Food is the most democratic way into a country's identity.
In Singapore's jubilee year, Suntec City chose not merely to decorate its halls but to rebuild the nation's memory as something visitors could climb, swing through, and slide down. The mall's SG60 activation — a culinary playground honouring the country's 60th birthday — won Experiential Marketing Project of the Year at the Retail Asia Awards 2026, drawing over one million visitors through zones where food became architecture and play became patriotism. It is a reminder that the most durable civic moments are rarely the ones observed from a distance, but the ones that leave a mark on the body as much as the mind.
- As physical retail struggles to justify its existence, Suntec City placed a high-stakes bet: that turning Singapore's food culture into a full-scale playground could make a mall feel indispensable again.
- Four culinary-themed zones — including a dragon slide echoing Singapore's iconic playground heritage and a chendol-inspired ball pit — created sensory environments that blurred the line between nostalgia and novelty.
- A digital mural by local artist Kow Fong invited visitors to donate to Community Chest and inscribe personal messages to the nation, transforming a commercial activation into a collective act of civic memory.
- Mission cards, collectible keepsakes, and a National Day countdown event kept visitors cycling back through the space, turning a one-time visit into a sustained pattern of engagement.
- With over 9.7 million in combined reach and SG$700,000 in PR value generated, the campaign landed as a regional benchmark — evidence that experiential retail, done with cultural sincerity, still has the power to move people.
Suntec City's shopping mall became something harder to categorise this year — part playground, part cultural shrine — when it transformed Singapore's 60th birthday into an immersive culinary landscape families could physically move through. The campaign, called Together in Jubilee Joy: Eat, Play, Unite!, won Experiential Marketing Project of the Year at the Retail Asia Awards 2026, and the recognition felt earned.
The mall's atrium housed four zones built around iconic Singaporean dishes. The Crabby Swing tested balance on kitchen-tool-inspired equipment. The Chicky Stack challenged coordination through 3D puzzles. The Prata Shot fused digital gameplay with the physical rhythm of tossing dough. The centrepiece was the Singapore Dragon Slide — a hybrid of traditional carpentry and inflatable materials designed to echo the angular dragon slides that defined Singapore's playgrounds a generation ago. Younger children found their way to the Chendol Ball Pit, where green pool noodles and coloured balls recreated the texture of the beloved dessert.
Alongside the games, local artist Kow Fong contributed a digital mural titled 600 Wishes, One Singapore. Visitors could purchase tiles through donations to Community Chest, inscribing personal messages that would become part of a permanent installation — making the jubilee feel less like a corporate event and more like a shared act of nation-writing.
The activation extended outward: a National Day countdown on August 8 and 9 brought a creators' marketplace, live performances, and trivia to Suntec Plaza. Mission cards guided visitors through the zones, rewarding them with small keepsakes — chilli crab straw covers among them — and encouraging return visits. More than one million people moved through the space in total, with over 3,000 engaging directly with the interactive stations.
Partnerships with the Founders' Memorial, Children's Museum Singapore, and the National Heritage Board added educational depth, threading food history through the sensory experience. The campaign reached 9.7 million people across channels and generated over SG$700,000 in PR value — numbers that, in a retail climate hungry for proof, made the case that experiential marketing works best when it gives people something worth touching.
Suntec City's shopping mall transformed itself into something between a playground and a shrine this year, turning the nation's 60th birthday into an excuse to make people play with their food—literally. The mall won the Experiential Marketing Project of the Year award at the Retail Asia Awards 2026 for an activation called Together in Jubilee Joy: Eat, Play, Unite!, a campaign that took iconic Singaporean dishes and rebuilt them as full-scale interactive environments where families could swing, stack, and slide their way through the country's culinary heritage.
The heart of the activation lived in the mall's atrium, where four culinary-themed zones turned everyday flavours into tactile spaces. There was the Crabby Swing, which let visitors test their balance on kitchen-tool-inspired equipment. The Chicky Stack challenged hand-eye coordination through 3D puzzles. The Prata Shot combined digital games with the muscle memory of tossing dough. But the centerpiece was the Singapore Dragon Slide—a hybrid structure built from both traditional carpentry and inflatable materials—designed to echo the sharp, angular geometry of the dragon slides that defined Singapore's playgrounds decades ago. For younger children, the Chendol Ball Pit offered a gentler sensory experience: green pool noodles and coloured balls arranged to mimic the texture and appearance of the beloved dessert.
Beyond the games, Suntec commissioned a digital mural from local artist Kow Fong titled 600 Wishes, One Singapore. The piece worked as both artwork and fundraiser: visitors could purchase digital tiles through donations to Community Chest's SGSHARE program, then inscribe personal messages for the country that would appear on the mural before becoming part of a permanent community installation. It was a way of making the jubilee year feel less like a corporate moment and more like a collective act.
The campaign extended beyond the mall's walls. On August 8 and 9, Suntec Plaza hosted a National Day countdown event that brought together a local creators' marketplace, live performances, and trivia competitions. Visitors carried mission cards through the zones, unlocking small keepsakes—chilli crab straw covers, among other items—that encouraged them to return and explore different stations. The strategy worked: over 1 million people moved through the activation during its run, with more than 3,000 participating directly in the interactive stations.
Suntec partnered with the Founders' Memorial, Children's Museum Singapore, and the National Heritage Board to layer educational food-related exhibitions throughout the spaces. These collaborations gave the activation intellectual weight alongside its sensory appeal—it wasn't just play, but play with purpose, a way of teaching younger visitors something about where their country came from and what it eats. The numbers reflected the scale: the campaign generated more than SG$700,000 in PR value and reached 9.7 million people across all channels combined. For a retail industry increasingly skeptical of whether experiential marketing actually moves the needle, Suntec's jubilee year gamble offered proof that when you build something people want to touch and move through, they will show up.
Citações Notáveis
The activation featured four culinary-themed zones that turned everyday Singaporean flavours into tactile environments blending nostalgia with physical play.— Retail Asia Awards 2026 recognition
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why did Suntec choose food as the organizing principle for a national jubilee?
Food is the most democratic way into a country's identity. Everyone eats. Everyone has a memory attached to a dish. By turning chendol and chilli crab into physical spaces you could enter, they made the jubilee personal rather than ceremonial.
The dragon slide seems like the most emotionally resonant piece. What made that choice work?
It's nostalgia with permission. Most adults in Singapore grew up on those playground dragons. By rebuilding one at full scale in a mall, Suntec gave people a way to literally return to childhood while celebrating the nation's maturity. It's both backward and forward at once.
The digital mural with donations—was that the fundraising angle, or was the fundraising secondary to the art?
It was both, but the art came first. The donation mechanism gave people a reason to participate, but what they were really doing was leaving a message. The money went to Community Chest, but the act itself was about being heard.
Over 1 million visitors in what timeframe?
The activation ran through the jubilee period—so roughly the lead-up to and including August 9th. That's a significant draw for a single mall campaign, especially when you consider that 3,000 of those people engaged deeply enough to play the games and collect the mission cards.
Did the partnership with institutions like the Children's Museum change how people experienced the space?
It legitimized it. Without those partnerships, it could have felt like pure commerce. With them, families felt they were doing something educational alongside the entertainment. The exhibitions gave parents permission to linger.