Marketing Gone Bad

A much vaunted graffiti spraying (carried out by a masked man) of Singapore's postal boxes and organised by SingPost has backfired spectacularly!

Designed to 'engage with youth' the boxes in question drew horrified responses from a significant section of the population, who believed they were witnessing an act of gratuitous vandalism.

For many Singaporeans the term 'graffiti' bring back vivid memories of the delinquent, expatriate teenager Michael Fay; who went on a vandalistic binge defacing vehicles.

As Fay was a US citizen, the States objected to the mandatory punishment of caning metered out by the Singapore courts. My take was then and remains, that if you are a resident in a country you abide by its laws and if you do not, then you will be punished according to the laws of the land.

The SingPost boxes were a PR disaster for the company and are now being repainted as part of a more sedate art competition.