• Straits Times via Asia Media , Thursday, November 9, 2006 12 PM

A recent ad campaign in Singapore, run entirely in mainstream newspapers, shows that print can still be effective in building up a company's brand and boosting its sales. The two-week campaign for Bio-essence's new anti-freckle skin-care range was a daring experiment. The company behind it had always used a mix of TV and print for product launches. But for its "Freckles Fading" products, it teamed with media giant Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) in a test of print media's power.

Cutting TV advertising spending to zero, the $420,000 campaign consisted entirely of 21 print ads in August. The gamble paid off when survey figures showed that more customers could recall the brand after the campaign. The polls were conducted with 829 females, age 20 and above, before and after the campaign. In a crowded skin-care market, only 2% of customers surveyed before the campaign cited Bio-essence as the first skin-care brand they thought of. After the campaign, this group doubled to 4%. Bio-essence also gained ground as the "most prominent brand" at the expense of brands like SK-II and L'Oreal, which had put most of their advertising dollars into TV advertising.

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