Now, the Singapore Tourism Board, in conjunction with Caltex and the Raffles Hotel, have launched SingArt - A Brush With Lions, a wonderful venture in which artists, celebrities,local luminaries and sponsors have been offered the opportunity to 'customise' their very own life-sized fibreglass lion.
Diary is particularly thrilled that it was the Raffles Hotel - famous for the incident when a real, live, wild tiger stalked into its grounds and ordered a whisky sour (it's all true, except for that last bit) - that approached Caltex with the idea. In fact, the initial 18 lions are already in the Raffles' grounds, with a further 40 still to come.
Wunderman and DY&R were assigned the task of making the lions come to life (as it were), and regional account director Steven Shalowitz described the endeavour as "on par with planning the invasion of Normandy".
All monies raised from the sponsorship of the lions goes to the School Pocket Money Fund and MINDS Towner Gardens School. Highest bidders for each lion will have their name displayed on the plaque alongside 'their' lion ... And at the end of the romaing exhibition, said lions will be sent to the homes of their adoptive 'parents'.
Diary imagines the Hong Kong Tourism Board must be licking its wounds, meanwhile, for making US Esquire magazine's highly-anticipated 'Dubious achievements' list for 2003. The infamy was achieved thanks to the board's short-lived and poorly-timed campaign 'Hong Kong ... It'll take your breath away', launched last year when Sars was killing off its citizens by the score.
