The week in review: Samsung’s Oscar selfie eats Twitter | The #With50RupeesICanBuy backlash | Bitcoin for brands | ‘Creative confidence’ in Singapore? | China’s murky media market
In a week in which a sponsored ‘selfie’ drowned out the Oscars on Twitter, Singapore tourism winced at its ‘most expensive city in the world’ label, the former APAC vice chairman of Publicis founded a consultancy for branded virtual currencies, BuzzFeed revealed its plans for Asia, and celebrity chef Jamie Oliver babbled in nonsensical Cantonese to launch his restaurant in Hong Kong.
Story of the week
Whether it was planned or not, Korea and Asia’s most powerful brand entered itself into the social media history books at the Oscars, with the most retweeted post ever, with 779,295 retweets of the star-studded ‘selfie’ in half an hour.
Quotes of the week
Rob Campbell, Wieden + Kennedy’s regional planning honcho, tweeted about the Oscars, just before the selfie went viral:
Samsung is the perfect sponsor for the Oscars. Both are practitioners of delusion, self-importance and hype.
Janice Koh
Singaporean politician Janice Koh won the vote of her country’s ad industry, with the words:
We need to view creativity as a national priority
A description of Singapore, by Paul Galesloot, as he made the case for why Shanghai is the “real” Asian media and marketing hub a little under a year ago. Yesterday, it emerged that Galesloot is moving from Shanghai to Singapore to take a global role as COO of design agency Cowan.
[Singapore is] an ivory tower in the Asian jungle. Here, you will struggle to really understand the way Asia works.
At the start of a phone conversation, a publicist calling from Australia asked Mumbrella Asia (based in Hong Kong):
How’s it going on the other side of the world?
Vice magazine founder Shane Smith could have been speaking about plenty of markets in Asia when he told The Guardian:
Young people, who are the majority of our audience, are angry, disenfranchised, and they don’t like or trust mainstream media outlets.
Best work
Adidas. TBWA\Shanghai stresses the fun to be had from sport for Chinese women.
WWF. How to make consumption-obsessed Hongkongers care about Earth Hour.
Jamie Oliver’s Italian. In a cute PR exercis on YouTube, Jamie attempted to speak Cantonese to promote his new restaurant in Hong Kong, with endearing consequences. At least he tried.
RedBull. Silly stunts set to music from Pharrell Williams.
Amnesty International. Tokyo-based artist Hikaru Cho body painted for the ‘My Body My Rights’ campaign to mark International Women’s Day.
Twitter. Inspired by the most Tweeted image in the history of the medium, Ellen DeGeneres’ star-studded Oscar selfie, Twitter’s Australia team were quick piggyback the Samsung-sponsored meme.
Save the Children UK. Just because it isn’t happening here, doesn’t mean it’s not happening, points out the charity.
Pepsi. Similar in approach to Coke’s crusade against the anti-social behaviour that social media breeds, its arch rival has come up with a version of its own.
Samsung. Another Olympics themed feel-good spot, this time for the Paralympics.
Apotek Hjärtat. Interesting way to liven up a train platform.
Worst ad
Cellcard. How to make a potential customer base boycott you in one fell swoop.
Best-read story on Mumbrella
Will the high cost of living in Singapore trigger a talent exodus?
Best media and marketing headlines
- Paddy Power courts controversy with Oscar Pistorius murder trial refund offer
- South Korea’s internet giant: Now or Naver
- Newsweek relaunches in print with Bitcoin coup
Most inane Stomp post
Good week for…
Source: GlobalWebIndex, click to enlarge
China‘s reputation as a country brand. China emerged in ninth spot – one ahead of South Korea – in a FutureBrand consumer perception study on the appeal of country of origin for brands. The report argued that China is no longer associated with cheap, low-skill and low-tech.
Twitter. Over 14.7 million tweets were recorded during the #oscars live show.
Content creators with small budgets. Getty Images, the world’s largest image library, made its pictures free to use, as long as they are credited to Getty with a link to the licensing page.
WeChat. Numbers from Global Web Index revealed the popular Chinese messaging app as the fastest growing platform of its kind in the world, growing by 375 per cent in the final two quarters of 2013.
Indonesia‘s media scene. Enter CNN Indonesia, the news station’s first local language channel in Southeast Asia.
Bad week for…
Indian supermarket Big Bazaar. The company tweeted: “Tell us what all you can buy with Rs. 50 by taking part in #With50RupeesICanBuy #contest. Hoping to show what good value their products were, Twitter pointed out that 50 Rupees could feed a poor child for a day, and used the hashtag to complain about problems such as bribery, corruption, the price of petrol and politicians.
Singapore Tourism Board. Singapore is now the world’s most expensive city, according to a report in The Economist.
The reputation of China’s media market. China emerged as the least transparent of the world’s top 20 media markets in a study by the World Federation of Advertisers.
Procter & Gamble. Greenpeace changed tack in their campaign against shampoo brand Head & Shoulders over its palm oil sourcing policy, turning their focus on the mother brand P&G, subverting its awarding-winning Olympics ad ‘Thanks mom’.
Prediction for next week
An independent media agency complains that Cannes Lions has changed the media category award winner from Media Agency of the Year to Media Network of the Year, therefore ruling indies out of contention.
Have your say