A public relations coup
May 7th 1999 09:08
I lived in Hong Kong for 16 years until 2007. In 1998 and 1999 I wrote a series of political and social commentaries for a quirky institutional newsletter - quirky in that it was intended to be as much contentious, offbeat and humorous as it was informative. I was working as an editor, and I wrote the articles under the pseudonym Red Inque. I post them here for anyone interested in a look at life in Asia at the time, and in Hong Kong just after its return to Chinese sovereignty.
Living down a good reputation
Public relations is an abstruse thing. Even its practitioners have trouble defining it. Text books on the subject usually do too, ending up with a half-page interpretation which embraces image, identity, public acceptance and awareness, kissing babies, fung shui, phases of the moon and instructions on how to avoid striped ties on television.
We have a colleague who has a shorter definition - trying to fool all of the people all of the time. But then he’s a cynic. He’s also confusing PR with advertising.
Whatever else it sets out to achieve, there is little doubt that public opinion is the primary target of PR. Perhaps here we have a clue – anything dedicated to the massaging of public opinion is operating in an environment made of quicksand and moonbeams. Joe and Josephine Consumer know exactly what they like and dislike, and nothing on earth will change their minds except the next TV advertisement.
Dealing with the public must be infuriating. We much prefer sane, educated and dignified people like institutional investors. But we digress.
Perhaps the best way to look at public relations is in practice. And it just so happens that we have a classic case of poor PR and good PR which happen to involve the same company. The company is Wing Lung Bank (0096.HK), which for so long had the sort of conservative, stuffy, unexciting reputation which will excite a septuagenarian banker but put the public to sleep every time. It’s ironic, we know, that a bank should be perceived negatively just because it is managed with safety in mind, but that’s Joe and Josephine for you. They crave a splash of panache, but would be the first to bellow if Wing Lung lost a pile punting on kiwi semen futures.
You may think that, from this position, it would be hard for Wing Lung management to do much to change the perception of their bank. Conservatism has got them where they are today, you might say, and they are no more likely to change their business practices than they are to come to work wearing diamond studs or pink latex hipsters. But if you did think that, you are wrong.
Wing Lung is suddenly the recipient of the sweetest PR around. It is suddenly hip, without anyone switching to hipsters, and forward-thinking, without its sober reputation being in any way diminished. Indeed, such is the whimsicality of public opinion that that sobriety is probably a cool thing now too.
The cause of the change is that Wing Lung is the only indigenous Hong Kong bank to have an Internet presence. Apart from Citibank, in fact, it is the only bank operating in Hong Kong to have a cyber presence. And while Wing Lung’s Web page at the moment offers nothing more than a bit of self-promotion (it is planned to start on-line banking services about the end of the year), it is remarkable how much positive sentiment the Web presence is engendering.
We met with Wing Lung management last week – dark suits, neatly parted hair and cautious market outlooks every one of them. But we’ve liked their company for some time and, PR vibes aside, we found nothing to change our view in terms of fundamentals. They told us they do not share current optimism in the stock market. The said that, despite the two recent interest rate cuts, they will maintain a cautious lending policy, and will continue to do so until such time as there is an improvement in unemployment, a significant recovery in retail sales and consumer confidence, and a sustained stabilisation/rebound in the residential property market.
How sensible. How very comforting. How ... zzzzzz.
The consumer isn’t a moron; she is your wife. -- David Ogilvy (Confessions of an Advertising Man)
Public relations is an abstruse thing. Even its practitioners have trouble defining it. Text books on the subject usually do too, ending up with a half-page interpretation which embraces image, identity, public acceptance and awareness, kissing babies, fung shui, phases of the moon and instructions on how to avoid striped ties on television.
We have a colleague who has a shorter definition - trying to fool all of the people all of the time. But then he’s a cynic. He’s also confusing PR with advertising.
Whatever else it sets out to achieve, there is little doubt that public opinion is the primary target of PR. Perhaps here we have a clue – anything dedicated to the massaging of public opinion is operating in an environment made of quicksand and moonbeams. Joe and Josephine Consumer know exactly what they like and dislike, and nothing on earth will change their minds except the next TV advertisement.
Dealing with the public must be infuriating. We much prefer sane, educated and dignified people like institutional investors. But we digress.
Perhaps the best way to look at public relations is in practice. And it just so happens that we have a classic case of poor PR and good PR which happen to involve the same company. The company is Wing Lung Bank (0096.HK), which for so long had the sort of conservative, stuffy, unexciting reputation which will excite a septuagenarian banker but put the public to sleep every time. It’s ironic, we know, that a bank should be perceived negatively just because it is managed with safety in mind, but that’s Joe and Josephine for you. They crave a splash of panache, but would be the first to bellow if Wing Lung lost a pile punting on kiwi semen futures.
You may think that, from this position, it would be hard for Wing Lung management to do much to change the perception of their bank. Conservatism has got them where they are today, you might say, and they are no more likely to change their business practices than they are to come to work wearing diamond studs or pink latex hipsters. But if you did think that, you are wrong.
Wing Lung is suddenly the recipient of the sweetest PR around. It is suddenly hip, without anyone switching to hipsters, and forward-thinking, without its sober reputation being in any way diminished. Indeed, such is the whimsicality of public opinion that that sobriety is probably a cool thing now too.
The cause of the change is that Wing Lung is the only indigenous Hong Kong bank to have an Internet presence. Apart from Citibank, in fact, it is the only bank operating in Hong Kong to have a cyber presence. And while Wing Lung’s Web page at the moment offers nothing more than a bit of self-promotion (it is planned to start on-line banking services about the end of the year), it is remarkable how much positive sentiment the Web presence is engendering.
We met with Wing Lung management last week – dark suits, neatly parted hair and cautious market outlooks every one of them. But we’ve liked their company for some time and, PR vibes aside, we found nothing to change our view in terms of fundamentals. They told us they do not share current optimism in the stock market. The said that, despite the two recent interest rate cuts, they will maintain a cautious lending policy, and will continue to do so until such time as there is an improvement in unemployment, a significant recovery in retail sales and consumer confidence, and a sustained stabilisation/rebound in the residential property market.
How sensible. How very comforting. How ... zzzzzz.
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