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How NLB Singapore Made Reading an Act of Self-Reinvention
Read More Be More is a 2021 public interest campaign by the National Library Board of Singapore, created with Ogilvy Singapore, that uses narrative film to position reading as a force of personal transformation, directing audiences toward the NLB mobile app as part of the ongoing National Reading Movement.
The National Library Board launched the campaign in Singapore in December 2021, with the principal film asset dated 25 November 2021. The work sits within the National Reading Movement, a platform NLB established in 2016 with the stated mission to encourage people to Read More, Read Widely and Read Together. That five-year initiative provided the strategic runway for Read More Be More to evolve the conversation from participation to identity: the campaign argues not merely that reading is worthwhile, but that it actively changes who a person is.
The campaign's creative proposition is direct. Reading makes ordinary people unexpectedly interesting. This idea is rendered most vividly in the anchor film, titled The Unmasked Superhero, which follows a supermarket employee whose reading habit quietly transforms her into something larger than her job title suggests. The film directed audiences to the NLB mobile app, positioning the app as the everyday vehicle for this kind of self-expansion. A second film asset extends the same logic across a different character type, reinforcing the campaign's premise that transformation through reading is available to anyone in Singapore, regardless of background or circumstance.
Classified under both Public Interest and Recreation, Leisure categories, Read More Be More operates at the intersection of civic responsibility and cultural aspiration. In Singapore, where the NLB reported 37.9 million total loans in 2021, up 30 percent from 2020 according to Nlb Gov Sg, the campaign arrived at a moment when reading habits were visibly recovering after pandemic disruption. The Clapboard Score for this campaign is 61 out of 100, reflecting a well-constructed creative platform that executes its emotional argument with clarity, even as its reach remained bounded by the scale of a public-sector media investment.
The National Library Board built Read More Be More on a consumer insight that goes deeper than awareness. Encouraging people in Singapore to borrow more books requires more than reminding them that libraries exist. It requires giving reading a social identity — a reason to read that feels personally meaningful rather than institutionally prescribed. The campaign's strategic answer is transformation: reading does not just inform, it recasts the reader as a more capable and more interesting version of themselves.
This insight is commercially grounded. According to Pdf Marketpublishers, Singapore's total publishing market generated approximately S$624.9 million in 2021, with books representing the largest segment at an estimated S$299.2 million or 47.9 percent of total publishing revenue that year. A market of that scale demonstrates that Singaporeans are already readers; the strategic challenge for NLB is not to create demand for books from nothing, but to redirect existing reading appetite toward the public library system and the NLB mobile app specifically.
The digital dimension of that strategy is significant. According to nlb.gov.sg, digital loans represented 37 percent of total NLB loans in 2020, and e-book loans increased approximately 150 percent year over year during Singapore's April to June 2020 circuit-breaker period. By 2021, with physical library access restored, NLB needed a campaign that would sustain digital borrowing momentum while re-engaging lapsed physical borrowers. Read More Be More addresses both audiences simultaneously by anchoring its message in the app without dismissing the value of any reading format.
In Singapore's public communications landscape, NLB competes for leisure time and attention against commercial content platforms including Netflix and Spotify, both of which invest substantially in localised content for the Southeast Asian market. The campaign's narrative film format mirrors the visual language of streaming entertainment, a deliberate choice that positions the NLB mobile app as a credible alternative rather than a civic obligation.
Ogilvy Singapore built Read More Be More around the narrative film format, choosing storytelling over proposition as the primary creative mode. The lead execution, The Unmasked Superhero, constructs a miniature character arc within a short film structure: a supermarket employee, unremarkable in her daily context, is revealed through reading to possess an inner life that transcends her visible role. The superhero metaphor is not decorative. It literalises the campaign's transformation claim and gives audiences a clear emotional payoff without requiring voiceover explanation.
The creative team behind the campaign was led by Chief Creative Officer Nicolas Courant and Creative Director Elrid Carvalho at Ogilvy Singapore, with Associate Creative Directors Aritra Dutta and Ginny Lim contributing to the executional development, as documented by adobomagazine.com. Executive Group Director Shirley Tay oversaw the client relationship, with Business Director Phuc Nguyen and Account Director Yong Shi Yun managing day-to-day campaign stewardship. Account Managers Vera See and Charmaine Lim supported delivery across the campaign's run from December 2021 through to its scheduled close in March 2022, according to adobomagazine.com.
The choice of a supermarket employee as protagonist is strategically precise. She is a figure that any Singaporean encounters daily and likely underestimates. By revealing her as a reader whose imagination gives her superhero dimensions, the film democratises the campaign's promise. Reading, the creative argues, is not the preserve of scholars or professionals. It belongs to the person restocking shelves on a Tuesday afternoon. That character choice aligns the campaign with NLB's civic mandate while giving it the emotional texture of entertainment rather than public service announcement.
The campaign comprises two film assets in total. The second film applies the same narrative logic to a different character, reinforcing the campaign's universality without repeating its imagery. Together, the two films create a small anthology of transformation, each standing alone while amplifying the other's argument that reading remakes identity in ways that are visible, social, and worth sharing.
Verified performance data for Read More Be More is available in partial form. The principal film, The Unmasked Superhero, recorded 326,259 video views, as documented in the campaign archive. The film received 99 likes and generated 4 comments on its primary platform of record. These figures represent organic and paid distribution within Singapore's media environment over the campaign's active period from December 2021 through March 2022.
No independently verified data on NLB mobile app download uplift, library membership conversion, or book loan attribution attributable directly to the Read More Be More campaign is publicly available. What the view count does confirm is that the campaign achieved meaningful exposure for a public-sector, single-market initiative operating within the geographic boundaries of Singapore. For context, according to nlb.gov.sg, NLB recorded 37.9 million total loans in 2021, a 30 percent year-on-year recovery that suggests the broader reading ecosystem in Singapore was already responding to renewed engagement efforts of which this campaign formed one part.
Structurally, the campaign's effectiveness rests on the durability of its creative logic. The transformation narrative is self-contained within each film, requiring no prior familiarity with NLB's institutional history or the National Reading Movement's earlier phases. This lowers the barrier to emotional engagement for new audiences while rewarding existing NLB users with a fresh articulation of why they already read. The campaign earned a Clapboard Score of 61 out of 100, a result that reflects sound creative architecture and strategic coherence, offset by the inherent limitations of public-sector production scale and a single-market geographic footprint. According to campaignbriefasia.com, the campaign was noted within the regional creative industry upon its release, indicating recognition among advertising peers in the Asia-Pacific market.
Read More Be More is a 2021 public interest campaign by the National Library Board of Singapore, created with Ogilvy Singapore. It uses narrative film to argue that reading transforms ordinary people into unexpectedly interesting versions of themselves, directing audiences toward the NLB mobile app as part of the National Reading Movement.
Ogilvy Singapore created Read More Be More for the National Library Board. Chief Creative Officer Nicolas Courant and Creative Director Elrid Carvalho led the creative work, with Associate Creative Directors Aritra Dutta and Ginny Lim, as documented by adobomagazine.com. The campaign launched in Singapore in December 2021 and ran through March 2022.
The National Reading Movement is a platform launched by the National Library Board of Singapore in 2016 with the mission to encourage people to Read More, Read Widely and Read Together. Read More Be More represents a 2021 creative expression of that movement, using film narrative to evolve the message from participation toward personal identity and transformation.
The principal film, The Unmasked Superhero, recorded 326,259 video views according to the campaign archive. The film also received 99 likes and 4 comments. These figures reflect distribution within Singapore across the campaign's active period from December 2021 through its scheduled conclusion in March 2022.
Read More Be More earned a Clapboard Score of 61 out of 100. The score reflects a coherent creative platform and clear emotional logic centred on reading as personal transformation, balanced against the scale constraints typical of a public-sector, single-market campaign operating within Singapore's geographic boundaries.
Ogilvy Singapore chose a supermarket employee as protagonist to democratise the campaign's transformation promise. The character is immediately recognisable to Singaporean audiences and typically underestimated, making her reveal as a reader with superhero-scale inner life emotionally resonant. The choice reinforces that reading belongs to everyone, aligning with NLB's civic mandate.
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