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?
[...] ABC PR [...]