Singapore-based E-Pay takes down controversial ad following alleged racism row
Recently launched epayments platform E-Pay found itself at the centre of a controversy surrounding visuals on its advertising and its website. An image that featured Mediacorp talent Dennis Chew playing a Chinese man and woman, an Indian man and a Malay woman, was called out by online commentators for being racially and culturally insensitive.
The controversy was primarily centred around the apparent use of ‘brownface’ to depict the Indian man and about Chew playing a Malay woman.
Several people took to social media to register their protest against the ad, generating debates in the comment threads on issues like representation, ‘punching down’ and why actors who actually represented the Indian and Malay communities had not been used.
In response to the complaints, the images have been removed from the advertising and are currently absent on the website of epaysg.com.
The only character to have survived the culling is apparently Chew as a Chinese man. The campaign was created by Havas Worldwide, which along with Mediacorp’s The Celebrity Agency issued a joint statement to the media and said: “The message behind this advertising campaign is that e-payment is for everyone.
“For that reason, Dennis Chew, well-known for his ability to portray multiple characters in a single production in a light-hearted way, was selected as the face of the campaign. He appears as characters from different walks of life in Singapore, bringing home the point that everyone can e-pay.
“We’re sorry for any hurt that was unintentionally caused. Behind the ad is an initiative to provide greater convenience to consumers, merchants and small food businesses.”
In the FAQ on its website, E-Pay said: “This is an initiative to roll out e-payments in coffee shops, hawker centres and industrial canteens. Consumers can choose from a range of 23 e-payment schemes (as of June 2019, and still growing) to pay for their meals easily and securely.
“Merchants and small food businesses will also benefit from reduced deployment costs and easier adoption processes.”
Enterprise Singapore, the National Environment Agency, the Housing and Development Board and JTC corporation had appointed Nets to unify cashless payments under E-Pay.
Surely the real issue is that the creative idea from Havas is [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines]?
ReplyTone deaf
Not entirely a surprise for [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines]. But very embarrassing for global agencies in 2019
I’m more offended though that “Mediacorp talent” is still a thing
Reply“The campaign was created by Havas Worldwide….”
Knowing who calls the [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines], why am I not surprised? Hahahahaha.
ReplyYeah, I certainly this is a gimick and such a discriminating ad. What a joke!
ReplyTheres only one way to make this ad more offensive.
ReplyChuck in [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines]. Twitter would crash!
This a redeafination of an unstoppable creative shop at its best. Once again. Contrived. Forced. Lazy. And so so juvenile. The best is yet to come.
ReplyThe creative stewardship here has been [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines]. You should hear how everybody is blaming each other over this internally. In truth, it is as @Brownie said, ‘lazy’ creative work. Absolutely disgusting and somebody should lose their job over it. It is mistake that just screams zero leadership. We saw this before at agencies like _ _ _, when your leader does more award show judging, Cannes visits, holidays and press releases than ad campaigns the people left in the smoking section do what they can to keep the jobs moving forward. Our [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines] to start with to be honest. But back to the offending ad, it is very bad putting this guy in Brownface. Just as it would be to put anybody in Blackface. OR, to put any white man with his eyes pulled back to a squint. This is 2019 for God’s sakes. In the end our clients suffer, and @brownie though brief, gives us wondering what the next campaign from Robinson road will be.
Reply“You should hear how everybody is blaming each other over this internally.”
Any creative team that shows an idea like this one to the [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines] should be turned down instantly and counselled. The [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines] should have the IQ and EQ to anticipate the consequences on social media. [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines]. Either way, the blame for this rests with the [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines] as they have ultimate responsibility for the creative product.
ReplyThe talent in this organization is the [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines] as life coaches and Tedx speakers. Are you serious? Takes more than [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines] to coach professional marketing people cupcake. At least Channel 8 has it together. They should spin off from Mediacorp just to [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines].
ReplyI agree.
ReplyYet another insulting example for an agency and [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines] that hasn’t understood the fundamental principles of diversity and inclusion, where alleged superiority is engrained into peoples way of working, thinking and acting. How, otherwise, is it even possible that “work” (or shall we call it crap?) like this leaves the door of what claims to be a global agency?
Sorry, Havas, but it clearly seems that the multiple departures over the past year or so have left a negative impact and you seem to have lost the plot.
In a nutshell: I’d be really disappointed to see if the global leadership tolerated this kind of negligence and blatant racism. Dealing with a PR disaster like this is surely not an easy one, but making the right decisions and acknowledging mistakes made shouldn’t be that difficult either.
No one will be able to turn back the wheels of time and this will be recorded as one of the major mishaps in Singapore’s creative history. So there’s only one thing you can do now: The right thing.
ReplyI agree that:
1. Havas seems to have lost the plot in this region.
This is not a recent thing however. They have made increasingly eyebrow raising leadership decisions since [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines].
I recently read in the latest Vivendi Financial report that Havas “business in Asia-Pacific…is rebuilding.” That’s 9 years of rebuilding a small company, with not much [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines]. What are they trying to do??
2. This particular situation is not a good one and heads should roll, both because of the alleged racism row, and because of [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines] poor work and results.
That said you need to be fair…this mess-up is not the result of Havas letting people go over the last 2 years. Let’s remember those people were in charge, and were the ones who hired and celebrated the current staff. If anything they should take some responsibility. Not only did they hire [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines] (sorry “rebuilding”)…
ReplyHavas the way it’s structured today is a result of what the leadership change [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines] has put in place over two years ago. In fact, based on what it appears like, [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines].
The people in charge were either phased out into different roles or entirely pushed out the group by the aforementioned and today’s structure was implemented as solution, enthused by the idea of having [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines] running the Singapore agency as if that alone was going to solve the very fundamental structural issues in the region.
Not a single one of those in charge today have been appointed into their positions by Singapore’s previous management.
So, blaming the previous managers, as simple and convenient as this may sound or look like, after almost two years of implementing a new structure and after they are long gone is an old trick, but lacks credibility.
ReplySorry if you were one of those ‘phased’ or ‘pushed’ out. It seems like it. Failure is sometimes a bitter pill to swallow.
To reiterate…I don’t disagree with your original sentiment. I am just pointing out the [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines].
ReplyIt seems an even more bitter pill to admit failure than to swallow the bitter pill of eventual liberation and for as long as that’s the case and you guys don’t see that you’re in fact destroying more than you’re building, your best talent will turn away and ‘pursue better opportunities’ of which there seem to be quite a few.
Reply….Mr. Original…I honestly have no idea what you are trying to say.
ReplyI am traveling and I just saw this on CNN! No wonder people keep thinking Singapore is in [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines]. I lived there twice in 1999 and 2006 and the locals always tried their best to champion diversity. I suspect this was due to a marcom CMO trying to save some money and not cast talent, let’s face it. THE TALENT AGENCY is not a sep agency from Mediacop folks, it sits and is paid for by MediaCorps. [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines]
Back to #browngate, this is way worse than that gambling ad Singapore did so many years ago. The gambling ad was harmless looking back now. But still, the Singapore I-SEA App takes the cake. Thanks GRAY. Remember that one? Where people at GRAY SG made a fake app for Cannes that looked for innocent people seeking refuge in Europe by floating on whatever they could across the sea? GRAY just tried to talk they way out of it.
Their PR was disgusting. I am glad HAVAS owned this and cut the [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines]. Well done.
ReplyI wonder how much input the ‘talent’ put into this? Agency is the steward of the brand and has to take full responsibility, but this one screams of hiring the talent and then letting him run with it. Was the agency too frightened to say no?
ReplyThere is no excuse to let such an ad go out with the agency’s name on it. You cant blame the talent agency or the talent chosen, saying that it was their idea.
The truth is, in every agency, ads like these are considered below
Replya CCO’s purview….they only want to be associated with the big, glamorous, high budget productions. It’s a result of the [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines]. Almost all CCOs in Singapore have this problem. Hope now they will learn that there are consequences.
This is nothing more than racism in a campaign that has originated from a global network agency – which would have a code of conduct to comply with. Completely unacceptable in 2019.
Clients of Havas Singapore should be very worried that these are the decisions their agency is making and that inappropriate work is passing through the quality assurance process of the agency.
ReplyWhat about the apology though. Reads to me like they are saying it is our fault that we got offended and they are kind of sorry that we did, but of we understood better the aim of the campaign then everything would be fine.
– HAVAS Worldwide said it “would like to apologise for any hurt caused by the recent campaign to communicate that e-payment is for everyone. The message behind the campaign is that e-payment is for people across all age groups and demographics. Our multicultural society defines us as a nation, and we regret if anyone has been offended by the campaign.” –
If you really wish to communicate that e-payment is for everyone, why not actually feature other people in the ads and not a Chinese man in fancy dress?
ReplyTo understand why this has blown up into such a big deal, you have to see the video done by the bloggers as a response to this offensive epay ad. It’s quite a thoughtless piece that has surely alarmed the powers that be…the last thing they need is a bunch of tit for tat videos like it appearing regularly. The way it looks now, the sole trigger for the bloggers’ VDO is this Epay ad, so Im sure there will be a lot of behind the scenes irritation directed at it.
It remains to be seen whether the agency will be called upon again to work on [Edited under Mumbrella’s community guidelines].
ReplyHave your say