More PR Would Help Prima Deli?

When the news first came out about Prima Deli’s woes, I watched closely what the PR response would be.

From the looks of it, it seems they have (as they rightly should) a crisis management plan in place to deal with such incidences. The visible steps include:
- Stopping further production
- Recalling similar products
- Set up hotlines for public enquiries
- Cooperate with health authorities on investigations and inspections

PR wise, could more have been done?

Funny thing is, when I mention to people that this is the time when Prima Deli needs PR the most, many chuckled at the idea. But why is it such a faraway idea to engage PR services in such a great hour of need?

Looks like PR will stay as a misunderstood profession a little longer than I thought…

Posting for the Sake of it.

Embarrassingly, I have not put up a single post on this blog for ages. Perhaps my only excuse is that I have been putting up more stuff at my OTHER blog, and admittedly, those posts were about more frivolous issues like tackling world poverty, addressing the role of developing nations in reducing global warming and the latest developments in nanotechnology, and space travel. =)

But I’ll leave those mundane issues for my other blog. What intrigues me more now, is why people actually feel obliged to update their blogs ever so often. It’s not as if I’ve become the new daily newspaper, without which people will find something amiss in their lives.

Yes, of course regular updates will ensure you also have a regular stream of readers. And many others will chide me for saying this, but do you REALLY have that much to write about all the time?

Even the national papers have dry spells and have to resort to pulling out filed stories to fill the pages, so why can’t my blog? Afterall, I don’t have an army of reporters running amok over the island filing stories every day, not to mention the countless reporter wannabes who send the dumbest stuff to STOMP over their MMS, 3G or wi-fi enabled handphones.

So how many people out there actually blog for the sake of blogging? How many of us are guilty of putting up stuff simply because we fear losing our online audience, assuming there is one?

The Truth About Embargoes

As the saying goes, rules are made to be broken, or at least it seems to some people.

I was told there was an MOE embargo on this school announcement but was later told (by the Straits Times journalist, no less) a day and a half earlier that MOE has (suddenly) lifted the embargo! A quick check with my client however, confirmed otherwise. So being the nice embargo-respecting PR person, we worked along the original timeline.

Only to be informed later that the news was already broken and PUBLISHED in The New Paper, a good ONE DAY before the embargo was up. So from then on, all bets were off and all hell broke loose.

The rest of the day was spend frantically fast-forwarding everything on the timeline by 24 hours or more, churning out emails and media announcements to the various people. After that was another mad rush to follow up with the journalists on their queries and requests for more information.

It was almost 10pm by the time the entire madness ended.

I later found out that one particular school broke the embargo and released the news to TNP regardless. Was it a genuine mistake? Did the people in the school not understand what a news embargo meant, or were they simply hell bent on breaking the news before everyone else in the hope that they would get more coverage in the press?

Either way, it worked, because when the news was published this morning, they DID get more mentions than anyone else.

How much do the media and PR practitioners respect news embargoes? A quick check with my colleagues affirmed that most (if not all) PR people would keep to the rules, simply because more often than not, these rules protected them, and not the other way around. However, should it appear too tempting to break an embargo (either to gain favour with a particular media or otherwise), would we do it?

At the end of the day, news embargoes can only hold as long as both (in this case, all) parties abide by them. It’s an unwritten rule of the game, isn’t it? But does being an unwritten rule also mean that we can break it as and when we see the benefits of it, because doing so brings no adverse consequences whatsoever?

Failure to Launch

It’s been almost a week since Sparklette invited me to the Halo 3 post launch event at The Butter Factory.

Sparklette invited Gary and I to the Halo 3 post launch event at Butter Factory last week. Don’t ask me how she got the invitation… I guess popular bloggers have their privileges too!

And boy, did she have privilege! We were given goodie bags at the entrance. Ours contained a Halo 3 notebook, cap and other insignificant collaterals, all in a green (and quite ugly and cheapskate-looking, I must add) non-woven bag. Sparklette’s? Her goodie bag was an REAL sling bag and among other things, what most people at the event would have been there for: the Halo 3 game itself.

Now, isn’t there a Chinese idiom that says all who steps past your door is a guest? Why the difference? Anyway, not wanting to sound sore about being discriminated against or appearing cheapskate myself (I personally, cross my heart, don’t desire or expect much from goodie bags), I kept my peace. After all, I don’t even have an Xbox console at home to play the game even if they had given me a copy! It was more for the company of friends that I was there, wasn’t it?

But the second-class citizen feeling didn’t stop there. The drinks coupon (only ONE drink per person, for our own good perhaps) we were given only entitled us to a vodka-Redbull cocktail and nothing else, not even a beer! The nonchalant take-it-or-leave-it, can’t-be-bothered-with-cheapskates-like-you attitude we got from the bartender didn’t help one bit. In the end, we had to make do with the concoction, which by the way tasted like diluted Redbull with a tinge of vodka. (Of course, Sparklette, as a “VIP” got a different drinks coupon which offered her the whole range of house pours and beer.)

To add insult to injury, we discovered while we were nursing (our wounds, and) our only drink for the night, that the buffet spread was cordoned off for “VIPs” only and not to “ordinary” guests like us and so we had no food, although the event was to start at 7pm! In the end, Sparklette had to go get food for all of us.

Were Xbox and Halo 3 so tight on budget that they had to discriminate between “VIPs” and “Guests”? How much money can you save from depriving guests (invited, nonetheless) of proper drinks and food, and at what cost? I wonder how much damage the poorly organized event did that night and I dread to think what if there had been media there that night. Did they presume that whoever came would be more than content with the all-night-free gaming available? Or did they really think that the moment “Master Chief” appeared and struck poses reminiscent of Mocca ads, all the complaints and unpleasantness would simply fade away?

For whatever reason, the organizers later went around distributing “VIP” drinks coupon (which we readily accepted) and that was about the only saving grace that night.

BUT, having complained about all that, I MUST ADD that it was a most enjoyable night, mostly due to the wonderful company I was in that day! We had a great time chatting and would have gone on longer if not for the lateness of the hour. Well, at least the initial fear of awkward silence did not materialize!

Iran Seeks Peace, My Foot!

TODAY newspaper ran this article yesterday about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to the United States. It wrote:

“In an interview with AP, Dr Ahmadinejad presented his country as a reasonable seeker of peace and justice. He denied that it holds any violent intentions against the US, Israel or any of its immediate neighbours.”

Yeah right. The very fact that the broadcast of the visit “did not appear on channels that broadcast in Farsi, the language of Iran” (according to The Straits Times) tells you a lot of how much he wants the folks back at home to know about the views he makes in the US.

History has taught us to be careful of those who repeatedly use deception to lull the world into peace before going for the jugular, and one would be wise to learn from the lessons from times gone by.

We should not forget how the Japanese were still negotiating with the Americans until 30 minutes before the attack on Pearl Harbour commenced. We must also remember how Adolf Hitler placated the European nations by saying he has no hostile intentions towards them and how he had only wanted to peacefully unite the great Aryan people who had been dispersed across the Sudetenland.

Quoting Adolf Hitler on his desire to annex part of Czechoslovakia:

“It is the last territorial claim which I have to make in Europe, but it is the claim from which I will not recede.” (26 September 1938)

A few days later, on 30 September, Hitler and then British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain signed the Munich Agreement, “noting the desire of the two peoples to never go to war with another again, and resolve to consult each other on issues of concern, and to contribute to peace in Europe.”

This agreement, which some refer to as the “Munich Betrayal”, was considered a success in PM Chamberlain’s ‘Policy of Appeasement’ and he returned to a hero’s welcome in Britain. Hitler was even made Time magazine’s ‘Man of the Year’ for 1938!

And we all know how Hitler broke his word and every memorandum of peace he signed. We must understand that the outward show of his desire for peace was all a feint to stall for time while he built up his army and prepared for war. He deliberately deceived whole nations, using political trickery and his personal charisma, for the benefit of gaining the element of surprise when he eventually makes his move.

“Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
~George Santayana

(Other sources: The Origins of the Second World War, by Joachim Remak, 1976.)

ABC PR

By now, all of us would have probably lost count how many times we turned our heads and gawked in disgust as the ABC (no, not American Born Chinese… Ah Beng Chia!) zoomed past, complete with broken down engine noises, hissing gases, flashing undercarriage strobe lights and all.

I’ve always wondered if those drivers realize their zng-ed up rides are actually drawing irritated stares and not fawning admiration. And even if they did, would they really care?

Yet the same is true in public relations. For want of a better term, I call such PR efforts ‘Ah Beng Chia PR’.

ABC PR is a PR misnomer where companies spend tons of money sprucing up the visibility of their products, not to highlight the superior performance, efficacy or advantages of these products, but for the sole purpose of indiscriminatingly drawing attention from the people it comes into contact with, even if such attention elicits negative or undesirable feelings and reactions.

Simply put, ‘Ah Beng Chia PR’ is the type that comes as quickly as it goes, often very loudly and ‘in-your-face’. Such PR efforts often create more irk than affirmation from the public and whatever attention it draws is almost certainly negative and from the wrong target audience. Still, the owner of such efforts will still rejoice in having turned heads and are blind to the fact that whatever attention it has attracted is negative and counterproductive.

To them, bad publicity is still publicity. As long as people notice them and acknowledge their presence, they would have achieved their PR objectives.

Which therefore begs the question: How many of us are guilty of doing ABC PR?

Let’s Face it. It’s Facebook

Maybe I’ve not been using Facebook correctly, but after a while, I’m beginning to tire of keeping up with the avalanche of notifications and alerts I get each time I sign in. What’s the fun in receiving provocative pokes and undrinkable beer, and being told someone’s imaginary vampire bit my arse while I was offline?

Pardon my lack of imaginative childhood, but no, such exploits do not tickle me after a while. You mean you actually get a kick out of sending someone a Harry Potter spell, and for the fifth time this week?

Or do people feel their egos stroked when they see that more and more people have labeled them as a “friend”? Wasn’t that what Friendster was for? So what’s the difference?

Interactivity is not about sending someone a pot of flowers (which you’d only see several days later) because she sent you an egg that hatched into a chick. If not for applications like Scrabulous to sustain my interest, I would have quit Facebook long ago.

Some of my colleagues have also tired of it and have been giving me that knowing look whenever someone talks about Facebook.

Am I getting too old for this? Or does anyone else share the same feelings as me? Anyone out there who would like to share how they managed to get Facebook to sustain their interest? I want to know if I’m really missing out something wonderful in Facebook or if as I fear, it’s just another passing fad in our fast-changing world.

Books and Novels

Have been reading novels and other fictitious crap recently and got kinda sick of it. So I decided to switch to reading something more serious for a change…

I’ve always held an interest for Middle-Eastern affairs even before I visited Israel a few years back. It was a peaceful and beautifully amazing country, despite what the world media says about it all the time. I love Israel!

PR stands for…?

Public Relations is a weird field that most people find bewildering, both to comprehend and to practise.

I’ve been in it for almost 2 years now and still get stuck whenever friends and family members ask me what I do for a living. I simply can’t explain easily to a lay person what PR is and what it offers, in a way that will not make the profession sound fluffy, completely non-essential and like a big waste of money and resources.

And I believe many PR practitioners may go through the same agony as I do… Many have started this debate by stating what PR is not (and really, it IS much easier trying to explain things that way), but let’s start by talking about what PR is.

PR actually stands for Prostitution Ring, because such is the truth about working in PR:

1. You work weird hours (long, long nights, weekends, public holidays)…
Just like prostitutes.

2. They pay you to make the client happy…
Just like a prostitute.

3. The client pays a lot of money, but your employer keeps almost every penny…
Just like a prostitute.

4. You are rewarded for fulfilling the client’s dreams…
Just like a prostitute.

5. Your friendships fall apart and you end up hanging out with people in the same profession as you…
Just like a prostitute.

6. When you have to meet the client you always have to be perfectly groomed…
Just like a prostitute.

7. But when you go back home it seems like you are coming back from hell…
Just like a prostitute.

8. The client always wants to pay less but expects incredible things from you…
Just like a prostitute.

9. When people ask you about your job, you have difficulties explaining it…
Just like a prostitute.

10. Everyday when you wake up, you say: “I’m not going to spend the rest of my life doing this.”
Just like a prostitute.

But seriously, PR seems like it’s suffering from an image problem. Has anyone found an easy, idiot-proof way to explain PR to the ignorant masses? Pray tell, will you?