This year’s Singapore Day in Sydney was marked with controversy as the event turned away Caucasians, sparking complaints and negative attention towards the Overseas Singaporean Unit (OSU).
Marketing Magazine checked in with Consulus on what negative effects this behaviour had made on the event’s sponsoring brands. Major Singaporean brands like Singapore Airlines, BreadTalk and MediaCorp participated in this event.
Answering to the query, Kenneth Lee, Senior Manager for Social Strategy, mentioned that the comments made by event attendees reflected poorly upon them. Hence, the attention and controversy would be shone on the public attendees, not the brand. However, the event put the event organisers, the Overseas Singapore Unit in a bad light as it would seem xenophobic.
He also mentioned that the damage done to sponsoring brands would be minimal at worst, “Brands may not be aware that this is happening until the event day itself, but for the brands, it has very low damage done, if any.”
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(Image courtesy of Marketing Magazine)
