How can the oldest museum in one of the world’s youngest nations, Singapore, reverse the serious decline in interest among its own people?

In the first half of 2023, only ~4% of Singaporeans stated interest in visiting NMS (YouGov 2023) because history was seen as “dated” an “uninteresting”

Singaporeans had the assumption that they already know everything there is to know about Singapore

NMS saw the lowest engagement amongst their key competitors (ArtScience Museum and National Gallery Singapore) on social media in 2022 (Client Data)

Key Objective

Make history relevant again and re-energise interest and footfall for the museum.

SINGAPORE REIMAGINED: Singapore’s oldest museum provoked Singaporeans into talking about history again, by rewriting it with an “AI only” social campaign.

We used AI to "fill the gaps” of Singapore's seemingly short history, arguably often written by others*; and got AI to answer "what if" questions. This got the attention of youths who more interested in the future than the past, to speak up. Even "make history" on social media with imaginative comments.

The themes explored in our campaign were tied to real exhibitions in the museum, rejuvenating public interest in NMS.

This resulted in one of the most successful social campaigns in NMS' history. Showing Singaporeans are interested in history, if you make them a part of it.

*Singapore’s history includes periods under the Srivijaya Empire, Majapahit Empire and Sultanate of Johor; followed by British colonial rule,

Target Audience

Singaporeans (especially Gen Zs and Millennials)

Core Strategic Insight

The misconception that museums are unchanging archives to history is one of the reasons why people assume history is "set in stone", "written" and "boring".

History is always being (re)written. Our public dialogue around it keeps history alive.

Creative Expression

NMS pride themselves on being the arbiter of Singapore’s heritage and culture.

What if we could show people a side of history that is not recorded in any books or museums? Or share a new perspective of present-day Singapore?

Creative Rationale

Combining the keen insight of NMS museum curators and experts with AI technology, we set out to fill in historical gaps and reimagine our present.

How It Works

Inspired by the themes of National Museum's real-life exhibitions, we studied history with museum curators to explore the gaps that we’d love to challenge, before spending over a month to engineer prompts and train our AI tools to rewrite narratives and fill the gaps of Singapore's history.

We trained AI to assist the human collective in:

(1) Visualising alternative realities

"If the tides of our history took a different turn, how would we live?"

(2) Exploring the lesser-known parts of Singapore’s history — through the lens of protagonists unheard of

"A rat with a bounty on its tail in 1820s Singapore."

(3) Reimagining blanks in our pre-colonial history, with fiction, facts and folklores

"The Legend of Badang and the Singapore Stone"

The intention was to turn NMS social pages into a virtual space that enable dialogues and encourage Singaporeans to revisit the museum they thought they know all about, with a fresh perspective — creating a new experience for everyone

Timeline:

Aug to Dec 2023

Placements:

Facebook, Instagram, TikTok

We created one of the most successful social media campaigns in the history of National Museum of Singapore:

6x higher engagement rate above industry standard

9.6M impressions

1.9M unique users reached in 3 months

28% uplift in search during campaign period