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SINGAPORE: Experts said that using new media is likely to become prevalent in Singapore.
Civil servants have been learning how they can use this to convey their ministries' social messages.
The successful Yasmin Ahmad-shot commercial "funeral", which promoted family values, became a Facebook phenomenon which is probably familiar to many.
But the Leo Burnett team had other stories to tell where new media played a big role.
These included getting people worldwide to switch off their lights for just one hour for Earth Day and petitioning for an extra public holiday for men in Romania, as part of an innovative beer campaign where outreach expanded as traditional media picked up on it.
Jaroslaw Ziebinski, Asia Pacific president, Leo Burnett, said: "New media is nothing different. It's just a different technology and a different way of getting to people.
"I expect new media in this country to grow in importance because if you look at some data today, people in Singapore today spend about 27 per cent of their time using Internet versus the rest of the media. And we only see a small percentage of the media budgets spent on Internet."
Going forward, the government has said it wants to reach out to new groups.
Richard Tan, director, Corporate Communications, Ministry of Community, Youth & Sports, said: "Social media can be used to engage young people and to explain and discuss with them the kind of issues that are of concern to the country."
But to do this well, experts said governments will have to be more open.
Saurabh Varma, chief strategy officer, Leo Burnett, said: "The human side of any politician is what people are really interested in and that is what they need to explore. If you really look at Obama, that is what he did.
"There is no choice. If you do not have your message there and you don't have your own perspective being shared, then guess what? People are still going to have a chat about you, people are still going to have a point of view about you. So you might as well have your perspective shared and presented."
The payback, going by campaigns like Obama's, may well be worth it. - CNA/vm
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