Mr Lawrence Leow, President, Association of Small and Medium Enterprises;
Mr Lim Jim Koon, Editor, Lianhe Zaobao, Singapore Press Holdings;
Dr Dora Hoan, Chairman, Award Organizing Committee;
Your Excellencies;
Distinguished Guests;
Ladies and Gentlemen;

Good Evening.

I am glad to join you here at the award evening of the Singapore Promising Brand Award 2003. The excitement tonight is palpable as we await the announcement of the 3 Most Distinctive Brands and the Most Popular Brand from the 20 outstanding winners.

Let me first extend my heartiest congratulations to the 20 winning brands tonight. These brands represent a broad spectrum of sectors and are familiar favourites to many Singaporeans, including myself. Some like Bee Cheng Hiang are brands that my generation grew up with, while others like BreadTalk are brands that today's generation will grow up with.

I must congratulate the Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (ASME) for initiating this award. While the Singapore Promising Brand Award recognises outstanding and promising local brands, it also aims to educate local brands on the value and importance of branding. ASME's efforts are significant as they help to reach out to the 100,000 SMEs in Singapore, and complement the government's efforts in raising brand awareness.

With our combined effort, we aim to help Singapore businesses realise the full potential of branding. A brand, if properly managed, creates influence and generates economic value for owners and shareholders over and above those derived from the tangible assets of the companies.

There is still much that Singapore companies can do to maximise the value of branding. In a recent survey commissioned by IE Singapore titled "The impact of branding on businesses", one of the findings was that while 50% of 100 local companies surveyed took a holistic approach towards branding, the other half still associated branding with the "name" or "identity" of their products. This group, made up of smaller companies, spent their efforts on areas that generated "immediate impact" on sales, such as promotions and publicity, where the results were only temporary in nature. What was also reason for concern was that over 60% of the small companies surveyed had vague or no brand strategies at all. These companies will benefit from taking a long-term, holistic perspective of brands that encompassed the company’s employees, values, objectives, goals and guiding principles.

The recently signed US-Singapore Free Trade Agreement, together with our earlier Free Trade Agreements with Australia, European Free Trade Association (EFTA), Japan and New Zealand will open up a whole host of opportunities for Singapore products and services all over the world.

However, these opportunities will be accompanied by challenges. As more Singapore companies expand overseas, they will face competitors from all over the world offering similar products or services. Branding will be a key differentiating factor.

Our companies, many of which are small in the global arena, must rise to these challenges. In this effort, they can take inspiration from today's international players or "big boys", so to speak. These "big boys" were once "small boys" too. But they are where they are today because, amongst other things, they had taken the effort to invest and build their brands.

Take the case of Samsung. Samsung was once a manufacturer of commodity electronics that sold under other companies’ names. Since then, Samsung has invested heavily in branding. In 2002, it spent US$200 million to reposition itself to become an upscale brand providing what it calls a "DigitAll experience". Through branding, Samsung has been able to maintain and capture market share by earning its customers’ trust and loyalty. Its investment in branding has paid off; as can be seen in "The Best Global Brands 2002" league table, where the Samsung brand leapfrogged from 42nd position in 2001 to 34th position in 2002, with an increase of 30% in brand value to US$ 8.3 billion.

Closer to home, I am sure many of you would have heard of Eu Yan Sang. In the past few years, the company has progressed from being a dispensary for traditional Chinese medicines and herbs to a heritage brand providing holistic healthcare services not just in Singapore, but also in non-Chinese markets such as Australia and US. Eu Yan Sang’s vision of bringing the brand to the global market place provided a strong motivation for its senior management to invest in branding. By leveraging on branding, Eu Yan Sang has managed to raise the company’s profile and create greater awareness, trust and loyalty in the brand by 30%. More importantly, as a result of branding, the company has managed to capture a new segment of customers – the English speaking consumers. All of which has led to more business development opportunities.

Another local brand that all of you would be familiar with is the Hour Glass. In the early 70s, its founders decided to move away from the traditional manner in which watches were simply sold over the counters. Instead, they envisioned themselves selling watches in a luxurious, full-service environment such as those found in Europe. With that entrepreneurial spirit, they brought that concept into Singapore and set up the first watch boutique. The founders also realised the need for branding in a luxury retail industry that is very brand-driven. By leveraging on its strong retail brand proposition, the Hour Glass is able to differentiate and sustain its value proposition in the luxury watch market. It is also able to attract leading manufacturers as partners in distribution and retailing. Today, the Hour Glass brand is associated with exclusivity and prestige.

Quality brands are not built overnight. Brand-building takes time and effort. But once built, good brands provide long-lasting returns in terms of sustainable market leadership, profitability and customer loyalty.

The Singapore government is committed to helping Singapore companies in their long-term brand building efforts. For Singapore-based companies that are ready, willing and able to internationalise, IE Singapore has a range of broad-based and customised programmes under its "Branding for Internationalisation" programme, which takes a holistic approach to building sustainable brand capabilities in Singapore-based companies for their international success.

To enhance companies’ access to key brand resources and experts, IE Singapore launched the Brand Network in April. It is a one-stop centralised platform, for companies to access a myriad of information on branding trends, research, training programmes and directories of local and global brand players. Also available within the Brand Network is the online Brand Assessment Toolkit which allows companies to perform a self-diagnosis on the state of their brands. To date, more than 90 companies have used this feature.

Looking at the list of winners of the Singapore Promising Brand Award 2003, it is heartening to note that local brands are equipping themselves to take on the global market. Singapore companies need to innovate and build up their brands to secure brand loyalty among consumers.

Local brands are the ambassadors to the larger "Singapore" brand, and I believe that our local brand names will one day do Singapore proud in the international arena. I look forward to the next wave of "Creatives" and "Singapore Airlines" to emerge from tonight's list of winners.

Once again, I offer my congratulations to all the winners tonight and to the Association of Small and Medium Enterprises for organising such a successful event this evening. With the Singapore Promising Brand Award, ASME has created an excellent platform to generate greater brand awareness among the local business community.

Thank you.

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