Issues In Interactive Advertising

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

This research paper is focused on the Speak Good English Campaign, one of the many social campaigns that are on-going in the country, Singapore which is also known as the "Campaign City". The paper first tries to understand what the Speak Good English Campaign is and why the government feels that it is of such importance. With the introduction of the internet, the government has included many interactive elements into the promotion of this campaign. The research paper will attempt to compare the Speak Good English Campaign’s interactive elements that are used to promote it with an award winning social campaign to determine if the government has done the right adjustments in its campaign to modify social behavour. Lastly, through a survey, the paper will try to determine the effectiveness of the Speak Good English Campaign by examining the responses of 218 secondary school students. The paper also tries to understand, from the students’ perceptions, what would make a successful social campaign and what type of interactive elements should be employed to engage youths to influence good social behavior like speaking good English.

Introduction

Singapore is a small city state of only 710 sq km with a population size of about 5.3 million people, located at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula (Wikipedia, 2013). Government campaigns have always been a part of Singapore’s cultural history. It had been referred by some as a "campaign country" (Lazar, 2000), or "Campaign City" (Blouinartinfo, 2013). Others have said that "Singapore has been inundated with a flood of campaigns" (Teo, 2005) since it started 50 years ago with the then Prime Minister of Singapore, Mr Lee Kuan Yew, planting a Mempet tree at Farrer Circus. This started the Greening Campaign that transformed Singapore into the Garden City of today (CNA, 2013). It is Singapore’s first attempt to shape behaviours and our social landscape. Now, Singaporeans are confronted by a barrage of social campaigns like the Speak Good English Campaign, Singapore Kindness Movement, Speak Mandarin Campaign or the Clean & Green Singapore Campaign 2012, just to name a few, throughout the year (Gov, 2012).

Speak Good English Campaign

A campaign is usually defined as "a series of coordinated activities, such as public speaking and demonstrating, designed to achieve a social, political or commercial goal" (Freedictionary, 2013) while a campaign in Singapore can be defined as a "government initiated and inspired movement which has an organized and formal course of action used with the intent of arousing public awareness and influencing public behavior" (Tham, 1986). Singapore’s population, according to Indexmundi (2013), is made up of many different ethnic groups, namely Chinese (76.8%), Malay (13.9%), Indian (7.9%) and others (1.4%). When Singapore gained independence from their colonial masters in 1965, English, the administrative language of the British, was kept as the lingua franca to help bridge the language barriers between the various ethnic groups (Lim, 2010) especially in common spaces like the workplace, places of leisure and schools,’ (Make Good English Stick, 2012). The importance of English was further explained by Dr Yaacob Ibrahim, Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts in 2012 when he said that, ‘Singaporeans are aware of the economic value and the importance of being able to speak English well. English is the language of business in Singapore and in the world.’ Thus, we can understand why at the turn of the millennia in the year 2000, the Speak Good English Campaign was initiated. The Speak Good English Campaign had also been highlighted as one of the favorite campaigns (Asiaone, 2012) of Singaporeans. Thus, this campaign has been selected in this research paper, to examine its effectiveness among Singaporean youths today.

Internet Use in Singapore

According to the Internet World Stats (n.d.b), Singapore has an internet penetration rate of 77.2% and about 85% of the digital consumers in Singapore own an internet-capable hone according to the global insights and measurement company, Nielson (Lim, 2011). In the same line, a survey supported by the National Youth Council, found teenagers aged between 12 to 15 years old spending an average of 17.2 hours online per week. Most of them use it as channel for self-expression and socializing via chats (AsiaOne, 2007). Singapore is also coincidentally "the most Facebook-ed nation in the world" (Chan 2012), with about 50 percent of online traffic directed to social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Youtube. It would seem that Singapore would be a perfect place to make use of the internet and social media websites for promoting good social values and shaping the social landscape.

Advantages of Online Campaigns

In fact, every major campaign in Singapore has a webpage and many of them are linked to social networks like Facebook and Twitter. With prevalent Internet penetration and high online interaction amongst Singapore teenagers, businesses and government agencies have jumped on the bandwagon and developed various integrated campaigns to engage targeted stakeholders. Even educators in the advertising and public relations programs acknowledge that the internet is "an effective mass medium at delivering persuasive communication" (Daugherty, 2002). Internet advertising is also considered a better form of communication with the targeted audience as it has "more capacity …to develop two way communication with consumers, engage the consumer and present timely messages quickly." (McMillan, 2007). Advertisers understand the impact internet advertising has on youths and how "their efforts influence child audiences" (Kundel, 2004) and they are putting their money in online advertising which grew to a record $US36.6 billion in 2012 (theAustrialian, 2013). If it is so effective for commercial advertising, why can’t it be to promote good social behavior?

Research Questions

The purpose of this paper is to explore how the Ministry of Information, Communication and the Arts has used online interactive advertising elements to "encourage all Singaporeans to speak Standard English that is universally understood"(Gov, 2012) on the Speak Good English Movement website. The main research question is "How has online interactive advertising been employed in Singapore’s Speak Good English Campaign and how successful is it in encouraging secondary school students to speak grammatically correct English?"

We will further break down this into 3 RQs:

How effective is the Speak Good English Campaign website as compared to the Gift of Life Campaign?

Are Singaporean youths aware of the Speak Good English Campaign and its website and whether they feel that it is an effective way to reach out to them?

What are Youths’ perceptions on the best methods in launching a social campaign through the various types of media available especially through the internet?

Research Methodology

Adopting a hybrid approach, we will use both quantitative and qualitative methods to explain the findings of this paper. First, we will be conducting content analysis on the Speak Good English Campaign vs The Gift of Life Campaign.

The intent for this content analysis component was primarily to establish the advantages and disadvantages of digital elements offered by the Speak Good English website in comparison to an award-winning campaign. We were also interested to discover what are the key elements to judge a good interactive campaign, and in doing so find out what practical methods can be used to determine the relevance and success of each campaign.

To begin, it was important to find a campaign executed in an Asian country with similar social media behavior as those held locally in Singapore. Through Alexa (www.alexa.com), a web information company that provides top-most visited sites by countries, the top five most-visited social media sites were listed for the various ASEAN states which are geographically nearest to Singapore. By comparison, it was found that Malaysia and Philippines were two nations with the most similar social media patterns with Singapore. A more detailed comparison can be found in Chart 1 below.

Singapore

Malaysia

Thailand

Philippines

Myanmar

Laos

Cambodia

Indonesia

Vietnam

1

Facebook

Facebook

Facebook

Facebook

No Data avail

No Data avail

Facebook

Facebook

Facebook

2

Youtube

Youtube

Youtube

Twitter

Youtube

Youtube

3

LinkedIn

LinkedIn

WordPress

LinkedIn

Khmer79

Kaskus

4

Twitter

Instagram

LinkedIn

Pinterest

-

TokoBagus

5

Pinterest

Pininterest

Dek-D

Instagram

-

Blogspot

Chart 1. Top 5 most visited social media sites in ASEAN countries

The Gift of Life campaign is an interactive media campaign designed for Manikao, a Filipino organization targeted on educating children on the concept of recycling. This is conducted mainly through teaching children to make their "own dolls from old clothes and recycled materials (Manikako.com, 2012). We found that this is a suitable campaign on two levels. Firstly, the campaign won accolades at various regional award festivals including Spikes Asia and Digital Asia Festival (spikes.asia, 2012; digitalasiafestival.com, 2012). In addition, Manikako’s target audience (children) is similar to the adolescent age group that was targeted in this survey.

Using the Measures of Perceived Interactivity (MPI) developed by McMillan and Hwang (2002), this data analysis compares the interactive component of the Speak Good English campaign against its award-winning competitor, Gift of Life. The MPI is based on three broad concepts of online interactivity; direction of communication, user control and time. Using factor analysis, the researchers found several independent variables that had significant contribution to perceived interactivity.

Direction of Communication determines that a mutual discourse (be it concurrent or asynchronized) forms the basis of interactive advertisements. This new medium must aid communication between consumers and advertisers, and amongst consumers. This component can be measured by the existence of two-way communication, the timeliness and level of interpersonal participation on content.

User Control is marked by how advertisers are able to leverage on new interfaces to facilitate consumers to reach their goals. Cornerstone to this is the availability of choice to the consumer on how they would like information to be obtained. Examples of these features are variety of content and retention of user attention.

The time to seek information and for consumers to find what they want is also cornerstone to the effectiveness of interactive advertisements. This can be measured by the availability of information, ease of maneuvering through the site, and time taken to seek the information required (McMillan and Hwang, 2002).

Through surveying methods used in the corporate world, we suggest leveraging on the following methods to conduct a mixture of qualitative and quantitative data analysis on both sites.

Since Facebook is the most visited site in both Singapore and Philippines according to our earlier analysis, a simple way to quantitatively measure the mutual discourse between advertisers and consumers, and amongst consumers, would be executed through Facebook. A common rule of thumb utilized to measure Facebook fan engagement is through a weighted score obtained from the number of likes (25%), comments (30%) and shares (45%). For the purpose of this study, an arbitrary weight to each component has been assigned as stated above.

To determine the variety of content choice for the user, we conduct a qualitative analysis of the websites for components which are not text-based. The rationale for hike or decrease in perceived level of engagement and details of interactive technology utilized will be explain in a table available in Appendix A.

Lastly, to determine the time to seek information, we simulate several scenarios or questions which would be of interest to our target audience. This includes, "How can I be part of this campaign?", "I am a teacher, how can I involve my class in this campaign?", and "What is the Speak Good English or Manikako campaign about?" We measure the number of click-through and time taken to read the information available in each scenario. This is tabulated into a table and scored accordingly.

Next, using the results of a survey on 218 youths aged 12 to 17 from two schools, we will determine how successful the Speak Good English Campaign is. The schools that we have selected for the survey are neighbourhood schools which is representative of 77% of all secondary schools in Singapore and it will cover the students living in the north and west of Singapore. We chose this particular sample size as studies have shown to suggest that ‘adolescent brains are shaped by experiences in their early life’. Besides this the cognitive stimulations that undergoes in a teen brain effects the understanding and interpreting of intentions, beliefs and desires of others (Smitsonian, 2012). This particular age range of rapid growth is also the time when the humans are most sensitive to environment inputs (Bloom, 1964). Thus, we want to see from the youths’ point of view whether the online interactive messages from the Speak Good English Movement" has created an impact on youths and how youths would like to be engaged in a social campaign especially online. Random sampling was employed in the selection of the classes in the two schools. Each class was selected from a bag of classes based on each level of students from Secondary 2, 3 and 4.

Content Analysis Results

Comparing the interactive components of both websites and the level of fan engagement via social media, it was found that the Speak Good English campaign leveraged on many outlets of social media and interactive media as compared to the award-winning Gift of Life campaign.

Communication between the campaigners and their fans (and also amongst the fans) on Facebook were higher than those on Gift of Life campaign. On average, posts by the Speak Good English team garnered 53.1 "likes", 2.7 comments and 28.9 re-posts. Using the scoring system mentioned earlier, this totaled a score of 27.1. Comparatively, Facebook fans of the Gift of Life campaign had lower engagement with an average of 1.0 "likes", 0.3 comments and 1.3 re-posts, tabulating a score of 2.6. The number of followers that the Speak Good English campaigners have gathered via Twitter (718 followers) is almost 15 times that of Gift of Life campaigns’ (53 followers).

In using multitudes of interactive components, Speak Good English movement also had a greater variety of interfaces to keep users engagement. Through their website, we found that Speak Good English had at least four alternate (not plain text) forms of communications available on their site; these include a quiz, an iPhone application, podcasts, and videos readily available on YouTube. However, the level of leveraging on each component could be considered to be relatively lesser than Gift of Life’s use of two alternate (not plain text) forms of communications. For example, the number of views on Speak Good English’s videos averaged at 2,633 whereas the number of views on Gift of Life’s singular YouTube video exceeded 300,000 views. Also, we found Gift of Life’s (and jointly Manikako’s) website more interactive, inclusive of more images and flash technology; this might be useful in capturing and retaining attention of young audiences.

In shortening the time required to retrieve information, we also found the Speak Good English campaign more effective that Gift of Life’s website. In the three hypothetical scenarios, the time required to obtain information was an average of 1 min 13 seconds lesser for the Speak Good English campaign, as compared to Gift of Life. Notably, both websites did not have information for teachers to include their cause into the teaching syllabus.

Based on the Measures of Perceived Interactivity (MPI) developed by McMillan and Hwang (2002), results suggest that Speak Good English campaign has a higher perceived interactivity compared to the Gift of Life campaign. This was concluded based on a comparison across consumer communications, diversity of interfaces and time shortened in information retrieval. However, the Gift of Life campaign’s video was exceedingly successful in garnering attention for Manikako’s cause, and it might provide an edge in the marketing of its campaign.

Survey Results

A total of 218 participants from the age range of 13 to 17 years of age took part in the survey. The breakdown in terms of their age group is shown in the pie chart below.

There were a total of 120 (55%) males and 98 (45%) females. The mean age of the males was 14.6 years old and the mean age for the females was 14.7 years old. The standard deviation for the males is 1.23 and 1.18 for females.

The ethnic breakdown is as shown in the table below.

66% of the respondents were Chinese, 23% of them were Malay, 7% of them were Indians and the 3% of them belonged to other races. This racial breakdown is quite reflective of the ethnic breakdown of the racial groups in Singapore.

It came as a complete surprise that over 76% of the respondents stated that they were not aware of the Speak Good English Campaign and only 53 out of 218 students knew about the Campaign. Respondents who were aware of the campaign were asked how they knew of the campaign. This result reflects that the Speak Good English Campaign is not effective at all to the youths.

The top three sources where students learnt about the Speak Good English Campaign were from the teachers (34%), television (21%) and newspapers (18%). The internet came in fourth only at 16%. The data shows that not all English teachers are promoting the Speak Good English Campaign in their English classes. Perhaps the English teachers are so concentrated in completing their syllabuses that they find that they have no time for such "trivial" matters. Schools in general do promote the Speak Good English Campaign through their "English Month" or "English Week" but perhaps they are so involved in their activities that they fail to explain to the students that it was to promote the Speak Good English Campaign. Since the internet only came in fourth, its online presence in the lives of the students is sorely lacking. This could be due to the lack of online advertisements of its website and it inability to reach out to students through social media even though it has both Twitter and Facebook on its website.

The results from the students were similar to the above when they were asked which source they perceived to be most effective in informing them about the Speak English campaign. Teachers and television garnered the top two positions at 33% and 28% respectively. However, Internet took the third position at 26%. Newspapers only garnered 2% of the respondents’ votes. This clearly shows the change in the attitude in today’s youth as the Internet plays a much bigger role in their lives. Newspapers are slowly being replaced by online news portals.

Among the 53 respondents who were aware of the campaign, only 3 of them visited the Speak Good English Website. The reasons cited by these 3 respondents were that they found the Say It Right app to be easily accessible and the videos to be unusual and creative. However, due to the extremely small number of students who actually been to the website, results from this question were inconclusive.

Next, in our attempt to find out if the respondents found the Speak Good English website an effective tool to get students to speak good English, we discovered that there was a distinct difference in response obtained between the two schools. As seen in the figure below, 60% of the respondents in School 2 felt that it was an effective tool. As for School 1, 56% felt otherwise. However, overall, 51% of the respondents felt that it was an effective tool to get students to speak in good English.

Three themes emerged as reasons for students to feel that the Speak Good English website is not an effective tool to get students to speak good English. Many of the respondents felt that there was a lack of awareness. One of the respondent stated that the website was not very well known. Some of the respondents felt that many people do not know about the campaign and as such they will not bother with the website. Lack of appeal was also commonly cited as a reason. Some respondents felt that the website was not attractive and interesting to reach out to the students. This would dissuade the students from going to the website to learn good English. The third reason was a lack of motivation. Respondents felt that there was not motivation for the students to visit the website. As one respondent said, ‘People would normally not go to this kind of website.’

Respondents were also asked if they felt the Speak Good English website was and effective way to reach the students. Again, there was a disparity in the results between the two schools. As shown in the table below, 71% of the respondent from School 2 felt that it was an effective way while 61% from School 1 felt that it was not. Overall, 46% felt that it was not an effective way.

Although there was a disparity between the two schools as to whether the website was an effective tool to learn English and to reach out to students, there is a similarity in the responses adopted by both schools. For those who said yes, the most common reason was the fact that "students go online often" and thus it would help youths "to communicate better." Those who said no generally described the website as "boring", "not effective enough" to engage them or that "students would rather spend their time on computer games."

One interesting fact about the reason why School 1 respondents have a more negative response in the use of the website to learn to speak good English is that School 1 is one of the schools under the FutureSchools@Singapore project. They have embarked on seamless and pervasive integration of ICT into the curriculum along with other industry partners. The students have been introduced as to how they can learn through the use of various technological platforms. This exposure could be possible reason for the disparity. The exposure could have led students in School 1 to perceive that the website may not be the most effective way to learn good English and to reach out to the youth as could be more interesting and engaging platforms that they had used before like social media or mobile phone applications. However, in School 2, the minimal use of ICT in teaching and learning and the lack of exposure to different technological platforms might have limited their opinion on the effectiveness of the website and made them adopt a differing view. Along with this, as mentioned by some of the respondents, they found the website to be engaging and user friendly.

Next, we also wanted to find out which media platform youth perceive to be most effective in reaching out to youths. The Borda Count method was used as a tool to evaluate this. This tool is used in election to determine the winner by assigning a higher score to the top choice and a lower score to the lowest choice. As the respondent chose their top 5 media platforms, their first choice was allocated 5 points and the 5th choice was allocated 1 point.

As shown in the table below, Social media topped the list followed by television, Internet web pages, newspaper and radio. It is interesting to note that school ranked bottom of all the various methods even though earlier, the students had chosen teachers in school as the most effective method of informing youth about the Speak Good English Campaign. This is perhaps a more accurate reflection of the entire sample population as all had to answer this question as compared to only those students who knew about the Speak Good English Campaign which numbered only 53.

The respondents were then asked to select the top 5 features they feel would appeal to youth if a social campaign is to be launched through the internet. The Borda Count was again used as the tool to tally the scores. Social media, Mobile apps, videos, games and freebies came out the top 5 choices as seen in the table below.

From these tables it is clearly evident, that many students find the Internet to be an effective way to reach out to them as they have an easy access to them. Besides this, the high amount of time that students tend to spend on Internet and television tend to stand out very clearly through this question. Interactivity seems to be an important aspect to students. In their choice for features, the features that topped the tables were features which possess the chance for an element of interactivity such as social media, television and Internet web pages.

Analysis

With reference to research question 2, the youths in general are not aware of the campaign as only 24% are aware of such a campaign. Due to the small number of students who are aware of the campaign, the response of the students on the effectiveness of the Speak Good English Campaign website is inconclusive as only 3 respondents, had ever visited the website.

As Singapore is referred to as a Campaign City, it would be pretty myopic for us to assume that all forms of social campaigns would actually reach out to the target audience effectively as the social cultural setting would have cultivated the people. Through this research we are able to see that many respondents were clueless about the Speak Good English Campaign even though the statistics on the campaign’s social media platforms prove otherwise. What could be worse is that, the extensions of the campaign which may take the form a website may not appeal to specific target audience as they may not have a motivation, sense of appeal or promotion of the subject matter.

Teachers were viewed to be the most effective people to promote the website in this case. The Speak Good English Campaign website may have been easily associated to the learning of English and may have been perceived to be something educational. As such the teachers could have been the top choice. However, the real possibility of teachers either not knowing that the website exists, or that they did not find the website useful for helping them in their lessons could be a factor that would work against the promotion of the website. Thus, to make the presence of the Speak Good English Campaign more attractive for teachers to promote to the students, the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts should find more avenues to reach out to teachers to encourage them to promote the campaign to their students.. They, especially the English teachers, should be encouraged to submit ideas on how to promote the Speak Good English campaign to the students. The campaign should also include themes, ideas, activities or even sample lesson plans that English teachers would be able to use in class so that the teachers would constantly make use of the Speak Good English Campaign and its materials in class.

Research question 3 seeks to understand what are youths’ perceptions on the best methods in launching a social campaign through the various types of media available especially through the internet. From the student’s point of view, engagement through social media and television would be the most effective methods of attracting youths to want to know more about social campaigns. On the internet platform, the students would want to be engaged through social media networks, through mobile apps on their smartphones and through interesting videos, perhaps on platforms such as YouTube.

Therefore to generate more interest in the Speak Good English Campaign, more interesting advertisements to promote the campaign could be shown on television at times where youths are most likely to be watching television. The current Speak Good English Campaign already has Facebook and Twitter but more needs to be done in the form of engaging the students on social media. Regular updates, interesting stories, pictures or videos on the Speak Good English should be a start in getting the attention of the students. Having contests, freebies or online games could help spark continued interest in the Speak Good English social media channel. Besides this, there must be an element of attraction where the students are drawn to visit the website. To encourage that, some interactive element can be added to the website. For example, the students can be encouraged to submit videos which showcases them correcting the usage of bad English which they come across in their daily lives. Last of all, having a popular local television artist to help to front the campaign would also be another way of attracting attention to the entire campaign.

Conclusion

In a social campaign, or any other types of campaign for that matter, one cannot just create the platforms for the target audience and hope that they will buy your ideas or products. As in the case of the Speak Good English Campaign, it has shown that even though it has a website that has many interactive elements including web 2.0 like social media networks, without thinking properly about the advertising of the entire campaign would eventually lead to failure. The sorry state of response from the students about their awareness of the Speak Good English Campaign and the almost zero participation of the students in the Speak Good English Campaign website tells us that all the money that had been put in this campaign has been wasted. In such campaigns, finding the right channels to reach out to students is utmost importance as students are unlikely to explore such campaigns on their own compared to the attraction of their computer games and their own social media networks.

Teachers would be a good starting point to help promote the campaign as students normally see them as role models to follow. However, the Ministry first needs to convince teachers that it is worth their while to promote the Speak Good English Campaign through their interactive website without compromising their time in completing the syllabuses. The website should complement the teachers’ lesson with the right type of activities and interactive elements that would make their language teaching more effective.

Next, social media networks should be effectively tapped on to keep the students updated on the Speak Good English Campaign’s activities. There should be constant and regular updates, together with interesting stories, videos or mobile apps to make students want to stay connected with the campaign’s social media network (s).

Even though this study has revealed the failure of the Speak Good English Campaign for students, it has helped us understand more about the behaviours of youths especially on the ways to reach out to them on a social campaign. Other than through the internet, Singapore youths can also be reached through traditional media like the television. Mobile apps should also be developed so that students can carry the campaign in their pockets through their smartphones and refer to it anytime and anywhere. The name of the game in social campaign is about creating social awareness to promote good social behaviours. Thus, all the money spent would not be wasted if we follow our "customers" preferred preferences and channels and keep them engaged with the campaign for as long as possible.

Limitations of Study

This research paper uses two schools in the survey. However, the results in disparity between the two schools reveals that perhaps it was insufficient for just two schools to be used in this research. Expanding the number of schools would help us arrive at a better conclusion on whether the Speak Good English Website would be an effective way to get student to speak Good English or to reach out to them.

The open ended questions were initially intended to yield an in-depth understanding about the students’ choices but sadly it failed to yield significant results as the answers from students did not really offer good explanations for their choice. For the next level of research, we would recommend in-depth interviews with the students to better understand why they made certain choices.

Appendix 01

Content Analysis Results

Social Media Data

Good English

Gift of Life

Good English

Gift of Life

Fans

7936

Fans

593

Followers

718

Followers

Likes

Comments

Re-post

Likes

Comments

Re-post

Following

479

Following

41

3

25

0

0

0

Tweets

2193

Tweets

153

9

146

11

0

2

34

0

24

12

2

18

46

0

4

0

0

0

8

0

4

15

0

47

42

2

16

4

0

0

87

1

75

2

0

0

62

1

59

4

0

0

35

0

30

2

0

1

6

3

1

4

0

0

66

1

51

5

0

0

55

0

29

5

0

0

65

0

20

6

3

1

54

2

25

0

0

0

26

3

0

3

0

0

94

3

35

3

4

0

29

1

1

2

0

0

58

1

16

1

0

0

7

0

0

1

0

0

21

0

3

0

0

0

50

3

17

0

0

0

80

7

27

0

0

0

28

0

18

0

0

0

36

4

32

0

0

0

61

20

38

1

0

0

23

1

2

5

0

0

86

4

55

2

0

0

151

9

54

0

0

0

97

0

68

0

0

0

29

1

26

4

0

0

4

1

0

1

0

0

42

3

14

30

14

1

31

1

3

15

6

29

98

9

64

0

0

0

53.1

2.7

28.9

4.1

0.9

2.9

0.25

0.3

0.45

0.25

0.3

0.45

13.3

0.8

13.0

1.0

0.3

1.3

Score

27.1

Score

2.6

Interactive Component

Good English

Engagement Score

Rationale

Technology Used

English Quiz

7

Interactive quiz component that aids in assessing the level of grammar knowledge for users. Keeps users engaged.

-

Say It Right iPhone Application

6

As an educational tool, the say it right iPhone application allows users to check the correct pronounciation of words. However, after using it for a period of time, we found there is a tendency to neglect the tool.

iPhone App

PodCast

8

Interesting facts that were propogating through mainstream radio. Short soundbites are able to keep users listening.

PodCast

Youtube Channel

6

Consists mainly of Amateur videos produced by students and interviews with awardees of the Inspiring Teacher Awards. Videos, on average, garner 2633 views.

Video

Gift of Life

Engagement Score

Rationale

Youtube Channel

7

Only one video uploaded but that captured approximately 300,000 views in total and was awarded multiple creativity awards

Video

Interactive Flash Menu

7

Multiple images to capture children's attention

Flash

Scenarios

Qns

Good English

Gift of Life

Click-thru

Time

Click-thru

Time

What is this campaign about?

2

00:38

1

00:18

How can I be part of the campaign?

2

00:24

2

03:10

includes sign-up and log-in

I am a teacher. How can I include your cause into my teaching content?

0

-

0

-

Information unavailable

00:31

01:44

01:13

Appendix 02

Survey on the Speak Good English Campaign

1.

Name:

2.

Age:

3.

Gender:

Male

Female

4.

Race:

Chinese

Malay

Indian

Others:

5.

Do you know about Singapore’s Speak Good English Campaign?

Yes

No

If your answer is Yes, proceed to Qn: 6.

If your answer is No, proceed to Qn: 15.

6.

How did you find out about the Speak Good English Campaign? You may tick more than one option.

Television

Internet

Newspapers

Radio

Magazines

Others:

Teacher

7.

Which method do you feel was the most effective in informing you about the Speak Good English Campaign? Why?

8.

Have you ever visited the Speak Good English Campaign website?

Yes

No

If your answer is Yes, proceed to Qn: 9.

If your answer is No, proceed to Qn: 11.

9.

Which of the following features of the Speak Good English Website have you used before?

Quiz

Speak Good English Forum

Podcast

Twitter

Say it Right iPhone App.

Facebook

E-Newsletter

None

Others:

10.

Which one of the features do you like best and why?

11.

Do you think that the Speak Good English Website is an effective way to get students to speak Good English?

Yes

No

12

Why do you think so?

13

Do you think that the Speak Good English Website is an effective way to reach out to students on speaking Good English? And Why?

Yes

No

14

Why do you think so?

15.

In your opinion, what can the Speak Good English Website do to reach out to more students so that they can learn to speak Good English?

Appendix 3: Survey Results

School 1

School 2

Qn 1

Qn1

Age

 

 

 

13

33

13

21

14

18

14

27

15

36

15

3

16

25

16

54

17

0

17

1

Total:

112

Total:

106

 

Combined Total

 

218

School 1

School 2

Qn 2

Qn 2

Male

Female

Male

21

12

11

5

13

19

18

18

3

13

12

29

 

 

1

57

55

63

Total Male

120

55%

Total Female

98

45%

218

School 1

School 2

Race

Qn 3

Qn 3

Combined Qn 3

 

Chinese

Malay

Indian

Others

Chinese

Malay

Indian

Others

 

25

4

2

2

13

8

0

0

Chinese

144

 

13

4

0

1

14

10

3

0

Malay

51

 

27

7

1

1

0

3

0

0

Indian

16

 

22

1

2

0

30

14

8

2

Others

7

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

1

218

 Total

87

16

5

4

57

35

11

3

 

77.7%

14.3%

4.5%

3.6%

53.8%

33.0%

10.4%

2.8%

Qn 4: Are you aware of Singapore's Speak Good English Campaign?

School 1

School 2

 

Qn 4

Qn 4

Age

Yes

No

Yes

No

13

13

20

1

20

14

6

12

4

23

15

11

25

0

3

16

6

19

11

43

17

 

 

1

0

 

36

76

17

89

Qn 5: How did you find out about the Speak Good English Campaign?

School 1

School 2

 

 

Qn 5

Qn 5

 

Age

13

14

15

16

17

Total

13

14

15

16

17

Total

Combined Total

Television

4

0

5

3

0

12

1

2

0

3

1

7

19

Newspapers

4

2

3

1

0

10

1

4

0

1

0

6

16

Magazines

0

0

1

0

0

1

1

1

0

2

0

4

5

Teacher / School

12

3

5

4

0

24

0

2

0

4

1

7

31

Internet

3

3

2

1

0

9

0

1

0

3

1

5

14

Radio

1

0

2

0

0

3

0

0

0

1

0

1

4

WOM

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

1

0

1

1

90

Qn 6: Which method do you feel was the most effective in informing you about the Speak Good English Campaign? Why?

 

 

Age

Responses

Summary

13

The internet. I use the internet almost everyday and advertsiements made me know more about the campaign

Teacher/School

7

Teacher/School

 

School. More informative, student is able to understand better and will listen

Poster

2

Poster

 

Teacher. They tell us the details clearly.

Television

2

Television

 

School. They would perform a skit to inform is of the Speak Good English Campaign

Internet

2

Internet

 

Teacher as I rarely read the news or hear the radio.

Newspaper

0

Newspaper

 

Posters. They interest me and I see them a lot in the general office.

 

13

Radio

 

Teacher. Because they keep nagging about it.

Total

 

Posters in Primary school.

 

Televsion. Most Singaporeans today take into account what is happening in Singapore today.

 

Teacher. We come to school almost everyday.

 

Teacher. Teacher can give more details and I hardly read newspapers

 

Advertisements on the internet. Use internet almost everyday.

 

Television

14

The television as many people watch TV

Teacher/School

3

 

Teacher

Poster

0

 

Newspaper because I read newspaper often

Television

3

 

Internet as young teenagers are always using the internet

Internet

3

Internet as young teenagers are always using the internet

Newspaper

1

TV cause I watch it.

 

10

Internet and TV. Easy access

Through schools

 

Teachers. They guve more info and also teach us more

15

Televsion as the ads on TV are more attractive and appeals to me

Teacher/School

2

 

Television as everyone watches TV

Poster

0

 

Television and Teachers

Television

3

 

Internet as most students and teachers have access to the internet

Internet

3

 

Teacher cause they want us to speak good english

Newspaper

0

 

Social Network such as twiter and facebook as youths are more prone to be informed through these methods

 

8

 

School

 

Internet as I am ususally online

16

Posters as they will get my attention when I pass by them

Teacher/School

2

 

Televison as I watch the news

Poster

2

School

Television

4

Radio, I like to listen to the radio

Internet

3

Posters as they act as a constant reminder

Newspaper

0

TV. It gave me more idea about the campaign

Radio

1

TV and Internet. It is more socially visited in our lives.

Total

12

Newspapers. Lots of people read them and they can find out more about it.

TV as when people are watching tv, people tend to be in fluenced by the commercial they see.

Internet. Many people will surf the Internet so they will get to know this campaign

I have never seen it anywhere before

Internet through social platforms. This is because everyone uses social platform.

This will hekp Singaporeans to improve their language and improve the country's education system.

Teacher.

Qn 7: Have you ever visited the Speak Good English Campaign Website?

 

School 1 (36 pupils)

School 2 ( 17 pupils)

 

 

Qn 7

Qn 7

 

Age

Yes

No

Yes

No

yes

13

0

13

0

1

3

14

0

6

1

3

6%

15

1

10

0

0

 

16

0

6

1

9

 

17

0

0

 

1

 

 

1

35

2

15

 

 

3%

97%

13%

88%

 

Qn 8: Which feature(s) have you used before?

School 1 (1 Pupil)

School 2 ()

 

 

 

Qn 7

Qn 7

Total

Quiz

0

0

0

Podcast

0

0

0

E-Newletter

0

0

0

Say it Right iphone app

0

0

0

Video

1

1

2

Twitter

0

0

0

Facebook

1

2

3

Speak Good English Forum

1

0

1

Qn 9: Which one of the feature you like best? Why?

School 1 (1 pupil)

Qn 9:

 

The videos are unusual, creative and the reality of bad english that we use amuses me

School 2 (2 pupils)

app. easily accessible.

 

Video. Could hear the pronunciation and could learn it using the subtitle.

 

Qn 10: Do you think the Speak Good English Campaign Website is an effective way to get students to speak good English?

 

 

 

 

 

School 1 (36 pupils)

School 2 ( 15 pupils)

 

51

 

Qn 10

Qn 10

 

Age

Yes

No

Yes

No

 

13

8

5

 

 

 

14

3

3

4

 

 

15

4

7

 

 

 

16

1

5

4

6

 

17

 

 

1

 

 

16

20

9

6

 

25

 

44%

56%

60%

40%

 

49%

Qn 11: Why do you think so? 

 

 

Responses

Age

Yes

13

Many of us use the internet, therefore it is easier to pass the message via the web

 

Everyone is using the web, so it is a good way to catch their attention about the campaign

 

Many people use the internet nowadays.

 

It can improve our English and we can speak better English.

 

They can teach us to play games and simultaneously teach us better English

 

It helps to correct our usual way of speaking English due to our accent

14

It promotes speaking good English

 

It helps people understand how to converse better in English

Teachers can go to the website and teach his/her students

I think so as people have to speak english to communicate hence an improvement in vocab

As students speak singlish these days

 

Inspires and encourages student to learn el.

15

It can properly show students how important English is

 

It is interesting and some even funny

 

So that we are aware of English language and be encouraged to speak more

 

it can help people understand more however it would be even better if social media network can be used

 

 

 

 

 

 

16

It encourages students to speak good english and it improves their grammar and sentence structure

 

encourage the benefits

Lots of children use the Internet

It promotes the use of proper English when on the Internet

It can help to improve student's language use.

 

 

 

 

 

Qn 12: Do you think that the Speak Good English Website is an effective way to reach out to students on speaking good English?

 

 

 

 

 

School 1 (36 pupils)

School 2 ( 14 pupils)

 

Qn 12

Qn 12

Note: School 1 has 5 students of the 36 who did not answer the question

Age

Yes

No

Yes

No

13

7

5

0

0

14

1

3

4

0

15

3

6

0

0

16

1

5

5

4

17

 

 

1

0

 

12

19

10

4

 

39%

61%

71%

29%

Qn 13: Why do you think so?

 

 

Responses

Age

Yes

13

Can engage with the fun games.

 

It helps us to back up on our English

 

Students go online often hence it is easier for them to gain acces and knowlegde about this program.

 

Students can learn from the webiste and apply what they learnt in school.

 

Teenagers nowadays are addicted to the internet.

 

Media is everywhere and most teenagers or students are using the internet.

14

Students can learn how to communicate better

 

Same reason as above.

 

students usually use the computer

15

It covers a broad range of features and media to promote the campaign

 

Students want to go online more often

 

Using technology

 

 

 

 

16

Easily accessible by students

 

makes students think that English is compulsory.

Students can learn useful tips on how to speak good english.

It is very user friendly.

They could interact better with the others,

 

 

Qn 14: In your opinion, which media platform would be most effective in reaching out to youths in a campaign like Speak Good English Campaign?

Using Borda Count: Position 1 gets 5 points, Position 2 get 4 points, Position 3 get 3 points, Position 4 get 2 points, Position 5 get 1 point.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

School 1

School 2

Age

13

14

15

16

Total

13

14

15

16

Total

TV

117

39

116

84

356

77

112

5

55

249

Radio

34

20

42

38

134

42

18

3

72

135

Internet Web Page

77

37

52

42

208

31

80

6

62

179

Social Media

141

61

115

86

403

77

110

10

129

326

Magazine

36

24

42

26

128

59

9

24

36

128

Newspaper

47

14

46

41

148

26

48

6

62

142

Billboards

13

4

17

13

47

16

5

7

11

39

School

0

0

3

0

3

0

0

0

0

0

Games

0

5

0

0

5

0

0

0

0

0

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Qn 15: If a social campaign were to be launched through the internet, which of the followng features would best appeal to youths?

Using Borda Count: Position 1 gets 5 points, Position 2 get 4 points, Position 3 get 3 points, Position 4 get 2 points, Position 5 get 1 point.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

School 1

School 2

 

Age

13

14

15

16

Total

13

14

15

16

Total

Combined Total

Mobile Apps

96

43

92

53

284

67

107

15

149

338

622

Videos

66

36

66

54

222

51

61

2

140

254

476

Podcast

7

6

13

20

46

8

25

3

39

75

121

Social Media

130

52

114

92

388

107

103

15

192

417

805

Freebies

62

22

74

73

231

2

17

 

97

116

347

E-newsletter

5

12

7

7

31

13

13

4

35

65

96

Forum

10

5

9

2

26

34

8

6

21

69

95

Games

89

34

60

41

224

35

68

3

125

231

455

Animation

0

0

0

3

3

0

0

0

0

0

3