Singapore Art Museum and the Asia Pacific Breweries Foundation Signature Art Prize

The mission of the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) is to preserve and present the art histories and contemporary art practices of Singapore and the Southeast Asian region. SAM has the world’s largest public collection of modern and contemporary Southeast Asian artworks with a growing component in international contemporary art.  In October 2007, SAM announced a 15-year partnership with Asia Pacific Breweries Foundation to develop and promote contemporary visual art in the Asia Pacific region.  The result of this partnership is the APB Foundation Signature Art Prize, a hallmark of distinction that was first awarded in October 2008 and will be awarded triennially to artists whose work represents a significant development in contemporary art.

About the Account

The Singapore Art Museum and Asia Pacific Breweries Foundation commissioned Ruder Finn Asia in April 2008 to manage media relations in the region for the inaugural Asia Pacific Breweries Foundation Signature Art Prize.

Artists from 12 countries – Cambodia, China, India, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam – were eligible for the award and RFA had the challenge of securing media coverage in every country from Singapore.

RFA’s media relations strategy was to target key national media in the 12 countries with RFA reaching out to the top English language media with some support from the museum and APB’s offices covering local language media in their countries.  As many of the APB offices did not have dedicated PR staff or agencies, RFA also advised the APB offices on media relations and provided them with customized country-specific releases for each milestone that they could just translate and distribute.

In addition, RFA managed the press conference held in Singapore to announce the award recipients.  Eighteen target media from wire agencies, international, regional and national dailies, art and lifestyle publications attended the press conference and 16 of them including Bernama, Bloomberg, Xinhua, Bangkok Post, Lianhe Zaobao, International Herald Tribune, and The Straits Times published or broadcast a story.

The result of the media outreach was  416 articles / hits across wire agencies, international, regional and national dailies, media and information websites and art and lifestyle publications. Media that published stories on the Signature Art Prize include Bloomberg, Xinhua, International Herald Tribune, South China Morning Post, Wall Street Journal Asia, Art Asia Pacific, Asian Art News, and Yishu Journal.

http://www.nhb.gov.sg/sam/signatureartprize/