Beat The Heat Singapore was a risk communication campaign that aimed to promote the adoption of fire extinguishers amongst household owners aged 35 to 49, who were parents and do not own a fire extinguisher. The campaign was the first locally, to tackle fire safety with the innovative use of Virtual Reality technology and adopt the angle of positive child-based messaging to raise household fire preparedness.
The key messages of this campaign to the target audience were disseminated mainly via paid advertisements on Facebook and the Virtual Reality game that was available to the public through both digital and offline efforts.
The Highlights
The first pop-up booth was at Tampines North Community Centre’s Open House event where members of the public could participate in the immersive Virtual Reality (VR) game. Created with the help of a professional training provider, the VR game simulated a home fire outbreak situation where participants have to react and combat the fire with a choice of household items and a fire extinguisher. Many event-goers were intrigued and engaged by the novel VR aspect of the campaign. Many of those who tried the game responded positively, commending on how the VR element makes the learning experience fun and engaging. Some of the event-goers also expressed a high interest in purchasing a fire extinguisher.
The second event was held at Anchorpoint. Due to the COVID-19 situation, the team decided to do away with virtual reality games. Instead, they displayed interactive informational boards that people could interact with and learn more about household fire safety. Although the display was not as attractive as the virtual reality game, the team still gathered positive interactions with members of the public who were interested and wanted to learn more about the campaign. With permission from the mall’s management, the team was allowed to work with their collaborating partner to sell fire extinguishers on-site, therefore improving the accessibility of fire extinguishers to passersby and encouraging positive behavioural change. As a result, the team saw a significant increase in the public’s willingness to purchase fire extinguishers for their homes when behavioural adoption barriers were reduced.
For the campaign’s online outreach, the team focused their efforts on videos that utilised a story-telling approach. Their narrative videos linked household fire preparedness through ownership of fire extinguishers at home to good parenting, since the campaign’s target audience was parents. The videos garnered commendable positive feedback and engagement amongst the target group.
The Memories
Reflection #1 – The Challenges
Technical aspects of the virtual reality game.
While the VR game received favourable results, some participants faced issues with the game controls which took away their ability to enjoy and fully immerse themselves in the game.
Adapting to the COVID-19 outbreak.
The evolving COVID-19 situation also forced the team to make the tough decision to remove VR game for events taking place after the Tampines North Community Centre’s Open House event. As a result, the team had to make adaptations to the game and made it available online in the form of a gameplay video where people could still experience the game and see what happens, but without the ability to influence actions in the game.
Limited reach for offline events.
Additionally, such offline events and outreach, although garnered strong positive engagements, were limited in terms of reach. The people the team could reach via these events were difficult to influence since it largely depended on the people who were passing by that day. Comparatively, the team had a much larger audience for their online outreach and could decide who they wanted to view their online outreach efforts.
Reflection #2 – The Takeaways
There are always two sides to a coin.
The use of virtual reality was very effective in capturing attention and interest. However, technical difficulties in navigating the VR game could discount the immersiveness and reduce its effectiveness. Hence, it was important that new technologies when implemented for public use should be simplified, so that people of all ages and technical familiarity would be able to participate and benefit from such initiatives.
Virtual Reality has the potential to create more impact.
There was also potential to maximise VR’s digital impact apart from the actual VR game itself. This takeaway was gleaned from the engagements received on the team’s VR gameplay videos which showed that despite not being able to experience the game themselves, viewers still enjoyed it through the video.
Online advertising is an effective messaging tool for the target audience.
Online advertising was a cost-efficient way to convey the team’s message to their target audience, who spent most of their time on social media platforms such as Facebook. Through the collection of real-time data of reach and engagement, the team was able to adapt their online strategy to achieve a targeted reach and maximize the effectiveness of their campaign’s messages amongst the audience group.
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