Skip to main content

The Curious Case of Singapore Advertising Watchdog AskingThe Medium To Change The Text On The Ad



Cathay Organisation, owners of Cineleisure, has put up Pink Dot ads on its escalators. To the chagrin of those against Pink Dot contacted Singapore advertising watchdog, the Advertising Standards Authority of Singapore (ASAS), to weigh in the legality of the advertisement.

ASAS responded and reports highlighted that the watchdog asks Cathay Organisation to remove the phrase "Supporting the freedom to love" as it "may affect public sensitivities due to the issues at hand". ASAS did highlight that the rest of advertisement was ok by them.

Read more here.

Isn't it strange for the watchdog to ask the owner the medium rather than the advertisers to make changes to the ad?

Cathay Organisation also felt that the changes should have been directed to the Pink Dot organisers rather they, the medium owner.

“Given that the ownership of the ad belongs to Pink Dot, Cathay is not in the position to decide on the removal of the statement ‘Supporting the freedom to love’ on the advertisement,” a Cathay spokesperson said. The organisation however, stated that it would relay ASAS comments to the organisers of Pink Dot. Meanwhile, it added that it stands by its previous statement to support an all-inclusive society. - via Marketing Interactive

Local writer Ovidia Yu wrote about her phone call to ASAS to ask about their decision on the Pink Dot ad but found her conversation raising more questions.



In 2014, ASAS demanded a tuition agency to stop an "objectionable" but didn't make any comment on POP Club, a monthly magazine from local bookstore giant Popular.



Wrote Today "Assoc Prof Tan said the authority “will be conveying to the advertisers that the advertisement is not acceptable and has to be ceased”. 

Associate Professor Tan Sze Wee is the Chairman of the Advertising Standards Authority of Singapore (ASAS).

Why isn't ASAS engaging Pink Dot directly with Pink Dot advertisement at Cathay Cineleisure? 





Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Will mrbrown's post on Mr Tan Kin Lian's thermometer app "misadventure" promote technology ageism?

I am not ashamed to say I support Mr Tan Kin Lian as a presidential candidate because I believed in what he stood for. And when Mr Tan posted his "misadventure" with a thermometer app, I did shake my head in disbelief that he did that. Source:   http://www.mrbrown.com/blog/2013/07/we-could-have-had-him-for-president.html Thinking twice, there could be a possibility that Mr Tan misunderstood how this app work. Most  thermometer app take data from various weather stations to display the temperature on it. Yes, the technology savvy will do a #facepalm when they read the post and mrbrown's post demonstrated it perfectly. Wrote mrbrown , "Maybe the former Presidential-hopeful didn't realize he needed to upgrade to the Pro version of the app. Then his iPhone would not only measure temperature, it would also measure current PSI (PM2.5 included), tell you if you are having your period, and cook instant noodles. Good thing he didn't try to measure boil

How UOB's Paper Trail Amplifies IT Greatest Security Threat

UOB required you to do everything on paper. If you want to change your mobile number for your banking account with them or for your credit card, you need to fill up a form. Yet, this paper trail represented a potential security fail for the bank - Human Error. So a bitcoin expert walked into UOB to open a bank account. The bank employee had to print a form from a online pdf document to fill in this bitcoin expert's particulars. When it came to entering the bitcoin expert's email, that's when the forgotten art of handwriting was the most obvious of the digital generation. Wrote Robert Capodieci, My name is Roberto Capodieci, as most of you know. and my email address is very obvious to decode. It is not a p4l_l337_s0u1@gmail.com, but it is a more obvious roberto@capodieci.com, thing that, right after reading my name in the same form, should come out easy. Still, a data entry personnel of the UOB bank (or of a service provider the UOB bank uses) entered it as roberto

NEL Train Fault Shouts Lack Of Crisis Communication

The North-East Line train fault of 11 April 2018 was my virgin experience of a rush hour train fault since I moved to Punggol. One would have thought that with the number of train faults experienced by the North-East Line operator, SBS Transit, they would have improved the communications and handling of train faults. However, my personal experience told another story. First, there were no announcements at the Punggol LRT stations of the train fault even though SBS Transit manages them. The train fault was reported as early as 7.10am as I had a friend who was also stuck in the train. I boarded the LRT at Coral Edge around 7.30am and I didn't hear of any announcement nor was there any signage to inform me o the train fault at Punggol Station. Second, the announcement kept saying that there would be a 15 minutes delay, but 15 minutes passed and the trains, on both side, wasn't moving. If the announcement would be more frank to say it will be a longer delay, commuters would