How The Secret Little Agency Elevated Hawkers into Heroes
If you haven’t been to Singapore, you may never have heard of their famous hawkers – street vendors famous for their idiosyncratic interactions with the public. hawkers are such charismatic characters that DBS PlayLah! currently hold an annual award to celebrate Singapore’s favourite hawkers.
To ensure the best possible voter turn-out, The Secret Little Agency’s campaign leans heavily into the tenets of political advertising to promote the initiative. Speaking to LBB, co-chief creative officers Nicholas Ye and Mavis Neo and creative director Zara Kok unveiled the creation of the ‘Hawker Nation’ campaign.
Shining a spotlight on the unsung heroes of Singapore's hawker culture and their contributions to the community, the campaign encourages public engagement through nominations and voting, OOH advertising, and some creative storytelling.
LBB> The DBS PayLah! Hawker Awards campaign focuses on supporting food hawkers in Singapore during challenging times. Can you share more about the inspiration behind this campaign and its objectives?
TSLA> Hawker food is one of the most democratising forces in Singapore. It forms the backbone of our nation, uniting Singaporeans through our love for food. But in our nation’s pursuit to go cashless, many hawkers are often left behind because they don’t have the tools or resources to market themselves digitally. We worked together with DBS to introduce DBS PayLah! Hidden Gems Hawker Awards to hero less famous hawkers during the pandemic. This is the 3rd edition of Hawker Awards. Our objective for the campaign hasn’t changed since day one - to give well-deserved recognition to undiscovered hawkers, ultimately driving new sources of business to them.
LBB> How does this campaign shed light on the people behind the hawker fare and their contributions to the Singaporean community?
TSLA> Inflation and the rising cost of living was a big topic at the start of the year. Hawkers are not spared, with hawker food prices inflating to a 14-year high. We learnt that many hawkers have been quietly absorbing the inflation over the years where they can. To survive, many hawkers have had to increase their prices, but just nominally.
Past editions of Hidden Gems Hawker Awards focused on the food, the dishes and the craft. With the focus only on the food, we found that people find it hard to empathise with hawkers. They’ve forgotten about the little acts of love they’ve received from their favourite hawkers over the years - like how they can remember our complex orders or generously give an additional portion of rice out of the goodness of their hearts.
So, for Hidden Gem Hawker Awards this year, we’ve turned the spotlight on the unsung heroes who have worked tirelessly behind the scenes to bring us our favourite hawker food.
LBB> “Hawker Nation” is an attention-grabbing campaign. Could you elaborate on the strategy behind this approach and how you aimed to engage the public?
TSLA> Strategically, past editions of Hidden Gems Hawker Awards have always been launched in the month leading up to Singapore’s National Day in August, where we’ve always anticipated a surge in national pride for all things Singaporean. What’s different this year was that Singapore was holding its sixth Presidential election on September 1st. This was a vast cultural and social moment in our nation’s history that we needed to leverage, giving our nation’s hawker heroes the presidential treatment they truly deserve.
LBB> The campaign includes elements inspired by National Day and Presidential elections. How do these elements connect with the campaign’s message, and what impact do you hope they will have on the audience?
TSLA> We had a lot of fun exploring recognisable election tropes and iconic National Day references when crafting the campaign’s entire look and feel across the board - whether it was the dramatic filmic flair in which our hawkers were portrayed or the deliberate choice of rousing music, to even the style of anthemic language you would recognise in a rallying speech in our out-of-home visuals and social content.
Campaign trucks are a familiar part of every General Election, and they’re unique because they’re used exclusively by political parties and no one else. Naturally, we wanted our own, complete with loudspeakers and hawkers posing as candidates.
It is these very ingredients that created a believable and immersive experience that drew our audience in across the campaign period and moved them to vote. This presidential treatment also made the lasting impact we wanted on our audience: to help them see our hawkers in a heroic spotlight that’s unexpected and rarely used but very much deservedly. Our hawkers may not qualify to run for office, but they are equally important as the people who do.
LBB> The campaign involves nominations and voting. Can you explain how Singaporeans can participate in supporting their favourite hawkers and why this engagement is crucial?
TSLA> The big ambition was to give well-deserved recognition to undiscovered hawkers. We found that getting Singaporeans to nominate their favourite hawkers drove awareness and attention towards these hawkers, who otherwise wouldn’t have received the recognition they truly deserve. Beyond that, it also got Singaporeans to visit these lesser-known hawkers and, in a very tangible manner, support them by buying and trying their food.
LBB> The campaign features out-of-home advertising with past winners paired with statements reflecting everyday interactions with hawkers. How do these visuals contribute to the campaign’s storytelling?
TSLA> A lot of hawker ads focus on the food – close-ups of sizzling murtabaks, rich curry pours, and dramatic pans across a selection of delectable-looking roasted meat.
As much as we love a good food porn production, our OOH visuals this year needed to focus on the people behind the food. To highlight the special relationship we have with them, we leveraged something we internally dubbed ‘hawker-isms’ —the unique sayings and behaviour which many hawkers use to express their familiarity, from the calls of ‘Shuai ges’ (handsome boy in Mandarin) to the extra eggs which mysteriously appear with your chicken rice.
LBB> How do you hope the campaign will impact Singaporeans’ perceptions of and support for their local hawkers?
TSLA> We wanted the audience to celebrate this unique hawker type of love and to give our respect and affection in return. It’s no easy task being a hawker in this day and age of rising costs and sky-high rentals. But suppose we could make the relationship a little less transactional and a little more familial. In that case, we’re hoping it would go a long way and keep Singaporean’s support for such an iconic part of our heritage alive.
