In 2024, Taylor Swift announced Singapore as her only Southeast Asia destination for her largest tour yet. As the main airport for tourists in Singapore, Changi Airport wanted to leverage this opportunity to hop on the Swiftie hype, and cultivate brand love amongst Singaporeans and the international audience. But we had one major problem – Changi Airport is neither a partner nor a sponsor. We couldn’t use her for any promotions, nor get her to share about us.

We found out that years ago, Taylor Swift visited Changi Airport and posted a vlog expressing her surprise that “there was a forest in the airport”.

Fast forward to today, Changi Airport has one of the world’s largest indoor rainforests in our airport. So we used her own words to kickstart conversations on social media by asking the most devoted army in the world – Swifties – to invite Taylor to see the new forest.

We then picked up on a fan’s comment, suggesting that we have a “Taylor Swift karaoke” in the forest – organising the largest sing-along event in Singapore within the forest to celebrate their love for the popstar.

As the national airport of Singapore, Changi Airport wanted both Singaporeans and international travellers to:

- Be aware that Changi Airport is so much more than an airport with its retail, F&B, and hospitality offerings, and patronise/spend on these offerings.

- Grow their love for the Changi brand through alignment of culture and interest.

We knew that in 2024, Taylor Swift's influence on the world transcended demographics. She was pop culture itself. That was why we capitalised on her own words in her old video that talked about a "forest" in Changi's Terminal 3.

By bringing the conversation from Taylor Swift to Changi Airport's new forest, we got everyone talking about the beauty of the nature at our airport, and the spread of offerings available. And even generated unparalled footfall at the airport in one weekend, with the largest Swiftie singalong in Singapore, ever.

We knew our one launch post on social had to be an impactful one. So we led with that old Taylor Swift vlog, followed by a simple call-to-action: tag Taylor to come see our new forest with comments, photos, and videos. And it worked like a charm, especially on the platforms most popular with today's youth – Instagram and TikTok – with Swifties leading the way and many more non-Swifties following suit.

And when a fan suggested in a comment that we hold a mass karaoke at our new forest, we took it, quite literally. We organised the largest Swiftie event at Jewel Changi Airport – a mass singalong. Sign-ups exploded, Swifties and curious onlookers alike amassed at Changi Airport, and even the police showed up. For an organically created activation, the turnout was beyond our wildest dreams.

From one post, we got

25,888 registrations for the sing-along activation

23,121,687 total impressions

60% increase in brand engagement rate, surpassing industry benchmarks

190% surge in brand reach

25x over RSVP targets for sing-along event

40% rise in passenger footfall to Changi Airport during the campaign period, eclipsing even peak holiday seasons

116 media publications covered the campaign, including 12 international ones

0 sponsorship dollars spent