Sales, Social and Tech

Cathay Organisation, owners of Cineleisure, has put up Pink Dot ads on its escalators. To the chagrin of those against Pink Dot contacted Singapore advertising watchdog, the Advertising Standards Authority of Singapore (ASAS), to weigh in the legality of the advertisement. ASAS responded and reports highlighted that the watchdog asks Cathay Organisation to remove the phrase "Supporting the freedom to love" as it "may affect public sensitivities due to the issues at hand". ASAS did highlight that the rest of advertisement was ok by them. Read more here . Isn't it strange for the watchdog to ask the owner the medium rather than the advertisers to make changes to the ad? Cathay Organisation also felt that the changes should have been directed to the Pink Dot organisers rather they, the medium owner. “Given that the ownership of the ad belongs to Pink Dot, Cathay is not in the position to decide on the removal of the statement ‘Supporting the freedom ...

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...

The recent reaction of Aljunied-Hougang Town Council's to the termination of AIMS financial computer services have put a spotlight on the Town Council's annual reports. Alex Au of Yawning Bread blog has been scrutinising the Town Council's annual report on the amount paid to AIMS for the financial computer service. You can read Part 1 , Part 2 and Part 3 here. Computing services falls under General and Administrative Expenditure section and it was interesting to see that Advertising, PR and Publicity is sometimes one of the highest expenditure spent, yet, details of such expenditure is not to be found. Expenditure on Public Relations, Advertising and Publicity 2010 2011 2012 Ang Mo Kio  - Yio Chu Kang  $          352,401  $        620,520   Bishan - Toa Payoh Town Council  $     ...

(Update: Burger King SG has made this video private and is no longer publicly accessible.) You know an ad campaign has gone terrible wrong when it needs explaining. Burger King SG recently launched an interactive Youtube video re-enacting an incident in Singapore where a young man was film pushing an elderly woman on the bus. This video aimed to promote its flame grill chicken products. Though the video has not reached viral status yet, comments have been against the video. Commented on MC Trave on Facebook, "In regards to the advertisment of the Furious Man about to hit the elderly, i demand Burger King to take it down and issue an apology. The incident is not something you can just simply capitalise on to sell your food." At the YouTube site, sgxpress95 wrote, "hi BK, on behalf of the people involved in the fight, i hope you do not release the videos as,they (including me) find it as offensive." Burger King Singapore has since replied on its Faceb...

There is no doubt that Nokia wants to win the smartphone wars with its PureView technology to out-shoot the competition. Unfortunately, social media has once again exposed one of the photos as falsely advertised as taken from the to-be-launched Nokia Lumia 920 phone. See the photo below, it looks great and was allegedly taken by the Nokia Lumia 920 phone. Source: Mashable Blogger sefsar was rather curious about the light sparkles in the photo. Wrote sefsar , I decided to do a bit more research based on the data we have at hand. Going by these still images it’s hard to tell what device really took the photos. We don’t have the EXIF data because these are part of a video, and there’s no cheeky reflections we can zoom in and enhance. However, there is one thing, that once seen can’t be unseen. Diffractions. Diffractions are the sparkle affect generated around the bright lights in the background. Sefsar's curiosity was soon answered with a photo from...

Nokia must be really desperate to get into the smartphone market that they released an ad which showed the  features of Pureview innovation. Sharp-eye media outlets, however, spotted a frame with a camera man holding a big ass DSLR camera to show Nokia's Optimised Image Stablisation feature. Nokia has since apologise for releasing the fake ad. Wrote The Verge , "As you can see in the video above, there's a curious reflection in the window of the trailer in the background. It's not a young man riding his bicycle alongside the cheerful model, but instead a big white van with a lighting rig and a cameraman standing in the doorway — with what appears to be a large camera rig. Whatever he's holding, we can reasonably agree it's not a Lumia 920." And the Nokia apology, "Of course, hindsight is 20/20, but we should have posted a disclaimer stating this was a representation of OIS only. This was not shot with a Lumia 920. At least, not yet. We ap...

(Update: I have been updated that the list price now for a full page full color for Straits Times is now SGD49k.) One of my journalist friend at Telecom Asia updated his status that he was seeking comments from both the PR of M1 and Starhub over an advertisement. His eagle sharp eye noticed that in the M1 ad, to promote the Fibre Broadband Bundle at COMEX 2012, had a hotline number that was not to M1's 1627. Pay attention to the last line - For more information, visit m1.com.sg/msquard or call 1633. Dial 1633 and the first thing you will is "Welcome to Starhub customer care.." A quick Google search showed that a full page full colour ad might cost up to SGD33,206,04  before GST and other discounts.  An expensive lesson for the person who approved this ad. 

BMW SG ran an ad on Sunday with four women in a car, presumably a BMW, with the tagline "BMW Premium Selection. Certified Pre-Owned." The focus was obviously not on the BMW car. From a Facebook user. Another ad appeared Monday to explain to readers that the ad in the papers the day before was an April Fool's joke. When a joke needs to be explained, it is a failed joke. From the same Facebook user. The target of the joke was obviously to BMW's male audience only and shouting out to the women readers that only men can have access to BMW premium selection. Given that women today in Singapore have almost the same opportunities as men, this April Fool's joke smack straight to create the perception of male chauvinism. This joke enforces the stereotyping of Singapore women to be materialistic as they can be easily be pre-owned, presumably with a BMW, even to a stage of being certified.  The worst part of it is the timing of the joke. With recen...

When I blogged about how Microsoft wants to " smoke " Singaporeans when they launch "Get Smoked by Windows Phone" campaign here, a challenger in US who won  got "smoked" by Microsoft. "Smoke" in local Singapore slang means to bluff, cause confusion, etc.. A Samsung Galaxy Nexus user in the US challenged the Windows Phone and won, he was indeed "smoked" by the Microsoft store staff. Wrote Sahas Katta , My opponent finished a split-second later. She had two live tiles on her home screen displaying the weather of two different cities as well. Why does it take longer on Windows Phone? She had to perform two actions. First, she hit the power button to turn on the screen. Second, she had to swipe away the lock screen. That’s pretty much as fast as it gets on that platform. Windows Phone takes two interactions. Android takes just one.  After pressing for a better reason, I was told that Windows Phone won “just because.” Sahas Katta ...

Ok, the ad below wasn't for Miss Universe Singapore. However, this is classic case of copywriting gone wrong. Image from a Facebook user...

There might be some optimism in the air that that global economy is improving and that we could be celebrating the upswing next year. However, the traditional media do not share the same optimism. The publishers might be putting a front, but the journalists themselves are not so certain how the improved economy would be beneficial to them. My recent lunch with a senior journalist and had conversations revolving around the economy and the journalist expressed concerned that traditional media will not benefit from the pending recovery. The concern was that when the economy recovered, it would be quite amazing if the vendor would be willing to spend ten of thousands in a full colour full page ad just for one issue.  But we all know that a successful ad campaign can only work over a series of issues rather than just one off. The senior journalist highlighted that with this amount of capital outlay, the vendor could just look at the digital alternative to get the job done. ...

I recently blogged about the Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey that showed personal recommendations were the most trusted globally . In a recent article at Marketing-Interactive on the Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey, Singaporeans have highlighted that they too trust personal recommendations the most. Wrote John Davidson of Marketing-Interactive , In Singapore the results were fairly similar, except that editorial such as newspaper articles was the second most trusted form of advertising (80%), after personal recommendations (93%). In comparison, newspapers were ranked 4th globally. I wonder if the print publishers and PR agencies caught this statement as this shows the importance of Singaporeans looking at newspapers as a trusted source. With personal recommendations still ranked as number one in Singapore, are the big brands here ready to take social marketing to the next steps?

Nielsen recently released its Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey of up to 25,000 Internet consumers from 50 countries and it was found that recommendations from personal acquaintances or opinions posted by consumers online are the most trusted forms of advertising. 1 up for social marketing/PR. Image from blog.nielsen.com. I am not surprised by the findings. More often, some friends would come to me and ask me to recommend which DSLR they should buy. I would usually tell them how I felt about a Nikon or Canon DSLR and the difference both cameras bring to the photo. A friend bought a Canon compact digital camera and it broke down a couple of times in less than year. She has been complaining of the brand since to her friends and this has resulted in their distrust for the brand. Recommendations have been the most trusted since the beginning of mankind. The cave drawings of mammoth was in a way recommendations made by hunter to another. The medium has, however, changed...