.

To learn about Mutant for Good and stay updated with our efforts, please watch this space for more, and follow us on socials. 

When it comes to strong social media content, human stories shine. Social media users reward good storytelling, and love content that revolves around interesting characters. This means just posting about your brand’s product or service won’t cut it – you have to put a face to the offering, and a name to the face. 

That’s exactly what we did for Singapore Sports Hub.

In a year where the vibrant events hub was limited by Covid-19 restrictions, we needed to drive interest another way. So we took to social media with a narrative in mind: Singapore Sports Hub is the home of Team Singapore athletes Chasing the Medal. 

Nailing the profiles for Chasing the Medal

Working with the Singapore Sports Hub team, we identified four first-time Olympic contenders  and a decorated Paralympian as potential profiles. All 5 individuals were dynamic, driven athletes who spent between 6 to 30 hours a week training at the Hub. 

We were certain that they had strong and compelling stories to tell, and we spent time getting to know Jonathan, Kiria, Jia Min, Freida and Pin Xiu. Through interviews and research, we uncovered fun and interesting details about every person. And it wasn’t just about their sporting careers – almost the opposite. The most valuable questions we asked were the ones that elicited personal emotion and fun facts. Here’s the key: if you think of the people you’re profiling as real human beings, then your audience will, too. Don’t get caught up in the key messages – working that in comes naturally once the story falls into place.

Telling their stories

After getting to know the athletes, we started to streamline our storytelling process. What did we want our audiences to know about this athlete? How did we want to convey it? And, importantly: how did Singapore Sports Hub fit into that picture? To prevent a force fit, we paid special attention to seamlessly integrate the Hub into every part of the Chasing the Medal series. 

We ensured that Singapore Sports Hub was visually relevant – all athletes were pictured training or competing within the Hub – but more importantly, we ensured that the Hub was a foundation for every story, even as the athletes took center stage. The format was key for this: Instagram Stories allowed us to portray authentic social content native to the platform, with a variety of interactive elements including trivia, polls, Q&A boxes and sliders to maximize audience engagement. 

We also made sure to tie every trivia point back to the athlete’s career and training within the Hub. For example, an interactive quiz introducing diver Jonathan prompted audiences to guess his secret fear, which included a deliberately wrong option for heights (the answer was spiders). 

This “fun fact” was a segue into Jonathan’s sport: the 10m platform dive, which he trained for within the OCBC Aquatic Centre. By drawing meaningful links between fun social content and our purpose, we stayed focused on delivering our key narrative, and drove home the message through every touchpoint, i.e –  Singapore Sports Hub is the home of Team Singapore athletes Chasing the Medal.

Amplifying our reach

In putting together the series, we collaborated closely with many parties – not just the athletes themselves, but their respective sport associations, Singapore National Olympic Council, Singapore National Paralympic Council, Singapore Disability Sports Council, and of course, Team Singapore. Across the five stories, we secured reposts from every mentioned party, strongly extending the reach of our stories through organic amplification.

Ultimately, we secured a total of 25,580 impressions and 1,732 user element interactions, with an average clickthrough-to-end rate of 77%, higher than the industry average for such long-form edutainment series. More importantly, we received direct feedback and encouragement from our followers, giving us confidence that we achieved our goal of positioning the Hub as a central supporting icon and host training ground to national athletes.

The results speak for themselves: human stories will always capture the hearts and minds of social media users. Singapore Sports Hub was thrilled with the outcome, and made Chasing the Medal a long-running series featuring athletes of every major game. When you head to their Instagram page today, you’ll still see the stories highlighted at the top of their profile. 

Leveraging human stories can bring your brand to life – so find your profiles, tell their stories, and amplify your reach today.

Looking for a team to help you bring your brand to life on social media? Reach out to us at hello@mutant.com.sg.

Brand humour is one of the hardest wins to achieve. Sometimes it may feel like a confusing game of dice – how can your brand make memes, and what do (can?) you do if it doesn’t land the way you intended? 

If you want to meme with confidence and without having to walk on eggshells around your audience after, read on. 

Why your brand should incorporate memes

Humour is related to intelligence 

According to The Role of Creative Potential and Intelligence for Humor Production, the ability to come up with good puns or jokes has been seen across time as an indicator of intelligence or creativity. By using humour, you are subtly positioning your brand as one that is smart, attentive, and sharp. That said, knowing when and where to crack a joke is almost as important – if not more important – than the joke itself. Master this, and you will nail the witty brand image.

Laughter is the best medicine

For a generation that is exiting a global pandemic and entering an impending recession and escalating political tension internationally,  laughter in times of crisis is as good as gold. People are hungry for a sliver of light-heartedness, so why not deliver on it? 

Self-awareness through satire

Memes, in essence, are a form of visual rhetoric that convey criticism through satire. Yes, making fun of yourselves, your brand, your generation, your nation or culture, and even your audience can open your brand to some fire, but if your customers can tell that your brand is frank about its own limitations or flaws, this creates valuable opportunities for open conversations and feedback. 

Standing out in an industry of repetitive content

We get it, – not every industry is colourful, exciting and informal. Take B2B industries like finance, technology, and even HR that are saturated with jargon funding, earnings, mergers and acquisitions. They know how inaccessible and obtuse this language can be, even when it’s necessary for doing your job –and that can be used to cut through the noise.

Contrary to popular belief, B2B consumers are more emotionally connected to their vendors, than consumers are to theirs, and almost 50% more likely to buy when there’s a personal, emotional connection, according to a study by Google. It’s no secret that funny campaigns boost recall, and memes, such as MailChimp’s Failchips, are an opportune way to open a channel of communication where your audience can both react and add to the joke. Even better, this can boost that connection and lead to user-generated, brand-centric chatter.

The Big Disclaimer – Only Good Memes Work

How can brands guarantee that their meme-mentous efforts do not go awry? 

4-Step Guide to Memingful Content

Know your brand

Make sure that at the end of the day, you’re not telling two stories and going against the key messages of your brand. Getting swept up in meme trends just to get a pizza the share-of-voice pie, and forsaking your brand’s personality in the process is embarrassing, to say the least

Knowing your brand doesn’t have to be rocket science. Take this ad from Wonderful Pistachios – they conveyed their brand values simply, used the (arguably timeless) Keyboard Cat meme right, and it certainly cracks you up.

Keyboard Cat’s Wonderful Pistachios Commercial!

Know your audience

Being sensitive to your audience’s psychographic profiles is key. Knowing what makes them tick is just as important as knowing what makes them laugh. Some things are common sense –  it’s never funny to make jokes that spread racism, sexism and homophobia, or at the victims of crises, such as war or natural disasters.

Some nuances, however, are harder to grasp as the world of memes revolves faster each day. Fast-food giant and renowned Twitter spit-roaster Wendy’s allegedly failed to catch wind that the long popular Pepe the Frog meme was recently adopted as a white supremacist hate symbol, and came under fire when it posted a Wendy’s lookalike Pepe meme. That’s why it’s important to stay up-to-date with cultural awareness. 

Take advantage of trending topics & formats

Sometimes, you don’t have to be a punny genius to create a meme that resonates with your audience. Thankfully, there are some cheat sheets for making memes.

Graphic Frameworks

Back in 2012, there were the “Y U NO” captions that took the internet by storm. But we’ve moved on, and we will continue to do so. Thankfully, fried chicken franchise Jack in The Box found the missing piece.

Audio clips

Memes can come in the form of images, sounds, videos, and even phrases. In the age of multimedia, the roaring success of Tiktok videos and Instagram Reels have cemented the reign of vertical videos. A visceral force behind such videos are the audio clips used that drive home the top-of-mind-recall. 
What’s different today is that trending sounds, such as this season’s ubiquitous Material Gworl audio clip, can be easily adapted into one’s own videos on major social media platforms.

Users actively search out trending sound clips, so hopping onto one can be an easy and strategic way to use audio memes for your branding. However, do consider that some trending audios are NSFP – not safe for publishing. These may include tracks that contain expletives or racial slurs, which you probably don’t want your brand being associated with. 

Trending filters

Similar to audio, trending filters can also be harnessed by brands. For example, by using TikTok’s native greenscreen filter to convey witty scenarios and a sassy brand personality, airline Ryanair soared to over 1.6 million followers and more than 13.6 million likes.

Trending phrases

At the start of 2021, the lofty ideals of live, laugh, love were overthrown, and a new queen meme was in town – the phrase, Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss that took over Twitter, then the rest of the social media world. However, if you want to deploy a phrase, it needs to line up with context of use and more importantly, social media managers should double-check if the phrase is even still trending.

The reality of microtrends today may signal short-lived campaigns. McDonald’s made that mistake by hopping on this text format incorrectly, and to make matters worse, six whole years too late. 

Indeed, say no more. 

If you value longevity over virality then you might want to consider banking on formats or topics that –  in the words of Miss Swift – will never go out of style.

Finally, polish before you publish

While memes, in consumption, are a casual affair, making sure the humour lands right is something you should take seriously. A great way to ensure this is by doing an acid test with your coworkers and friends of a similar demographic and psychographic profile as your audience.

So take a breath, relax, take in the tweaks and try again. Don’t try too hard, though.

Ready to create meme-orable content? Drop us a line at hello@mutant.com.sg.

Back in the day, you could write a press release to announce a new product, menu or campaign you have and voilà – press coverage and happiness served on a platter! But as the media landscape has rapidly evolved over the years and begun to shrink, journalists and publications expect more than a press release, making it harder to land coverage. Today, those in the F&B industry must instead find ways to connect with their audience directly while providing journalists and publications with more sophisticated offerings. 

Compounding this is the fact that the F&B industry has undergone two years of intense changes, from dealing with recurring waves of restrictions and disruptions in supply chains to an uncertain future. Regardless, the industry has persevered, and there is much to be discussed as to how it can continue to thrive. Through our interactions with brands in the industry, here’s our take on three how-tos to ensure continued success for these businesses.

Adopt a tailored approach to press announcements  

Let’s say you’re launching a new product (yay!) – the (not so) bad news is that only you and your consumers care about it. But the good news is that there are ways to make the media care about it.  To do this, brands must think outside the box to jazz up their launch and engage media and consumers, while bearing in mind the current news cycle – perhaps an occasion is round the corner or there is a heavy focus on a particular topic in the news. Work to leverage these moments whenever possible and tie them into your announcements and launches to ride the trending topic wave while also generating excitement for your new product. 

On top of the usual press assets like a press release and press kits, F&B brands should consider going one step further and coupling these announcements with creative media drops or media events to give writers, critics, and tastemakers a first-hand experience. Finally, to further drive post-launch sustenance, brands must continue to engage journalists with tailored story angles to maintain momentum.

Stay informed of industry news and  trends 

As part of the industry, brands must stay in the know about the latest trends and developments within their specific niche. This allows them to, as mentioned above, tap into these moments and trendjack them with relevant content while also discussing what these issues mean for their customers and the larger community. 

One such way to keep updated is through media monitoring – by doing this, brands can have an overview of the type of industry news making the rounds as well as what their competitors are doing and saying. It is also useful for brands with a significant presence to track their consumer feedback and gather data to analyse any potential trends to further improve their services. Additionally, these insights can be  packaged with announcements to share with the media, whenever relevant. 

Be an authority on relevant topics and  have an opinion 

Ever wondered why you always see the same few experts commenting on the same industries and topics? For media to consider certain brands or spokespersons as go-to experts, they must first establish themselves as an authority on core topics within their business. Most importantly, these spokespeople must be willing to take a stance or provide high-level insights and analysis, whenever appropriate. 

To position yourself as an industry expert, trust and credibility must be built first on your brands’ owned platforms – anything from sharing infographics on social media or your thoughts in a blog posted to LinkedIn. When you get your thoughts, opinions, and data out there, you distribute content relevant to your industry and position yourself as a thought leader in your area of expertise. If your content is impactful, it will translate to your brand and help cement you as a  trusted source people can turn to for a quote or comment. In addition, this will help you amass a trove of information that can be used in media engagements. 

Eventually, journalists will start seeking you out after you’ve established a certain level of trust. From there, repeated interactions with journalists either through casual (media lunches, meet and greets) or formal engagements (exclusive media interviews) help to build a relationship, foster trust and allow journalists closer access to you and your brand. 

Want to know more about building meaningful relationships with the media and find the best way to make your announcements known to the public? Drop us a line at hello@mutant.com.sg!