When Purpose Meets PR: $2M in Media Value for OSWA 2026

The inaugural Outstanding Social Work Awards 2026 (OSWA), organised by the Singapore Association of Social Workers (SASW), was not a typical consumer campaign. 

There was no product, no launch moment, and no advertising spend behind it. What it had was a story worth telling: five teams of social workers doing exceptional work with hidden youth, seniors living with dementia, and survivors of domestic violence. The communications challenge was to give that story the reach and resonance it deserved, across a media landscape that needed to be engaged in four languages, not one.

The strategy was built around getting the story into circulation before the event, not on the day of it. Award recipients were placed with media weeks ahead of Social Work Day, with four long-form CNA938 broadcast segments secured in the lead-up period, each running 15 to 18 minutes. These were not soundbites. They gave social workers room to speak substantively about their practice, building public familiarity with the profession and the individuals being recognised before the ceremony took place.

By event day, coverage was already running across Channel 8, Channel 5, Suria, and Vasantham on broadcast, with The Straits Times carrying a double-page spread, and Lianhe Zaobao, Berita Harian, and Tamil Murasu all covering the event in print and online, reflecting a deliberate effort to engage Singapore's full multilingual media ecosystem. Tailored pitching and interview facilitation across each outlet made the difference.

The campaign closed with 59 pieces of coverage reaching a combined audience of over 73.4 million, a PR value of $$2,029,970, and an AVE of $676,657 (and counting!). For a campaign with no paid media behind it, the results reflect what a well-structured PR strategy, timed correctly and pitched with precision, can achieve.

Planning a corporate PR or public affairs campaign in Singapore? Mad Hat Asia works with organisations across the public, private, and non-profit sectors to build media strategies that generate real coverage and measurable impact.

Get in touch at hello@madhatasia.com to start the conversation.

When the Story Is Enough: Mad Hat Asia's PR Strategy for the National Stroke Awareness Campaign 2025

Not every corporate communications campaign comes with a splashy launch event or a ministerial announcement. Sometimes the brief is leaner and the stakes are higher. When Stroke Services Institute (SSI) approached Mad Hat Asia to drive awareness for Singapore's National Stroke Awareness Campaign 2025, the challenge was immediate: no new data, no event, no hook. Just a cause that mattered and a media landscape that needed a compelling reason to cover it.

SSI faces the same wall every year. Without fresh statistics or a headline moment to anchor coverage, stroke awareness stories risk being passed over in favour of harder news. Our answer was to go back to what corporate PR does best when everything else is stripped away: strategy, storytelling, and the right voices. We developed a fresh suite of human-centred media angles and profiled credible spokespeople across different races and backgrounds, giving editors and producers something they could genuinely connect their audiences to rather than another awareness campaign that felt like a press release.

The results were Tier 1 across the board and entirely earned. Coverage landed in Channel News Asia, The Straits Times, Lianhe Zaobao, 96.3FM, Berita Harian, Tamil Murasu and MediaCorp Suria News, reaching Singapore's communities in four languages. Total PR value hit S$732,000, secured purely through compelling pitching and meaningful narratives with no paid media, no event budget, and no ministerial peg to lean on.

For us this was one of the most meaningful campaigns of the year and a reminder of what good corporate communications can do when it is built on substance over spectacle. If you need a PR partner in Singapore who knows how to find the story when there isn't an obvious one, we would love to help. Get in touch at hatters@madhat.asia