Digital telco and gimmicky marketing believer Circles.Life has pulled its billboard ad.
This was after former Nominated Member of Parliament and ex-Miss Universe Singapore, Eunice Olsen, filed a police report against the Circles.Life billboard ad mounted in Raffles Place MRT station that featured her name without her explicit permission or knowledge.
Circles.Life said in a statement to Marketing Interactive that it “never intended” to make Olsen feel uncomfortable and it apologises for that.
The telco's spokesperson added that the submission was made by an individual with the social media handle @alexkrygsman.
Searching for “Alex Krygsman” on Facebook threw up what looked like an account linked to the marketing effort.
It shared a video asking Olsen for a French kiss or a night out, but that video has been removed.
It has not been explained or revealed if the man had been paid to be featured or participated as a collaborator of the marketing stunt.
“We are taking down the ad immediately. We will learn from this experience and appreciate the feedback,” the spokesperson said.
Raising awareness
Olsen subsequently wrote on Instagram to emphasise her intention of raising awareness on advertising ethics and gender equality in Singapore.
Here's what she wrote in the post:
Hi everyone, thank you for all the encouragement, support, comments, advice and conservation. I just wanted to say I never had any intention of profiting from this matter. As someone who serves in women's empowerment and as someone who doesn't want to see someone else's identity misused, this is something I had to speak out for. What I really do want to do is to continue this conversation on responsible advertising. I want to move on from what the company did as it's not just about them. This is a larger conversation I would like to continue with all of you, whether you are in advertising or not. I am also hoping to meet the company to see what we can do together, and how I can work with different industry players in advertising to make sure that as our nation progresses, we can mature in our conversation around how women are portrayed in advertising, gender equality in the industry, and in Singapore. For now, I have an important event to host tomorrow for a group of young girls and I want to be my best for them. Thank you so much again to all my fellow Singaporeans for weighing in on this issue, and to all the various media outlets that have convered this.
Olsen has been advocating women empowerment with her interview series WomenTalk TV and was part of the panel for an evening event organised by UN Women Singapore Committee on Nov. 29 when she found out about the billboard ad in the morning.
Top photo collage from Eunice Olsen Instagram and WomenTalk
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