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Adventures in PR: Singapore stops mock protest
How do you say Irony in Singaporean? (Irony-lah?)
A mock-protest in Singapore by bone nutrient brand Anlene backfired when police intervened, Adoi reports.
About 20 men marched in ’mock protest’ along Singapore’s Orchard Road on Sunday afternoon to complain about not being able to take part a women-only run sponsored by Anlene.
A helpful member of the public alerted the police of the ”protests” and the PR stunt was halted when organizers could not produce a permit. Police are investigating the incident.
This is not the first such incident in Singapore. (When will PR people ever learn!).
Excerpts from blogger Ephraim Loy’s experience promoting a national youth festival (photo above) last year.
Our team had the same idea. Police requested to see all our placards. They wanted to know our route, whether we would be shouting any slogans, how the placards were to be fixed onto our bodies etc. By the end, our interest died down.
But we still did it. The Police advised that no permit was needed if we stayed in groups of two to three.
Since it was the PR company organizing the event - David Ketchum, CEO of Upstream Asia - who alerted me of this incident, it shows that all publicity is good publicity. (And yes, it also shows I am falling for the trap, but it is a funny story!)
Joi Ito: Twitter makes money in Japan
The US/Europe-based Twitter craze has plenty of users, but no apparent revenue streams
For those not aware, Twitter is the most successful micro-blogging/presence product in the world of Web 2.0. By allowing message postings of only up to 160 characters and delivering messages over SMS systems, Twitter has gained an influential user base created huge amounts of buzz in the tech world. The problem, however, is how to pay for the cost of all those SMS messages. (For now, it appears to be paid for by the largesse of Venture Capitalists.)
In Japan, however, revenue is built into the model from day one
Entrepreneur Joi Ito of Digital Garage explains how - in sharp contrast to Twitter in the USA - he launched Twitter in Japan with a revenue stream from advertising.
Commercial messages must be opted-in, short and engaging
Toyota is the first advertiser and they have a small square banner on the homepage telling Twitter-ers about the Toyota Twitterstream. The idea is to get companies to run a Twitterfeed encouraging their fans can follow. Fans get to see what is happening at the company and the companies can see who their fans are and offer them special events and offers. The key for companies is to have a Twitterfeed that remains interesting enough to keep customers involved.
To have advertising, it must be included from the start of the service
Since Twitter in Japan had advertisements from the beginning, people could not object to a breaking of the social contract, Joi said. “Usually it is just a small number of very vocal people who speak against a move such as this,” Joi said. “We had a few grumbles from people who had used the US-version, but nothing significant.”
Social media CAN support advertising
If you look at last.fm - a company which Joi said he has been involved - the stream of music sent over to like-minded listeners can be seen as passive advertising for the groups whose music is shared. Similar to a broadcast radio, last.fm allows musicians to advertise to you, but they are doing so via a social media system. “The last.fm system becomes a kind of automated word of mouth from one friend to another.” Another example of social media successfully incorporating advertising is Blyk, the British-based mobile phone company that gives away free minutes in exchange for users interacting with advertising. One of the most frequent requests on Blyk’s help line is people requesting more interaction with the advertisements.
But advertisers (and musicians) need to socialize their messages
The difficulty is that Toyota - and any other advertiser using Twitter - will be forced to produce material that actually interests users. The level of tolerance for old-style push advertising will be very low among the Twitterati - and they will not hide their views. A good example how to do it right was a GM blog run by a vice chairman - perhaps called fast lane (anyone know?) - that came across as a social gathering of people chatting around a fireside with the man making the product they adored. The key is striking the right conversational tone.
Could Wikipedia take ads?
If Wikipedia took ads, much of the fundraising for infrastructure would be unnecessary. It is, however, extremely difficult to convince a community to alter the social contract. The Wikia commmunity, on the other hand, accepts ads relevant to their narrow topics. If you are the Buick club, you are happy to have GM ads on your site. It feels like sponsorship, like a racecar driver with ads on his jacket. Advertising within social media needs to thought of in terms of team sponsorship-style approach.Note: Apologies for the background noise in the video. It was friends at Martin Varsavsky’s Techtalk Menorca playing the WiiFit.
Adam Schokora
Adam Schokora is a Shanghai-based Chinese Internet watcher who leads Edelman Digital in China. He also contributes to a number of blogs, including the wildly popular Danwei.org, with posts on Internet trends, developments in digital communications, media and his internet video show “The Shanghai Beat”.
Twitter in China (Cloned of course)
The Pacific Ocean appeared to protect China from the Twitter craze hitting the US and Europe over the last year.
No more!
(Note for Luddite friends: Twitter is a San Francisco micro-blogging phenome that has thousands of people sending 160 character sms messages to each other. It is weird, yes, but also somewhat addictive.)
China has Twitter-ers both in English and in Chinese, but the local specialty of knock-offs has already kicked in. Adam J. Schokora of Edelman Digital speaks in this video about Twitter knock-offs Fanfou, Jiwai and the biggest of them all, Zuosa.
Schokora estimates that while there are only 7,000 Chinese-language Twitter-ers, Zuosa has more than 600,000.
Jiwai has the best looking homepage, but none of them have Twhirl-like offline client. How do you say “Business Opportunity” in Chinese?
To follow China Twitters in English, check out the Chinalist compiled by Christine Lu.
Upstream Asia
Upstream Asia is Hong Kong-based Asia-focussed public relations company with offices in Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney and Taipei, as well as a branded affiliate in Tokyo.
Upstream Asia is listed on London’s AIM.
David Ketchum
David Ketchum is CEO of Upstream Asia, an Asia-focussed public relations company with offices in Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney and Taipei, as well as a branded affiliate in Tokyo.
Ketchum has worked for 23 years in branding, marketing and communications, including posts with Hill and Knowlton, Burson-Marsteller and Calvin Klein.
He is chairman of the Asia Digital Marketing Association; chairman of the Council of Public Relations Firms in Hong Kong; and author of Big M, Little m Marketing New strategies for a New Asia.
Future of Media in Asia Lunch in Hong Kong
UPDATE: Change of speaker.
I have organized a luncheon gathering on the future of media in Asia timed to coincide with The Society of Publishers in Asia 2008 Awards for Editorial Excellence dinner in Hong Kong. Reserve soon if you want to attend this luncheon, as space is extremely limited.
In addition to those in town from across Asia, the distinguished panelists include:
Anna Chan - Head of Search, Asia Pacific, Universal McCann who oversees the development and effectiveness of Universal McCann search activities for clients such as Microsoft, Xbox, Nortel, MasterCard, UPS, and Tiffany.
Torie Henderson – Hong Kong-based Managing Director of OMD International, who will speak about Asia’s latest advertising trends, developments and innovations.
Angela Mackay – Hong Kong-based Executive Director of FT who leads the Asia commercial operations and sits on the FT management board, will share her insights on the future trends in traditional print and online business in the face of new media era.
Felix Soh – Singapore-based Director of the Straits Times’ RazorTV will give the first public demonstration of paper’s soon-to-be-launched live interactive Internet TV.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
12:30pm for 12:45 pm – Lunch
1:10pm – Talk
The Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Hong Kong
1st Floor, North Block, 2 Lower Albert Road, Central, Hong Kong
$400 per person
Co-sponsored by The Society of Publishers in Asia, the Asia Digital Marketing Association and the Foreign Correspondents Club of Hong Kong, the luncheon will take place at The Foreign Correspondents’ Club.
Sincerely,
Thomas Crampton
Event organizer and convenor
David Ketchum
Chair, ADMA
Alan Lammin
Chair, SOPA
Ø SOPA and ADMA members should reserve via their organizations.
Ø FCC members contact (852) 2521 1511 or email concierge @ fcchk. org.
Ø Confirmation will be sent once booking is accepted. If you do not receive a confirmation within two working days, please contact FCC Reception at: (852) 2521-1511 or email to: concierge @ fcchk. org.
Ø Please advise if any vegetarian meal is required.
Tom Doctoroff: Paul French is wrong about China (and Tom Doctoroff)
Tom Doctoroff, CEO of J. Walter Thompson for Greater China, accepted my invitation to respond to the critique of his book by Shanghai-based writer and businessman Paul French.
In a nutshell, French said (blog posting here or video here)hat Doctoroff falsely claims a pioneering role in opening China in his book Billions: Selling to the new Chinese consumer.
The real pioneer, French said, is Carl Crow, a Shanghai adman in the 1920s and 1930s who introduced Buick and other brands to China. French recently published the book Carl Crow, a tough old China hand.
Doctoroff’s reply to French:
Thomas,
I don’t know what to say. I believe the posting is unbalanced and the tone is bully-boy cocky.
How does one respond to a sweeping statement — at least my book, on the first page, warns of “generalizations” — that yours truly is “wrong about China.”
And then he rails against me, sarcasm dripping, for having the audacity to call myself a “pioneer” when Carl Crow had already seen “everything.” He’s playing a gotcha game gone bad.
First, I have never called myself a pioneer. And, by the way, no one “took credit” (or implied involvement) for launching Buick. We did not even do that work. Bates did.
Second, Carl Crow was man of ahead of his time — yes, he was a “pioneer” and blessed with extraordinary insight and observational skill. However, he did not see “everything.”
The world has changed just a bit in 75 years.
He did not see a middle class boasting 150 million people and an auto market with 6 million passenger cars sold per year. He did not see a mass market — now penetrating the rural fringe — snapping up mobile phones and using them to transform their lives. He did not see multinational corporations setting up R&D centers and manufacturing scale on the mainland. He did not see that extraordinary release of energy that resulted from the embrace of capital markets.
For anyone to assume that “everything” has been seen before discredits that extraordinary genius of the Chinese people and their ability to adapt to an evolving world without sacrificing their enduring cultural orientation.
It also denigrates the efforts of, yes, expatriate businessmen who, while far from perfect and certainly not always noble, have done their part to make China a more dynamic place as the 21st century unfolds.
Tom Doctoroff
Paul French: Why Tom Doctoroff is wrong about China
Shanghai-based writer/businessman Paul French rants (and froths a little) in this video about why China marketing guru Tom Doctoroff is wrong about China.
Doctoroff is CEO Greater China of J. Walter Thompson, a blogger and author of the bestselling book Billions: Selling to the New Chinese Consumer.
UPDATE: Doctoroff accepted my invitation to reply and did so in this posting: Tom Doctoroff: Paul French is wrong about China (and Tom Doctoroff)
Why is French apoplectic?
French says that Doctoroff and other current-day China gurus from the west falsely claim pioneering roles in opening up China.
In fact, the real foreign pioneer in opening China’s market to western-style consumerism was the 1920s and 1930s Shanghai adman Carl Crow.
In particular, French said Doctoroff claims to be the first to launch Buick in China (which Crow did), the first to use a woman in a car advertisement (which Crow did) as well as a few other things that Crow did first. (The title of Doctoroff’s own book - Billions - echoes Crow’s book 400 Million Consumers)
Full disclosure of the French agenda: He wrote a (great) biography called Carl Crow, a Tough Old China Hand.
I also highly recommend reading Crows own essays on China Foreign Devils in the Flowery Kingdom. Crow’s seminal work, 400 Million Consumers, will soon be issued in reprint by the China Economic Review.
Be great to hear from Doctoroff on this!
UPDATE: Doctoroff accepted my invitation to reply and did so in this posting: Tom Doctoroff: Paul French is wrong about China (and Tom Doctoroff)
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