PR Heavy Weight - Global

I am starting another blog post about PR disaster but on an international level. For sure it does not apply to most PR professionals here in Winnipeg, but I am passionate about the subject as I have always followed international news given my European and Asian experience. I believe being exposed to more international issues would broaden the horizon of PR professionals here.

My first case is about the business school of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Their EMBA program is the number EMBA program in the entire universe according to the Financial Times (higher than any EMBA program in Canada). A recent graduate of their MBA program developed an app for game called Towers of Saviors, which has made the developers millionaires. However, for those who have used the app find this app very similar to a game developed by a Japanese company which was also a blockbuster.

The problem for HKUST is that they have openly endorsed these two graduates AFTER they donated about $125,000 to the University by inviting them to talk about their success stories and on the HKUST Facebook page. Apparently it is not a PR disaster to HKUST as they simply do not care. However, given my previous experience with HKUST, it is totally consistent. HKUST cares about money and ranking but nothing else. For a PR professional, it is about choosing an organization that you agree with in terms of their ethical standard. I never intended and I will never work for HKUST, no matter how much they pay me. Seriously.

Another recent international disaster is the death of a soldier in Taiwan when he was in camp. Unlike the rest of China (i.e. Mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau), Taiwan has developed a democratic society and I have been amazed time and time again by how civilized the society has become.

For this tragic incident, hundreds of thousands of people have demonstrated right in front the equivalent of the White House demanding an explanation. Even movie stars have voiced their anger, which is extremely uncommon for the Chinese culture. No one single political party has tried to rally the people, it was (and still is) something that many citizens have chosen to do based on their free will. The consequence is the existing government has to answer the questions raised. A young man has died, and justice should be exercised. The Prime Minister Ma has not really said anything that satisfies the public, and it is a really PR disaster at the moment. It would be interesting to check out the development in a week.

10 reasons why Snowden has chosen to hide in Hong Kong from the NSA

As a native Hongkonger, perhaps I can add some insights into why Edward Snowden has chosen Hong Kong as his hiding place. Just in case you did not know, this gentleman is involved in this massive NSA scandal. Here are some possible reasons that I can think of. 

1. Prepaid phone cards: Hong Kong is one of the cities where you can buy prepaid phone cards without any identity check. You do not even need to call the phone company before start using a phone card, you can use it as soon as you pay for it. You can literally buy hundreds of prepaid phone cards without raising any suspicion in certain areas in Hong Kong (Apliu Street is the actual location, check it out in person!).

2. Wifi signal: being one of the most densely populated cities it means you can pick up wifi signals virtually EVERYWHERE. For Snowden, it also means he can use the internet to make a quick phone call, and use another wifi signal and make another phone call just by using the wifi signals of the others (internet security is not exactly common sense in Hong Kong). By doing that, it is more difficult to trace his where-about.

3. Language: you can still get by in Hong Kong using just English, most people speak a bit of English there. In fact, many of my English friends cannot even speak one sentence in Cantonese after having spent over a decade in Hong Kong.

4. The weird status of Hong Kong: we all know Hong Kong is part of China, but it also means Hong Kong does not have a foreign office – so extradition can be a tricky issue between the US and Hong Kong. However, the useless Chief Executive in Hong Kong does not have the gut to decide on anything, so it is really up to Beijing to make the call. If you do not believe, watch this interview with Bloomberg. You will think Rob Ford is the best politician in the entire universe afterwards. Watch the video here: No comment is NEVER your key message. 

5. Freedom of information (as of today): yes, you can use Facebook in Hong Kong even though it is part of China. Yes, you can get your subscription of the Financial Times REGARDLESS of the coverage. Hong Kong can be bearable as long as you do not read the Chinese media.

6. Not so corrupted yet: another fun fact about Hong Kong is that in general civil servants in Hong Kong are not corrupted because they are paid very well – the head of government in Hong Kong earns more than Obama, despite the size of the country and population is not even comparable to any one states. The conclusion is that these not-so-corrupted civil servants will not sell Snowden for the price of a new car.

7. Time difference: maybe Snowden wants his ex-colleagues from NSA to work 24 hours a day? Hong Kong is 12 hours ahead of DC!

8. Invisibility: there are too many Caucasians in Hong Kong. To an average Chinese, most Caucasians look the same (probably the same other way round, someone shouted “Go back to Japan” a while back), hence it is somewhat easy to remain invisible in this city.

9. “Let Hongkongers decide my fate”: come on Snowden, we cannot even decide our fate (if we could, I think we would hire a contract killer to get rid of the Chief Executive in the city first). If you expect us to decide your fate, then it will never happen – you can stay in Hong Kong until the end of time!

10. I can’t think of the 10th, thanks for reading!!!

 

 

 

Death of the newspapers?

Many of us have been talking about the death of the print media for years because of the rise of the internet. Personally, the topic came up fifteen years ago when I studied in the UK. However, every time I go back to the UK, none of the major newspapers has disappeared except News of the World, and its disappearance had nothing to do with the internet at all.

 

The circulation of Los Angeles Times had decreased by half by 2009. Newsweek has stopped its print publication after 80 years. The Wall Street Journal started counting its online subscribers as part of its circulation back in 2003. These figures are daunting; however, the scenarios seem to be different at the other end of the world. Straits Times, a leading newspaper in Singapore, had a small increase in circulation in 2012 comparing to the year before. India has seen an increase on newspaper circulation in general in 2011; moreover, a similar trend has been reported in China, though the increase is only a modest 3.4 per cent.

 

Instead of sitting on the situation, many print media outlets have tried adopting various methods in order to stay afloat. For example, the Times in the UK was probably the first newspaper in the country to charge for online access. Straits Times charges less for its print edition than its online edition. In Hong Kong, the market share of the three most popular paid newspapers dropped from 73 per cent in 2002, to less than 60 per cent in 2009. The drop mainly came from free newspapers such as Metro and AM730. To combat the situation, the owners of these newspapers started publishing free newspapers themselves (such as Sharp Daily published by the Next Media Group), hoping that they would be able to secure some of the lost advertising revenue.

 

One of the few exceptions is the Financial Times. When all newspapers were suffering in the UK in 2010, the Financial Times made a profit. To me, the success of the Financial Times is not just that they have original content – the quality of their content is really what sets them apart. They have global offices and bureaus around the world, and they print their papers in all major markets such as New York, Hong Kong, South Africa. When SARS killed hundreds of people in Asia, the Financial Times launched its Asian edition. Now when you go to the Financial Times website, you can have access to three articles without paying anything. You will need to subscribe if you read more than three articles each month. In addition to the above moves, the Financial Times is one of the few publishers that do not work with Apple – as they consider working with Apple would affect their direct relationship with their readers, as well as their ability to make high yields. I think this strategic move was really bold. As everyone was trying to get onto the bandwagon with the apps store of Apple, the Financial Times moved away from the model. The Financial Times now has more than 600,000 of paid print and digital circulation each day, and this number has been growing.

 

In contrast to popular perception, the most active group of online news readers are in fact people aged between 25 and 34. Given the growing popularity of consuming news (and everything else) online among the younger population, the trend seems to be irreversible. For owners of paid newspapers, they must strengthen their content if they want to continue charging for their content. Otherwise they may have to consider changing its business models –from paid to free, from print to online or even from daily to weekly.

 

At the end of the day, I think everyone in the newspaper industry should think about this question: if you had to pay full price for the newspaper that you are producing, would you pay for it? If you do not think you are going to, then perhaps it is hard to expect other people willing to pay for your work.