The Singapore-Sweden Initiative

Sweden's biggest and Singapore's smallest join forces

Micro businesses (SMEs) account for 99% of Singapore’s companies, employ 70% of Singaporeans, and contribute to nearly half of the country’s GDP. But in 2020, due to Covid-19, many suffered greatly. Decreased consumer consumption led to an 50% decrease in revenue for some micro businesses.

The Swedish Chamber of Commerce in Singapore (SwedCham) represents and promotes Swedish companies in Singapore, many of them who have been in the country for decades. During the pandemic, SwedCham wanted to help their home away from home, while also supporting its member companies.

So our idea was to pair a broad range of local micro businesses, run by entrepreneurs from different ethnicities, religions, languages and walks of life - with Swedish multinational corporations.

The campaign garnered 18 stories across leading publications, including in-depth coverage in Singapore’s top daily - Straits Times. 18 hours into the campaign, Prime Minister Lee himself celebrated SESG on both his Twitter and Linkedin. The campaign achieved an earned media reach of 17,6 million people and an earned media value of 153,300 SGD, achieving a total campaign ROI of 5x. Our featured micro-business saw spikes in visits, and several reported increased sales by 10-20%.