Reimagining Singapore
National Museum of Singapore
TBWA\Singapore
The Challenge
How can Singapore’s oldest museum, located in one of the world’s youngest nations, reverse the declining interest among its own people?
In the first half of 2023, only ~4% of Singaporeans expressed interest in visiting NMS (Source: YouGov 2023) due to perceptions of history being “dated” and “uninteresting.” Many Singaporeans assumed they already knew everything about their country’s history.
NMS experienced the lowest engagement among key competitors (ArtScience Museum and National Gallery Singapore) on social media in 2022. The campaign’s primary objective: make history relevant again and rekindle interest in the museum.
The Solution
Singapore Reimagined: Singapore’s oldest museum sparked conversations about history with an “AI only” social campaign that reimagined the past.
Singapore’s history, including periods under various empires, British colonial rule, Japanese occupation, a brief merger with Malaysia, and independence in 1965, was examined by real museum curators using AI to “fill the gaps.” The AI answered “what if” questions based on themes from the museum’s exhibitions and provided illustrations.
This approach captured the attention of young people, who engaged with history on social media through imaginative comments—demonstrating that Singaporeans are interested in history when they feel included in the narrative.
The Results
Reimagine Singapore was the most successful social media campaigns in the history of National Museum of Singapore. It saw a 6x higher engagement rate than the industry standard, successfully reigniting interest in history and the NMS.
