Sales, Social and Tech

Advertisers and marketers are often tasked to take advantage of festive holidays to bring in the crowd with catchy taglines and creative advertisements. As most festive holidays in Singapore center around religious tradition and culture, it is important that the advertisement does not offend or against them. For IKEA Singapore, their "Bling Glamour Home" Raya advertisement has come under fire on their Facebook Page on how IKEA Singapore's creative definition as a total misinterpretation of the Muslim community. Even though I am not a Muslim, I found this IKEA advertisement to be a display of ignorance on the creative team on how Hari Raya Aidilfitri is celebrated. If the creative team took just ten minutes to Google and understand the real meaning of the Hari Raya Aidilfitri festival, it would have same them from the backlash of fans, especially those from the Muslim community. Hari Raya Aidilftri is the"festival of breaking of the fast". A quick Goog...

I was going through the ChurpChurp app over the weekend and these two campaigns appeared on it. UAT stands for User Acceptance Test and probably the two was targeted at the advertisers to see how their campaign would like on the app. It shouldn't have appeared on the end-user app but it did. I wonder if other Churpers saw these two campaigns on their app recently. ChurpChurp "allow members can get cash rewards for sharing brand messages, discover what people are reading or watching on the Internet, and be part of an awesome community and meet like-minded friends."

Model Manuela Arbelaez gave away a USD 21,960 car away on the game show "The Price Is Right" and the clip has become the gameshow's most viewed video in its Youtube channel. The video clip has already generated 5 million views as of this writing. The most popular video I can find on the "The Price Is Right" channel is the clip of the "USD7,000" iPhone 6, which was looking at 1.8 million views. Model Manuela Arbelaez wasn't fired for her gaffe though she thought she would be. Wrote Today , “It was a brain fart,” said Arbelaez. “I just zoned out. I literally did not see that coming. My body took over and reacted before my brain had a chance to stop it.” The goof brought Arbelaez to tears and sent “Price is Right” host Drew Carey into a giggle fit. “Congratulations, Manuela just gave you a car,” Carey told the contestant.  This gaffe probably generated more attention to the show that it ever had. In Singapore, with h...

Two of Singapore top banks are in a vanity battle of who has the most number of Facebook likes that ironically have little or no effect on their bottom line. Yet, OCBC Singapore and DBS Bank decided it is worth fight over at Marketing Interactive. Wrote Rezwana Manjur of Marketing Interactive , "OCBC Bank’s claim that it is the leading social media bank in Singapore has sparked retaliation from arch rival DBS.... ... In reaction to OCBC’s claims, Edna Koh, senior vice president, group strategic marketing & communications, DBS Bank has refuted the claims and told Marketing that in 2010, DBS was the first Asian bank in Singapore to adopt a regional corporate Facebook page which now has over 590,000 fans across its 12 Facebook pages established for different audiences...." If you were to ask either OCBC or DBS Bank how much of these likes or fans are actually account holders of the respective bank, you are more likely to get a blank check than a definite answer. ...

GrabTaxi has stolen ComfortDelgro Taxi's booking thunder since the app came into Singapore around April 2014. Comfort Taxi has launched a new app and will make this new app the de factor app by early March 2015. Can a new design alone help ComfortDelgro Taxi kick GrabTaxi off its pedestal and regain its number one spot? Comfort Taxi new app, ComfortDelgro Taxi Booking App, has a major design improvement from its predecessor. After you signed in, you will see the skyline of the Marina Bay area with different positions of the sun to show the various time of the day. Though the booking feature is quite standard, it is an improvement from the previous design. If you do decide to cancel, there is an option to feedback to ComfortDelgro the reason for the cancellation. The new ComforDelgro Taxi app also has a menu button to select several options and the one that I liked most is the e-receipt option. This eReceipt breaks down the various components of the taxi fare and...

Started a Facebook Page? Singapore Courts had ruled that that Facebook Page does not belong to you and Facebook has full ownership of it. This issue was raised when Mr Lee Kien Meng, who owns Senatus , sued one of its previous clients, Mr Frank Cintamini, after Mr Cintami removed Senatus' administrator rights. Mr Cintamini removed Senatus after a fall out and suspecting the company of two hacking incidents. Wrote AsiaOne , He asked the court to declare him the owner and sole administrator of the two pages and to order Mr Cintamani to give up all rights to the pages to him. - See more at: http://digital.asiaone.com/digital/news/who-owns-facebook-page#sthash.xgx6V2uc.dpuf He asked the court to declare him the owner and sole administrator of the two pages and to order Mr Cintamani to give up all rights to the pages to him. Justice Chan Seng Onn on Tuesday upheld the lower court's decision, pointing out there are no terms in Facebook's service agreement which...

My #SG50ShadesOfGrey tweet was featured on BBC Trending. I famous or not? These Singaporeans are sharing '50 Shades of Singapore' http://t.co/8AILMc2GKE #SG50shadesofgrey pic.twitter.com/O7pwd6vSW1 — BBC Trending (@BBCtrending) February 17, 2015