Credentials Norman Ng, 2016

Biography

For the past 10 year, Norman has achieved standard setting performance benchmarks on Google and Facebook, cemented deep community relations offline and online with up to 250,000 audiences, and successfully managed crises in both public and private sectors, from death to litigation cases. In the process, Norman helped the Integrated MarComms. agency he founded earn revenue in excess of $1 Million. Norman also led teams of volunteers to manage over 700 international press enquiries in 2 weeks during the Youth Olympic Games, won HR awards by motivating staff whom no one wanted to take as they were “not good enough”, and built online advocacies and word-of-mouth influence for global listed companies and government clients. Balancing between consultancy work, Norman trains and develops whole-of-government leaders on social media strategy and campaigns operations. Till date, he has trained over 1,000 professionals. Norman is known as a spirited leader who takes charge of situations, who manages challenging situations with positive branding and communication outcome, and is persistently known to motivate communities to achieve benchmark setting results. He is a loving father of 2 kids, enjoys endurance races, and mentors budding entrepreneurs, young adults and youths-at-risk.

Some of Our Clients – Past and Present

Digital Marketing Track Record

250,000 Social Media Audiences 800+ Online Posts 10 Social Media Campaigns

101 Facebook Advertisement Campaigns 24 Million Facebook Ad Reach 1.23 Million Facebook Clicks 1.36% Click Through Rate

13 Google Adwords & Youtube Ad Campaigns 47 Million Google Ad Impressions 149,000 Google Ad Clicks 0.52% Search Click Through Rate

Portfolio Welcome the World:122,000 audiences, MSF (FB)

Filial Piety: 47,000 audiences, MSF (FB)

BCA Green Buildings: 34,000 audiences, BCA (FB)

Beautifully Imperfect: 21,000 audiences, MSF (FB)

Social Worker SG: 13,000 audiences, MSF (FB)

Lasting Powers of Attorney: 5,000 audiences, MSF (FB)

Heybaby SG: 4,000 audiences, NPTD / PMO (FB)

Voices of Asia Holdings: 5,000 audiences (Linkedin, FB)

Plan W, Diageo (FB, Twitter)

45 Years of National Service, MINDEF

Summary

Facebook

Google

Recent Portfolios

Led agency in supporting client-partners in the following areas: Community and Loyalty Building -  Brand integration, content development

Public Relations Campaigns -  Media Relations -  Issues and Crisis Management -  Engagement Kits -  Copywriting and content creation -  Internal Communications Digital and Traditional Marketing -  Paid media: Social media advertisements for MTV Asia -  Owned media: websites and apps -  Earned media: social media, blogger relations including national campaign

(45 Years of National Service) -  Community/ Loyalty Building campaigns through smartphones & social

media engagement (Plan W by Diageo, NS45, ID Life) Bespoke ICT solutions -  4 Mobile apps in iOS and Android store for Medical and F&B industry -  Mobile Incident Reporting System (MIRS) for Keith Morton Security (75 staff

covering 15 sites)

The information, materials and contents disclosed in this credential document are intended to serve as limited evaluation purposes only, IImage credits are to the respective content owners.

Case Studies

Topping-the-charts on digital content interest, repeatedly.

MTV ASIA

The Challenge Deliver engagement in a crowded digital space, repeatedly. MTV Asia sought a digital marketing partner to help generate extra buzz and viral interest for their Facebook content. Internally, their management measures the success of online marketing budgets with click-through rates. Thus expectations for good results were high, to be able to maintain budgets at current levels. The marketing team needed to promote seven upcoming MTV’s events and televised programmes within three months – an international music awards, vintage MTV content and other artist content to Asian youths between 14-35 years. They wanted increased awareness to their channel and build anticipation to the televised content.

The Approach Previously, the Marketing team and the digital partner teams worked separately – the marketing team did the postings and the digital partner executed on the promotional activities. Norman advised MTV that integration is key – content remains the kernel of any marketing activity, but the digital promotional functions surrounding content must be aligned. The message must be told right, especially to a young audience that can be very fickle and contentious. Norman’s agency advised on copywriting that is more attuned to popular tagwords. This was key for Search Engine Marketing (SEM), knowing the right words/ slang that teens used, popular artists and the words associated with them, competitor sites, what topics to avoid. Also, a paid advertising effort is clearly required for these posts, to help “force” the message into the target group’s attention span. Norman led his agency to maximise the ad budget allocated for the Facebook posts.

The Solution High quality SEM on Facebook Advertisement – Norman’s team mapped and included over 200 relevant and topical search terms per campaign. Localised content – The team had to localise the SEM content for each geographical region to cater to nuances in online behaviours. Dynamic content – The content were not static, and were guided by variances in trending topics and secular / non-secular calendars. For instance, Norman’s agency would use ‘#Islam’, ‘#TGIF’ to expose the content to Malaysian audiences on a Friday. TGIF is a acronym commonly used on a Friday globally, and Islam connects with the Muslim majority in Malaysia on a Friday as prayers occur during then. Had the agency limited its search terms to basic terms such as ‘#music’, they would not be able to have a pool of audience exposed to the content, which would downstream, not lead to a spike in content click through. Norman’s agency also managed the ad fees for the posts, increased the click-through ad fees at certain times of the day, when they knew more of our target audiences were online.

The Result Average Facebook likes exceeded 11,000 per campaign. Average digital content click-through exceeded 9,000 per campaign. Average buzz exceeded 270 comments and shares per campaign.

Building Digital Advocates & Communities

45 Years of National Service Campaign, Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) Singapore

The Challenge Diverse audiences, brand consistency. MINDEF wanted to commemorate 45 years of National Service (NS), recognising and celebrating the contributions and sacrifices of 900,000 Singaporeans who have served the country since the formation of our Armed Forces in 1967. The challenge was to engage and engender support from a diverse spread of five target audience groups – the past (those who served); the present (currently serving); the future (pre-enlistees); families; and employers. Everyone knows what the SAF is – but in many ways, their perception of what the SAF and NS are can be very different, especially since the SAF has evolved over the years. It was time to engage the public and help steer support for NS in the future.

The Approach Progressive Engagement. Building and sustaining online relationships and engagement is never easy and will take time. Content was always the foundation from where we build our communities and online conversation points. Norman led his agency to craft stories from the community – current and ex-Nsmen – and brought their stories to the public. From the bottom-up. The agency was conscious that to engage diverse audiences, it had to avoid a brand marketing syndrome ‘getting the message across’. Norman strategised an approach by giving audiences multiple opportunities to ‘co-create’ and participate. From passive ‘likes’; to ‘discussions / comments’, and even contributing their own stories and visual content – it was about their authentic reflections on NS which made the content more compelling and persuasive.

The Solution Content. Community. Engagement. Norman managed his agency to seed over 300 posts in 9 months to generate conversation points for audiences, with story angles focusing on people and their experiences. His agency also cultivated an online community of everyday people from the five audience segments. The agency gave them ample voices, highlighting their reflections of NS, and became our brand ambassadors. Norman motivated his team to conduct daily engagement – 24/7. Where his community managers were required to handle and respond to our audiences within an eight-hour cycle. This helped conversations remain active and stay on-topic. The short response time also helped the agency avert any potential online crises.

The Result Beyond ‘likes’ – building advocates and digital communities Norman led his team to build a pool of over 300 content contributors and online advocates for NS, representative of the five target audience groups. Exceeded targeted Facebook ‘likes’ by 28% (6,405 likes). The campaign generated online buzz and conversations 400% more, when the campaign was benchmarked it against another nation-wide campaign (iRememberSG).

Building online communities & brand equity PLAN W by DIAGEO

The Challenge Building brand equity, responsibly. Diageo is a leading premium drinks company that sells in over 180 countries, with brands such as Bailey’s, Guinness and Johnny Walker. Social responsibility is an important philosophy for the company. In Asia Pacific, they embarked on a community investment programme called Plan W – aiming to reach women of all socio-economic profiles across 17 countries, by providing training and skills development. It seeks to empower 2 million women, giving them the right to choices, opportunities and access to resources, subsequently improve their sense of self-worth and ability to influence society and the economy. The local Diageo communications teams can only do so much within their own markets. Much of the content created so far has been local, without expressing much of the larger corporate social responsibility objectives that Diageo intended. With such a diverse landscape of governments, NGOs and individuals to partner and engage across Asia Pacific, they needed a focal point where their collective objectives can be represented clearly, the results can be celebrated, and be part of the larger community of other organisations engaging in women’s empowerment.

The Approach At the regional level, Diageo decided that event-based programmes can help create content. And what better way to create content than by celebrating the content creators themselves – the media. A Media Awards has been planned – to acknowledge journalists from across the region who have written and highlighted women’s rights and empowerment issues. The Media Awards show will be peripheral to an even larger event – a conference to discuss the opportunities and challenges for women in the Hospitality and Tourism sector of Asia. This conference will be hosted by Diageo as well, and supported by the UN Women’s Charter. To bring the whole campaign together would be digital – websites where all interested parties and stakeholders can go to for information, and where all markets can share their successes to a larger audience. Social media will be where Diageo can amplify their stories, and engage audiences. Norman led his team to partner with Ketchum ICON, who are supporting on the events execution and traditional PR, while Norman’s agency support on all things digital.

The Solution Content is generated at both regional and local levels. Norman task-configured an Editor that will collate and write fresh content every month, be it articles, short stories, case studies and press releases. Websites will become the primary platforms for the content promotion (on top of the traditional PR executed at the local level). Norman’s agency decided that social media is to be an amplification tool first, and an engagement tool, second. Thus the websites’ integration with Facebook and Twitter was critical to make content easily share-able among readers with their personal networks. Plan W’s Facebook and Twitter pages aim to serve the purpose of engagement. We reached out to existing communities – connecting with as many relevant organisations that supported women’s empowerment, and share their stories. On a monthly basis, Norman organised his team to prepare social media content calendars for both Facebook and Twitter, and align them with the website editor’s and local team’s events and content.

Sustaining Social Media Communities

Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF), Singapore Social Media Strategy, Content Editorials, Contest Activation, Monitoring, Community Engagement, Crisis Management

The Challenge Sustaining engagement for 5 social media campaigns, concurrently The MSF aimed to continue its outreach efforts in touching individuals’ lives and community relations. The challenge was to engage and engender support from a diverse spread of five target audience groups in 5 different sites, some of which started back as far back as 2010, 2 of which faced receding communities. We had to re-ignite a largely passive group of audience built up over 5 years, and continue to create buzz and campaign interest for 6 months onwards.

The Approach We did away with the bells and whistles, and focused on Content, Community and Engagement, as well as deploying integrated engagement frameworks. This set the stage for a unified audience engagement effort to build trust and buzz again, yet giving adequate space for the disparate nuances required for each campaign, as each target audience required a different set of ‘engagement plans’.

The Solution Content. Community. Engagement. We first consolidated their existing house-styles on engagement and their content editorials, and thereafter developed new sets of engagement. This included identifying specific content themes, messaging tones and content types. We then conducted daily engagements and monitoring, ensuring that each post were optimised for reach, exposure and interest.

The Result Integrated Social Media Strategy, and 6 Months of Social Media Editorial Contents We are building a pool of over 400 content, with infographics, time-line images, and 180 days of engagement. Over 50% of our first month posts registered the highest historic levels of engagement in the measured periods.

Strengthening Internal Communications & Engagement

SMRT Corporation

The Challenge Making HR more engaging and personal to 8800 employees, within 8 days. In large enterprises employing thousands of staff, HR would typically be a process driven function, geared towards operationalising the company. The team therefore needed to transform an enhanced HR initiative from a conventional top-down policy announcement, into a strong communications tool, that allowed supervisors / executives to form sustainable conversations. HR with a human voice - With changes and enhancements to HR policies, how can we communicate to employees, yet avoiding a transactional tone of “here’s the deal, take it”? Different strokes for different folks – Both from 800 executives, and an 8,000 non-executive workforce, the team also needed to ensure that the HR initiative was nuanced and calibrated to the audience profiles, instead of a one size fits all approach. A universal language, please – The team also needed extensive content copywriting to contextualise esoteric HR policies and frameworks into content that everyone in the enterprise could understand and internalise. All this to be done within 8 working days, ready for print.

The Approach The big idea was to go ‘bottoms-up’. What would the audiences (employees) want to hear? What would make them internalise the content in one reading? In short, it was about people-centric content on how they would want to experience the brand / enterprise, instead of what the organisation wanted to get across to employees. Another approach required the creative integration and balance between the copywriting team and design team, to extensively deploy visual aids and infographics to help audiences in content readability and persuasiveness.

The Solution “If we fail to plan, we plan to fail” That maxim holds true, and is exacerbated in project that require more collective professional effort, in a rapid project cycle. Norman exercised professional judgment to avoid a to show and tell with tangible design effects. Instead, Norman pushed for a solution that focused on progressively strategising Plans, Content, and then Designs, in that order. "Norman further understood the omnipresent desire from all clients for results, first and fast. Hence Norman led his agency to deliver a strong process driven, pragmatic culture. Yet not forgetting that creativity is critical, but it’s the processes that get the results, and not mere bells-and-whistles through designs and visuals.

The Result An integrated communications package, with extensive content copywriting and design for diverse audience profiles, ready for communications within 8 days. Extensive info-graphics were deployed to explain and simplify complex HR processes, the content were written with a first person tone, ‘talking’ to audiences as a peer, rather than a rigid enterprise. Most importantly, HR was able to connect with 8,800 people in a short, speed-to-market turnover of content. They were given an opportunity to turn a top-down, enterprise-to-you policy, into a enterprise-with-you engagement process. Internal communications – enhanced.

Perking up the Central Business District

Asia Square Food Garden

The Challenge Driving footfall into a saturated F&B retail space in the CBD The central business district - buzzy by day; mellow by night, deserted in the weekends. And with strong retail offerings in the surrounding areas flaking Asia Square, such as institutional places such as Lau Pa Sat, or even extensive offerings in the Marina Bay Financial Centre, it’s a remarkably crowded squeeze to attract diners and human traffic to Asia Square’s retail space. Coupled with a perennial challenge of retaining after hours crowds, and weekend traffic, we’ll need more than a double shot of espressos to perk up the footfall in Asia Square’s Food Garden.

The Approach Instead of facing head on to the comparative strengths of competitive F&B spaces, Norman aligned his agency to focus on the weaknesses and gaps in the market. Studying the market, the agency was clear that Asia Square’s Food Garden had a unique value proposition in providing a fresh dining experience. With lush greenery and open skylight, it literally provided patrons with a ‘breath of fresh air’. This was a stark contrast to brick and mortar F&B outlets, a typical ‘eat-and-go’ scenario. Through this approach, Norman ensured that his agency applied creative and project discipline to understand the competitive landscape; immerse in the clients’ brand and unique selling points, and translate that into an integrated marketing campaign to drive footfall in a highly competitive environment. To Norman, it was about giving a campaign solution anchored on the best patron experiences.

The Solution The solution focused on three areas: 1.  Retaining existing tenants to patronise the 15 outlets

2.  Attracting surrounding CBD working population during meal times

3.  Attracting weekend and off-peak (dinner) patron footfall

So Norman led his agency to employ a Through The Line (TTL), integrated marketing campaign to ensure that we extensively covered potential patron traffic: 1.  Print circulation inserts at targeted CBD MRT locations (e.g. Raffles

Place);

2.  Targeting letterbox inserts at residential addresses (e.g. service residences around Asia Square)

3.  Flyer distributions to tenants

4.  Ambient marketing to jazz up the existing location during the promotion periods

The Result A perky affair in the CBD Footfall was measured to increase during the promotion period, with peak traffic surging by averaging up to 18% during the first few days of the promotion period. The integrated marketing campaign also concluded with up to 25,000 collaterals distributed through both ATL and BTL means to a mix of local tenants; residential addressees, and CBD population. Most importantly, Norman got his team aligned to work towards strengthening brand sustainability, by building on the existing unique selling point of the clients’ F&B / retail space. So it’s a case of not singing a new tune in every campaign. But one of brand alignment, disciplined marketing tactics, and optimal exposure.

Top-line Social Media Strategies

Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS)

Social Media: Training

The Challenge It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it. Should a government body that focuses tax regimes and systems have a social media presence? All for that matter, even if they do, how far should they push the public engagement agenda to progress from being less transactional, to one which focuses on client engagement experience? That said, we brought together a core group of top-line leaders in the management to discuss and secure a unifying vision for their social media strategy. This was a case of ‘even it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ against an increasing call from the public for authorities to do better in public engagement.

The Approach Therefore, the approach was to illustrate to the senior management on the case for social media 2.0 by other public agencies. It was a situation of taking stock of their position and presence on the social media spectrum, and reviewing both their communication strategies and risks involved in further building a presence online. 

The Solution The solution, therefore, was to consolidate the key insights derived from major private-public campaigns, from which both sectors scored hits and misses. This gave the management team perspectives on the compelling reasons to expand their online engagement, or to consolidate their existing plans, which included crisis communications and management.  The second solution was to inject decision matrix exercises to cater to the senior management, who typically make strategic judgments for the organisation. These exercises included the usage of strategic communications frameworks, developing a comprehensive engagement roadmap, as well as the deployment of stakeholder analytic tools to refine their understanding on stakeholders. 

The Result The management came to preliminary consensus on their present and future social media strategy. While there was good compelling reason for social media engagement, there was also a need to nuance efforts and signatures. The conclusion after a day’s facilitation and training was their understanding towards potential opportunities that social media could provide them with. But at the same time, they were mindful of the prevailing risks. We helped them consolidate their objectives and laid their foundations for specific priorities, such as developing their response frameworks to engage audiences across the social media spectrums. 

A Unified Social Media Brand Identity

Singapore Sports Council (SSC)

The Challenge Aligning 21 Facebook sub-pages towards a unified social media brand identity The new media team in SSC established that the Facebook sub-pages of the Sports and Recreational Centres (SRC) could serve as beacons in the community, creating a local sense of belonging towards sports as a lifestyle. To the SSC, it was a ‘happy problem’ indeed. While the Facebook pages served as nodes to direct timely information and share localised content, there were several inconsistencies from divergent static information , with some even registering the pages using personal profiles (and admins adding 3rd party apps such as games). To the SSC brand, there was a compelling need to form a unified, consistent social media experience for its fans and sporting constituents.

The Approach Getting the basics right, first - The foundational idea was to establish a social media brand guide to for all the SRCs to conform towards. The guide needed to be comprehensive, and needed to cover domains including standardising static information; masthead image sizes, even guidance on how to change the Facebook profile names. Content and community engagement – The next approach was to deal with the ‘programming’ aspects of Facebook, on how to create buzz with exciting content, and bringing in best practices on social media community engagement. Involving Brand Ambassadors - The SRC centre managers served as the existing brand ambassadors and administrators managing the social media presence of the SRCs. So in order to pull the integrated effort through, it was necessary to involve the entire organisations’ centre managers and to win trust and buy in from them. Because this was no minor effort, and it involves significant change management.

The Solution “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I remember, involve me and I learn” Benjamin Franklin Instead of conducting mass induction town-halls or static lectures on a unified social media brand identity, Norman suggested a customised ‘learning-by-doing’ approach for the enterprise. The organisation development and training that Norman’s agency suggested first centred at delivering insightful knowledge and content. This required customised research into the sporting industry’s social media environment; localising content styles to segmented audience, and also configuring our best practices and tools to ensure optimal success in the learning outcome. The second phase of the training involved the surgical deployment of training pedagogies to suit the learning audience. Norman split the training into three areas: -  1/3 was lecture based (to share frameworks and insights)

-  1/3 was practical exercises (which exercised their cognitive ability to apply the branding and social media frameworks)

-  1/3 was scenario and problem based learning activities (live

exercises customed to training their management instinct, and to build confidence towards building brand equity and managing crises online. This also added training realism)

The Result One brand voice, with many local engagement channels on social media Through the conduct of customised social media training, SSCs’ centre managers and brand ambassadors from 21 SRCs were aligned to a unified brand guide; house content / copywriting style, and social media community relations framework. The clients’ frontline community managers were equipped with specific frameworks, best practices and definitive guides on how to deal with change management on social media.

The information, materials and contents disclosed in this credential document are intended to serve as limited evaluation purposes only, IImage credits are to the respective content owners.

Testimonials

What clients & partners say

“Outstanding work…with thoughtful publicity and engagement strategies…commend the sustained professionalism and enthusiasm. Expertly conducted public relations and communications, particularly in social media, which we believe helped educate the public.”

COL Gerard Koh, 45 Years of National Service Campaign Director, MINDEF

“Norman reminded our team of the core tenets of communications – our comapany identity, the audience we serve, and the clarity of message.”

Bjorn Lee, CEO, Stickery (Co-funded by Google Ventures)

Testimonials (Linkedin)

Norman has excellent EQ and flair for communication. He led his team passionately and was himself a fantastic team player who grasped intent quickly. He has the creativity to develop fresh perspective and executive skills to implement strategy.

Chief, Strategic Development & Marketing, Sport Singapore

His ability to connect the dots reflects his sense of strategic thinking; while his attention for details shows you can trust him to accomplish a project with all areas of concerns covered, no matter how small they are. Norman is also someone who you can look upon to develop out-of-the box ideas and solutions to address to any challenging scenarios.

Jason Chan, Investor Relation, CDL Hospitality Trust

“Good insights on how Facebook could help government agencies reach out to the public, but at the same time theme could be negative consequences/undesirable public reactions." "Learn about different new media platforms. Incorporate this into communications plan/strategy.” "I learnt the importance of integration different media platforms to reach out to the targeted audience.” "Clarity in delivery which is balanced with hands-on segments." "Lecturer is good. Clearly has done his own research. Examples he cited are relevant, (he) understands our problems and the challenges we face." "High quality speaker, engaging and knowledgeable. Courses applicable to work."

What clients & partners say (about Norman’s Executive Coaching / Training)

Norman has delivered consultancy and coaching to hundreds of public-private leaders in Social Media Communications and Branding, including senior management from Fortune 500 Agencies (Standard & Poors, McGraw Hill Companies). Specific to the Public Sector, our Managing Director regularly coaches Div 1 Officers on Social Media Communications on average of 20-30 calendar days a year. Senior Management participants (partial lists) who have joined his programme include:

Name Designation Organisation Lim Chwee Yong Head (International Relations Unit) Supreme Court Nidyah Sani Head (Corp Comm/IBN) A*STAR Chua Hwa Kuan, Samuel Deputy Senior State Counsel, Legislation and Law Reforms Division Attorney-General Chamber (AGC) May Goh Director, Corp Communication Offices Ngee Ann Polytechnics Lee Poh Kim Superintendent, School Cluster School branch MOE Foo Biaosheng, Atticus Deputy Director (New Media) PCD Kwek-Chew Kim Gek Deputy Director National Library Board Dr Tay Lay Pheng Asst. Director Republic Polytechnic Lim Mei Ling, Juliet Deputy Director CMC Dr Sasikumar Ponnalagu Curriculum Planning Officer MOE Lim Soh Din Deputy Director (Media Relations) MICA Low Kuan Meng, Micheal Senior Asst. Director, Strategic planning Competition Commissioner of

Singapore Goh Tock Kim Deputy Director (Media Resource) MICA

Sample Social Media Training Participant List

Contact

Contact: Norman Ng Address: 41A Bedok Ria Cres, #01-59, Stratford Court S(427494) DID: 6680-3827 HP: 9008-1209 Email: normanng1981@gmail.com

Track Record

Digital Campaign 250,000 Social media audiences 800+ online posts 10 Social Media Campaigns 101 Facebook advertisement campaigns 24 Million Facebook ad. Reach 1.23 Million Facebook clicks generated 1.36% Click through rate 13 Google Adwords & Youtube Advertisement Campaigns 47 Million Google Ad impressions 149,000 Google Ad clicks 0.52% Search Click through rate - Welcome the World, 122,000 audiences, MSF (FB) -  Filial Piety, 47,000 audiences, MSF (FB) -  BCA Green Buildings, 34,000 audiences, BCA (FB) -  Beautifully Imperfect, 21,000 audiences, MSF (FB) -  Social Worker SG, 13,000 audiences, MSF (FB) -  Lasting Powers of Attorney, 5,000 audiences, MSF (FB) -  Heybaby SG, 4,000 audiences, NPTD / PMO (FB) -  Voices of Asia Holdings, 5,000 audiences (Linkedin, FB) -  Plan W by Diageo (FB, Twitter) -  45 Years of National Service, MINDEF (FB)

Traditional MarComms Campaign 20,000 content development-to-print in multi-format copys within 9 days.