‍Pulse Check on a Landmark:

How a Consultancy Used Omnibus to Capture Public Sentiment on Key Business Road in Singapore. 

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Challenge
A leading urban planning and placemaking consultancy needed to assess how Singapore residents truly felt about one of the country’s most iconic public spaces: Main Business Roads.

As conversations around revitalizing public spaces and reimagining the retail experience intensified, the consultancy was supporting strategic planning for future developments in the area. But before making recommendations, they needed to ground their insights in real public sentiment—not just anecdotal impressions.

They were looking for a simple, credible, and fast way to capture a snapshot of resident advocacy: Did people still feel connected to main business road? Would they recommend it to others? And how strong was that sentiment, really?

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Approach
We used our weekly Omnibus survey to deploy a single, high-impact question to a nationally representative sample of Singapore residents:

“On a scale from 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend Orchard Road to a friend or visitor to Singapore?”

This NPS-style format allowed us to translate public sentiment into a quantifiable score, quickly surfacing how Singaporeans across age, gender, and region felt about the precinct.

Despite the simplicity of the question, the data yielded meaningful layers of insight:

• Who were Orchard Road’s biggest advocates?
  
  
• Where were the detractors, and what might that mean for placemaking?
  
  
• Was there room to improve how the space serves different communities?
  
  

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All of this was delivered within just a few days—making it ideal for inclusion in a broader planning report or stakeholder presentation.

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Outcome
- A clear, data-driven measure of Orchard Road’s current public standing
- Insights the consultancy could use to inform development proposals, urban renewal strategies, and community engagement efforts
- A fast, cost-effective solution—delivered without the need for lengthy custom research
- A credible signal for city planners, developers, and partners: here’s how residents really feel

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Why it worked:
Even a single question—when asked the right way, to the right people—can unlock powerful insight. With Omnibus, the consultancy was able to turn a straightforward prompt into a strategic input for future-facing decisions, helping shape a more resident-aligned Orchard Road.