Immerse, Entertain, Repeat: How Mullenlowe Singapore Innovated for their PRISM+ Campaign
PRISM+, a rising star in home display technology, has taken TV immersion to a whole new level in its latest campaign. With a dash of humour and a cinematic approach, the campaign explores PRISM+'s quest to solidify its position as a top smart home brand in Singapore.
LBB’s Tom Loudon caught up with Louis Lukamto, head of social and content at PRISM+, and Daniel Kee, executive creative director at MullenLowe Singapore, to dive into the inspiration behind this creative endeavour.
Their collaboration with award-winning director Khun Un sought to bring tactile, humorous, and immersive experiences to TV viewers.
The pair explore their idea to immerse ‘typical TV viewers’ into the world of entertainment, from the near-universal appeal of humour to the campaign challenges evolving PRISM+'s marketing strategy.
LBB> What inspired the concept of bringing a "typical TV viewer" into the immersive worlds of entertainment in this campaign?
Daniel> It isn’t a new proposition to immerse the viewer in a show. We were more interested in how far we could push the proposition – to take it beyond an audiovisual experience to one that was almost tactile, physical, even painful. And in our exploration, we can give a young brand like PRISM+ a chance to establish a voice and come out screaming like a rockstar in a grandma’s face at the same time. If the viewer of our ads could feel what the viewer in our ads felt, we’d have taken immersion to a satisfyingly new level.
LBB> Could you elaborate on the creative process of collaborating with award-winning director Khun Un and how his unique style contributed to the campaign's impact?
Daniel> Khun Un is highly selective of the projects he works on. It felt like a small victory when he responded to our initial ideas, “this is the best thing I’ve ever seen.” A couple of weeks later, everything was out of the window, and we were looking at a different set of scripts and boards.
At MullenLowe, we are driven by the concept of “positive dissatisfaction”, a quality highly evident in Khun Un’s deliberate decision. He felt the original concepts would require a much larger budget and range of equipment to pull off at a level he found acceptable, so over a few weeks of discussions, mutual pitching of new ideas, and building off each other’s thoughts, we eventually arrived at the three concepts that cut.
Being extremely hands-on by nature, our biggest challenge was learning to trust our director whenever he pushed back on our suggestions. For the most part, we’re glad we did. We pursued this relationship with Khun Un because we loved his vision and execution genius — that means getting out of the way when it matters.
LBB> The campaign humorously depicts various immersive scenarios, like a rock concert or cooking show. How do these scenarios represent PRISM+'s QLED TV and sound systems' immersive experience?
Louis> Not only do these scenarios allow us to showcase the range of genres that could appreciate good visual and audio quality, but we also ensured that the scenarios represented different segments of our target audiences, essentially the everyday people.
Daniel> The spots were an exploration of the most popular genres or reasons to have a quality screen and AV setup — and out of those, we picked the ones that allowed the best stories to be told. Each scenario lends itself to a different combination of screen size, technology, soundbar or full theatre setup, allowing PRISM+ to showcase a full range over the campaign.
LBB> The campaign incorporates humour, which can be pretty subjective. How did you ensure the humour would resonate with a broad audience?
Daniel> This was indeed a tricky one. Humour doesn’t necessarily travel across cultures and geographies, as well as fear or horror, for instance. In our explorations, we had competing concepts at some point where the humour was leaning American and relying rather heavily on dialogue. In the end, we intuitively pulled it back to a brand of Asian slapstick, with an injection of Thai-style awkwardness and American kitsch that appealed to most of the team, and trusted that it would be suitable for our audience, too.
LBB> Could you provide insights into the decision to run the campaign in cinemas, on digital platforms, and in-store? What audience engagement strategies are employed for each medium?
Louis> In Singapore, we’ve fortified our brand as a household name through our solid digital advertising efforts, and this campaign had the thumb-stopping factor. But we also saw this partnership as an excellent opportunity to diversify our content. Cinemas are a great way to showcase the immersion of our storytelling and to amplify the cinematic audiovisual experience that we’re trying to convey.
Our in-store experience is also an essential part of our marketing strategy, receiving significant footfall through our 6 retail locations in Singapore alone. It was a no-brainer to enhance our touchpoints with this entertaining series of creatives.
LBB> PRISM+ aims to solidify its position as a top smart home brand in Singapore. How does this campaign contribute to this goal?
Louis> The past seven years saw PRISM+ grow from a small homegrown brand to a leading name in home display technology within our core markets. During this time, our core mission to make premium technologies and experiences accessible to the masses has always remained the same despite our increasing product segments. This creative campaign was our most significant creative undertaking to date and served as an opportunity to introduce our brand identity to a broader audience — and we thought it would be most appropriate to do so with the very products that first put us on the map.
LBB> What key challenges were faced during the creative process, and how did you overcome them?
Daniel> The idea was conceived before the pandemic, and we had sold the client completely different scripts and initiated talks with different production partners when the world went into lockdown and projects were deprioritised. When we picked it up again, the world was elsewhere. Khun Un had become the guy we needed any excuse to work with, and PRISM+’s product lineup had become more varied and sophisticated.
It was a chance to reboot, but it was also a month-long scramble to squeeze ourselves into the director’s packed schedule. We invited all the young creatives who had come on board since the project was put on hold to give it a go. The most complex parts were workshopping dozens of new ideas and killing most to make way for better ones on a compressed timeline. We don’t often get to put something amusing into our reel or to work with someone like Khun Un – that was all the motivation we needed to get it across the line.
LBB> How does the campaign contribute to reshaping PRISM+'s marketing strategy, particularly in transitioning from influencer-driven efforts to a broader, more creative approach?
Louis> Influencer marketing will continue to play a significant role in our overall marketing strategy in gaining visibility and traction, especially as we embark on new markets. But this campaign is a huge inspiration for our in-house marketing team to write more compelling stories, take wider leaps of faith, and deliver content with higher production value.
