The Me-Too Problem in Singapore Promotional Marketing – And How to Fix It

There is a pattern that repeats itself in Singapore FMCG promotional marketing with remarkable consistency. A brand runs a promotion. It performs reasonably well. Six months later a competitor runs something almost identical. Six months after that the original brand runs it again, slightly modified. And so the cycle continues: the same mechanics, the same prize structures, the same entry methods, recycled endlessly across categories and competitors until every promotion looks like every other promotion.

This is the me-too problem. And it is costing Singapore FMCG brands more than they realise.

The me-too problem isn’t born from laziness. It’s born from risk aversion.

Promotional budgets in Singapore haven’t changed since I first arrived in January 2013. “What can we do for $15,000 to $20,000 all-inclusive?”. The approval process for a consumer promotion typically involves brand managers, trade marketing managers, shopper marketing and possibly the marketing director, plus finance / procurement. Nobody in that chain wants to be the person who approved something that didn’t work.

So when something works, or appears to work – it gets repeated (I’m looking at you another lunch-box and drink bottle giveaway). And when a competitor runs something that appears to work, it gets copied. The path of least resistance is always the familiar mechanic with the proven precedent.

The result is a market where consumers see the same promotional ideas recycled so frequently that they stop noticing them. A price-off here. A lucky draw there. A GWP that looks identical to the one running in the adjacent aisle for a different brand.

When every promotion looks the same, no promotion stands out. And a promotion that doesn’t stand out doesn’t drive the incremental behaviour it was designed to deliver.

The financial cost is straightforward. A promotional budget spent on mechanics that generate average results because they generate average attention.

The brand cost is more subtle but more serious. Every time a brand runs a promotion that looks like everyone else’s promotion, it reinforces to the consumer that this brand thinks like everyone else. It signals a lack of confidence, a lack of creativity, and most damagingly… a lack of understanding of what makes their own brand distinctive.

Promotions are brand communications. They tell consumers something about who you are beyond the product itself. A me-too promotion tells them nothing worth remembering.

The answer to the me-too problem is not to pursue novelty at the expense of effectiveness. A promotion that is unusual but structurally unsound, legally problematic, or misaligned with the brand’s actual consumer is not an improvement on a me-too mechanic… it’s a different kind of failure.

The fix is structured fresh thinking. Starting not with what worked last time or what the competitor is doing, but with three questions:

What specific consumer behaviour are we trying to change? Trial, repeat purchase, volume loading, brand switching, trade support – each requires a different mechanic. The answer to this question narrows the field immediately.

What does our brand give us to work with? The most memorable promotions in Singapore FMCG are built from brand DNA — not bolted onto it. Our promotion for Cadbury and a fridge full of chocolate. For Dettol to win a brand new Volvo, including COE and worth $171,000. And for Oreo and our letter to Santa promotion. Each mechanic grew directly from something true about the brand. That’s not coincidence. it’s the difference between a promotion that feels like the brand and one that could have been run by anyone.

What has our consumer not seen before in this category? Not different for the sake of different — different because it’s more relevant, more compelling, or more rewarding than what they’ve been offered previously. The bar in most Singapore FMCG categories is not high. Standing out does not require a revolution. It requires paying attention to what everyone else is doing and deliberately choosing a different direction.

The brands that consistently run promotions that stand out in Singapore don’t do so because they got lucky with a creative idea. They do so because they approach the promotional brief differently; starting with the objective and the brand rather than the mechanic, and working with specialists who bring structured thinking rather than recycled solutions.

There are 16 proven promotional mechanics available to every FMCG brand in Singapore. Most brands use three of them repeatedly. The other thirteen are sitting there, underused, waiting to be deployed against a brief they’re perfectly suited for.

The me-too problem is not inevitable. It’s a choice… usually an unconscious one. The fix starts with asking a different first question.