I think some of you have already seen the video of the Raffles Place Ghost being uploaded to youtube (with more than 260,000 views to date). If you haven't seen it yet, you can view it below.
Many who've viewed the video were very curious on the authenticity of it.
Below are some comments of those who kinda believed the footage:
And then there are skeptics who doubted the authenticity of the video:
So is this video real or not?
Rest assured, it is not. In fact, this was a marketing campaign by the recruitment and HR consultancy group GMP created by McCann Worldgroup Singapore.
When the video ends, you are being led to a blog url (http://www.rafflesplaceghost.net/blog/) where the interns, who uploaded the video, pen down their ghostbuster stories trying to unravel this mystery. And in the next few days it was posted on Stomp. It was then picked up by the daily press and made the front page of Shin Min Wanbao while Lianhe Wanbao featured an article on the 'ghost sighting' in its main news section.
The mystery was finally unraveled on Labour Day where GMP owned up to the creation of this campaign 10 days after the video was uploaded.
"The revelation of the ‘ghost video' as a marketing effort made it newsworthy for Channel 5 and Channel U, and both stations ran stories on the campaign in the news."
All in all, GMP only spent $100,000 on the online video which eventually snowballed into free coverage on various media outlets.
Farrokh Madon, ECD for McCann Worldgroup Singapore said that the Raffles Place Ghost is a "defining piece of Singapore advertising" and a "fantastic example of how a big idea can magnify a small advertising budget".
Madon told Marketing that the video was discussed on over 300 websites with "everyone from Paranormal Societies to Production Video makers offering their expert comments on the video".
The latest blog post gave a url (http://www.myescapeplan.com.sg/whyushouldntworklate/) where viewers are led to another video narrated by a personnel from GMP explaining why this video was made (as below). This whole recruitment campaign proved successful with "a lot of traffic to the GMP microsite and the number of CVs uploaded increased exponentially".
This is definitely one of the coolest marketing campaign I've seen in Singapore. Definitely effective in reaching out to the Gen Y (who are savvy with the Internet). With such success demonstrated in this campaign, we can predict many companies who will follow suit and tap on the Internet medium to generate publicity and viral marketing.
Many who've viewed the video were very curious on the authenticity of it.
Below are some comments of those who kinda believed the footage:
who ever post this video, do tell me which area is this..i mean which area of the building is this..
gosh. i had a rude shock. not sure if this is real but it is very scary. raffles place can get quite eerie at night especially when it is very quiet.
seems real leh... to me at least. coz maybe i heard alot of scary office ghost stories before.
i don't know whether this is real or not lah, but i heard alot of stories from my mum about how during world war 2, a bomb was dropped at raffles place and alot of people died during the war... i don't want to work there!!! :[
And then there are skeptics who doubted the authenticity of the video:
there's one glaring problem with the video. CCTV footage isn't so smooth. looking at the fps, this footage looks like it's made from a video cam.
its a fake lah...look at 00:27:48 some editing work being carried out.
The way the "ghost" moves towards the end of the video, with the wavering shadows effects and all that... Sorry to say this. Smacks of cheap homebase video editing.
So is this video real or not?
Rest assured, it is not. In fact, this was a marketing campaign by the recruitment and HR consultancy group GMP created by McCann Worldgroup Singapore.
When the video ends, you are being led to a blog url (http://www.rafflesplaceghost.net/blog/) where the interns, who uploaded the video, pen down their ghostbuster stories trying to unravel this mystery. And in the next few days it was posted on Stomp. It was then picked up by the daily press and made the front page of Shin Min Wanbao while Lianhe Wanbao featured an article on the 'ghost sighting' in its main news section.
The mystery was finally unraveled on Labour Day where GMP owned up to the creation of this campaign 10 days after the video was uploaded.
"The revelation of the ‘ghost video' as a marketing effort made it newsworthy for Channel 5 and Channel U, and both stations ran stories on the campaign in the news."
All in all, GMP only spent $100,000 on the online video which eventually snowballed into free coverage on various media outlets.
Farrokh Madon, ECD for McCann Worldgroup Singapore said that the Raffles Place Ghost is a "defining piece of Singapore advertising" and a "fantastic example of how a big idea can magnify a small advertising budget".
Madon told Marketing that the video was discussed on over 300 websites with "everyone from Paranormal Societies to Production Video makers offering their expert comments on the video".
The latest blog post gave a url (http://www.myescapeplan.com.sg/whyushouldntworklate/) where viewers are led to another video narrated by a personnel from GMP explaining why this video was made (as below). This whole recruitment campaign proved successful with "a lot of traffic to the GMP microsite and the number of CVs uploaded increased exponentially".
This is definitely one of the coolest marketing campaign I've seen in Singapore. Definitely effective in reaching out to the Gen Y (who are savvy with the Internet). With such success demonstrated in this campaign, we can predict many companies who will follow suit and tap on the Internet medium to generate publicity and viral marketing.
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