Makan mantra : an initiative to reduce food waste in Singapore.

Abstract

Makan mantra is a strategic communications campaign undertaken by four final year students from the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological University. It is the first student-led campaign to partner 13 Food & Beverage (F&B) businesses to reduce food waste in Singapore. Targeted at young working adults aged 20 to 34, the objectives of the campaign are to raise awareness of food wastage and to enable consumers to reduce their own. It seeks to achieve this by introducing and implementing eight methods, known as ‘mantras’, for consumers to adopt throughout their meal. This paper presents a summary of the primary and secondary research that guided the development of the key campaign strategies. It outlines the creative execution of the communication tactics, and presents a holistic evaluation of the campaign’s overall effectiveness. The latter includes pre- and post-campaign surveys, metrics from both online and offline publicity initiatives, as well as an analysis of media coverage.

Also included in this paper is an appendix that supplements the main text.