Singapore may be a small country, but the communications landscape is a broad and diverse one.
Public relations in Singapore is definitely a challenging practice especially considering the many limitations and restrictions when it comes to expression. Fundamentally, there are issues that cannot be overlooked such as the legal and legislative laws, public interest, conservatism of the people, government/political stance, and cultural and religious views.
Just take SingPost’s viral marketing campaign that went wrong early this year. As SingPost is a Singaporean brand and organization, the stakeholders would generally include all Singaporeans. As part of their plans to generate publicity and hype over the YOG, SingPost carried out a campaign centered around the YOG theme, ‘Express Yourself’. With the help of an artist, SingPost allocated several post boxes around the country to be spray painted with graffiti. Their campaign did in fact attract a lot of attention from the media and the public but for all the wrong reasons.(No such thing as bad publicity?)
The public had filed complaints of the ‘vandalized’ post boxes and how it tarnished Singapore’s clean image and reputation. The very next day, CEO of SingPost issued an apology to the public.
Singapore. being a multi-racial and multi-cultural society, also makes it an ideal place for public relations, in terms of communicating specific messages to the public. One must remember when practicing public relations that the political, economical and social impact of their practices should always be considered