Singtel really likes revamping old songs

Ad Nut would like to start by expressing praise for the troupe of actors involved in selling Singtel Power, the telco’s newest venture, in partnership with energy company Geneco. The slapstick acrobatics are objectively very impressive.

Beyond that, Ad Nut experienced déjà vu watching this latest effort from BBH, and not the unreal, wondrous kind. More like the kind Neo experiences in The Matrix, where it’s ominous and a precursor to bad things happening.

Taking a hit song, changing the words and making it about your product? Why Singtel, isn’t that exactly what you did with last year’s ‘Fuss Free Fibre’ campaign promoting broadband? That one Ad Nut admittedly enjoyed, to a point. There was a level of self-deprecation and knowing silliness that was welcome and fun.

Here, the gag is a single-trick pony: we’ve taken a hit song, changed the words and made it about our product. The lyrics aren’t really even catchy, it took Ad Nut a couple of watches to see where the changes had been shoe-horned in. The ad looks very good, but high production values are table stakes when you’re working for a giant telco.

Ad Nut recognises that this latest ad may be part of a theme, repositioning Singtel as a peppy, upbeat brand instead of a boring telco. That’s a laudable aim, and things began steadily with ‘Fuss Free Fibre’.

But this effort is less an earworm, more an earwig.

Ad Nut is a surprisingly literate woodland creature that for unknown reasons has an unhealthy obsession with advertising. Ad Nut gathers ads from all over Asia and the world for your viewing pleasure, because Ad Nut loves you. You can also check out Ad Nut's Advertising Hall of Fame, or read about Ad Nut's strange obsession with 'murderous beasts'.