NUS Medicine Communications team wins three Asia-Pacific SABRE Awards for 120th anniversary campaign and Yearbook
Published: 21 Aug 2026
The NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine Communications team has earned three honours at the 2026 Asia-Pacific Superior Achievement in Branding, Reputation & Engagement (SABRE) Awards and IN2 SABRE Awards, a recognition of the School’s creative and strategic communications work for its 120th anniversary celebrations and Yearbook, How to Live to 120.
The awards were presented on 18 August 2026 at The Westin Singapore, during PRovoke Media’s Asia-Pacific Summit and SABRE Awards. Widely regarded as among the region’s most prestigious communications accolades, the SABRE Awards recognise outstanding communications campaigns across the Asia-Pacific region for their impact, creative problem-solving, strategic insight, innovative approaches, and executional excellence.
NUS Medicine received the following awards:
- SABRE Award – Educational and Cultural Institutions category for #inspire120: 120 years of NUS Medicine
- SABRE Award – Institutional Image category for How to Live to 120
- IN2 SABRE Award – Corporate Reporting category for How to Live to 120
The awards are particularly meaningful for the #inspire120 campaign, which sought to turn NUS Medicine’s 120th anniversary in 2025 into more than a celebration of its past. As Singapore’s first and oldest medical school, NUS Medicine used the milestone as a platform to celebrate its people and the partnerships that have shaped its journey, strengthen connections across its diverse community, and reinforce its reputation locally and internationally.
Celebrating 120 years of NUS Medicine
The #inspire120 campaign was recognised with a SABRE Award in the Educational and Cultural Institutions category, a testament to the team’s strategic storytelling, strong community engagement and audience outreach in marking NUS Medicine’s 120th anniversary.
Built around the idea that NUS Medicine’s greatest legacy is its people, #inspire120 brought together students, staff, alumni, donors, policymakers, healthcare leaders, and academics through a wide range of communications and engagement initiatives. It is the largest anniversary communications campaign undertaken by the School, reaching audiences with vastly different interests and media habits while bringing them together under a single #inspire120 identity.
Carried out in phases across three integrated communications pillars, the key elements of the #inspire120 campaign included:
Profiling and Outreach:
- Marking 120 years of the school, a special two-book bundle celebrated its past, present, and future. Health for All looked at the year’s achievements and plans ahead, while All for Health delved into key moments from the school’s history. Mirror titles, both drawn from the school’s vision, captured how the whole community has rallied around a shared goal.
- Commemorative version of MediCine, the School’s quarterly news magazine produced in English, Chinese and Spanish and distributed to guests at the NUS120 Gala dinner
- Strategic media partnerships with Nature Index and The Straits Times to showcase research and educational excellence
- Broadcast-quality documentary featuring the Minister for Health, the Minister for Education, the Dean, and former Deans, with an abridged version screened at the NUS120 Gala
Branding and Digital Engagement:
- Bespoke #Inspire120 visual identity and a special digital stationery suite comprising the #Inspire120 logo, email signature, powerpoint template, zoom background and letterhead
- Dedicated microsite serving as the campaign’s digital hub
- Inspiring Heroes series of ten human-interest profiles
- Sustained social media campaign across LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook
- Regular staff communiqué
- Large-scale, community-driven outdoor visual campaign featuring real students, staff, and alumni
Celebratory Events: The above outreach initiatives culminated into two key events involving staff, faculty, students, alumni, donors, government ministers, and healthcare leaders:
- Celebrate120 event on 2 Jul 2025, featuring a week-long mobile historical exhibition followed by a dinner reception with live entertainment, uniting the School community;
- NUS120 gala dinner on 3 Jul 2025, bringing together alumni, donors, government ministers, and healthcare leaders
A year-in-review wrap video aired in December 2025 extended the campaign’s reach into 2026. Together, these efforts helped bring the School’s legacy to a wider audience while strengthening engagement with its community and stakeholders.
How to Live to 120
NUS Medicine’s 2025 Yearbook, ‘How to Live to 120’ received two awards at the 2026 Asia-Pacific SABRE Awards: a SABRE Award in the Institutional Image category and an IN2 SABRE Award in the Corporate Reporting category. These honours recognise the publication’s strategic storytelling, execution and impact as part of the School’s 120th anniversary communications.
More than a record of the School’s milestone, the bespoke yearbook offered a forward-looking take on the School’s 120th anniversary. The anniversary was reframed as a concept-led exploration about the future of medicine and healthy longevity, positioning NUS Medicine as a credible and internationally relevant medical school.
Designed for global senior academic and healthcare audiences, the fully illustrated hardcover publication was presented in an interactive, playable board-game sleeve, offering a fresh and memorable way to explore the topic of longevity. Readers found the yearbook clear, enjoyable and effective in communicating NUS Medicine’s education and research initiatives, while positive responses from senior international institutional leaders reflected interest in its content and approach. This demonstrated the yearbook’s ability to engage key audiences in a fresh and meaningful way while maintaining the credibility expected of an institutional publication.
Together, the three awards celebrate the creativity, strategy and teamwork behind NUS Medicine’s 120th anniversary communications efforts.
Sally Toh, Head of Communications, NUS Medicine, shared, “We are very grateful for this recognition. NUS Medicine’s 120th anniversary was a meaningful milestone that gave us the opportunity to tell stories celebrating the people, ideas and values at the heart of the School. These awards are especially significant because they reflect not only the creativity and commitment of the Communications team, but also the support of our leadership, colleagues and collaborators across the NUS Medicine community who helped bring these stories to life.”
The Asia-Pacific SABRE Awards received more than 2000 entries from communications agencies, in-house corporate and institutional teams, not-for-profit organisations, government agencies, and others working across branding, reputation, and stakeholder engagement. The campaigns were evaluated by a jury of more than 35 industry leaders, representing international branding and public relations (PR) companies, such as Sony Music Entertainment, Brazen APAC, Dentsu PR Consulting, The PR Group, Tetra Pak, Endowus, Veritas Reputation, Ogilvy, Logitech, Adobe, PR Newswire, and Hitachi Energy.
Explore the #inspire120 campaign and 2025 Yearbook here:
