Mr Sim S. Lim, Singapore country manager at DBS bank, was quoted by Straits Times as saying, “Half a million (dollars) against a company that makes about $7 billion in revenue? I think we can survive.” It is precisely statements like this that provoke fraudsters to launch even more daring attacks on large institutions to take them down a peg or two. Besides, half a million dollars means a lot to many Singaporeans – let’s not trivialise their losses.
I feel a headache coming on whenever there’s a disruption to public services. DBS, PUB, SMRT… I hope they don’t call for comments because then I would feel obliged to say something. My worst experience occurred two weeks ago when I had to trudge up the slippery slope to MediaCorp because I couldn’t get a taxi. All for 30 seconds’ worth of comments on national TV. It’s easy for me to recommend what people should do in a crisis, but until we are confronted with a genuine crisis, we wouldn’t know if our strategies work. We try to avoid other people’s mistakes and use our accrued knowledge as a strategy. In 2011, Singapore offered rich pickings. In reducing the margin of error, we are also reducing public relations to a hard science. Whatever happened to the wicked delight we used to take in spinning? How can you call us the dark side where there’s no darkness but sterile SOPs (Twitter/Facebook/SMS notifications) published in black-and-white for all to see, and a fastidious attention to “covering all grounds”. PR is really all about common sense; that is, if we had any to know how to use it in the first place. Go figure.
It’s been months, well…just 1.5 months, since I last updated this site. I’ve committed the sin I’ve always warned my clients about – if you’re setting up a website, make sure you update it regularly, otherwise, your readers will lose interest in what you’re doing. I could give the excuse that I got married and I was too caught up with work to update this site, but I’m not going to do that although I really got married, and I even developed a throat infection a day before the ceremony. I’m still recovering from it.
In life we make excuses for things we don’t want to do because we simply don’t want to do them. And I realise I’m that sort of person – I will write when I feel like writing, when I feel I’ve got something meaningful to say, like today. So many things have happened in the last 1.5 months since I last blogged here. I got married (you already know that), Steve Jobs passed away, European expats based in Singapore are being deployed back to their home countries by the thousands (this will impact adversely on the rental market I’m sure), the pharma industry is redistributing marketing money to their legal departments (whatever legal tussles they are embroiled in over in the US has a trickle-down effect worldwide including in Asia, I heard)…
There were many topics I could have blogged about, but I chose not to because I was not on fire. When I’m not on fire you won’t want to read my posts. This is not good PR. I’m not making much sense. Which is good. There’s too much control in PR today. Sometimes, all we need to do is to be real.
I’m sure all of us have been at the receiving end of cold callers offering us instant credit facilities and membership privileges. All this may come to an end soon if you decide to delist from the Do-Not-Call (what about Do-Not-Harrass?) registry set up by the new Data Protection Commission. While some long-suffering consumers may rejoice, some service providers are not so happy, especially those who foresee their operating costs surging. In an interview with Straits Times today, “business owner Ho Teng Chee says a significant portion of his sales comes from customers who are contacted via unsolicited SMSes.” With the new registry, his costs will be jacked up as he has to hire additional manpower to screen calls, not to mention the reduced pool of potential customers he can reach out to.
Does cold calling or sms blasting contribute significantly to your bottomline?
How do you feel about the new regulations?
Having watched Ides of March today, I’m more convinced than ever before that PR is a complicated game. Some of us are “lucky” enough to handle projects that involve machiavellian machinations, while others thrive on the desert calm of marketing communications. Regardless, we need to be tough bitches to stay in the game. It certainly helps to be slightly wicked too. Not too much. Just a little on the side would be nice.
It is not often that I comment on a fellow PR practitioner’s work; after all, we are imperfect creatures facing untold peer and work pressures. However, the People’s Association made such a mess of its reply in yesterday’s forum page that one simply has to critique the letter here.
Here’s the the full response from PA published in yesterday’s Straits Times.
Why opposition MPs can’t be advisers to grassroots bodies
WE REFER to Mr Muhammad Yusuf Osman’s letter yesterday (‘Advisers to grassroots bodies should be elected MPs’).
The mission of the People’s Association (PA) and its grassroots organisations (GROs) is to bond the community and connect people with the Government. PA and its GROs serve all residents regardless of their political affiliations in fulfilling their role.
Grassroots advisers are appointed by PA, a statutory board. Besides connecting people to people, grassroots advisers are required to help the Government connect with people and help promote government policies and programmes such as anti-dengue and active ageing.
Hence, the Government has to appoint grassroots advisers who support its programmes and can play this role well. Opposition MPs cannot be expected to do this and thus cannot become advisers to GROs.
Ooi Hui Mei (Ms)
Director
Corporate and Marketing Communications
For Chief Executive Director
People’s Association
My critique
The first paragraph lays out the Association and its grassroots organisations’ (GROs) mission to “serve all residents regardless of their political affiliations in fulfilling their role.” In addition, PA’s grassroots advisers are also “required to help the Government connect with people and help promote government policies and programmes such as anti-dengue and active ageing.” In PR speak, these are what we term motherhood statements. Wiktionary defines a motherhood statement as a “‘feel good’ platitude, usually by a politician, about a worthy concept that few people would disagree.”
Having stated PA’s noble intentions, Ms Ooi then proceeds to contradict the Association’s nonpartisan mission by concluding that Opposition MPs cannot be expected to fulfil the role of grassroots adviser well “and thus cannot become advisers to GROs.”
Surely Ms Ooi must be aware that the Government is composed of both Opposition parties and the PAP? PAP is not the Government. Further, why shouldn’t Opposition party MPs be capable of promoting programmes such as anti-dengue and active ageing? The Workers’ Party’s Chen Show Mao was a former corporate lawyer who advised the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) on its US$21 billion IPO, surely he could be trusted to deliver on anti-dengue and active aging programmes? If he can’t, then neither can the army of Brigadier Generals who people PAP’s rank and file. If Ms Ooi wanted to pursue such a line of argument, she should have chosen more compelling examples of why Opposition MPs would fail to deliver.
Perhaps she’s defending the indefensible, in which case we should be more sympathetic. In any case, her letter will further entrench public distrust of PA. It remains to be seen whether Yam Ah Mee and his sleep-inducing voice can save the day.
