In case you haven’t seen them around town, telco operator Circles.Life has put up numerous ads that sorta hark back to those hard-hitting UNICEF displays. Only instead of a gaunt child holding out an open palm as a gesture to ask for food, Circles.Life has millennials offering up their smartphones, with overlaid text that says Singaporeans are hungry for more mobile data.
Insensitive to actual poverty and world hunger? Arguable. Hankering for more time on the internet isn’t exactly on the same level as actual starvation, after all. On the other hand, it seems like Circles.Life’s creative agency VML is simply skewering a clichéd advertisement trope to promote the brand’s voluminous data bundles.
Online, the ads are causing extremely polarizing reactions. Take, for example, this viral Facebook post written by a highly offended individual, who was triggered enough by the concept to reach out to the telco operator with an angry complaint.
Many others (including playwright Alfian Sa’at) believe the same, and brought up relevant points:
Marketing news site Mumbrella Asia also took a stance against the ads, calling them distasteful in their use of “what some would refer to as ‘poverty porn’ to sell the largely first-world commodity of data”.
Then, of course, there’s the other side of the aisle filled with folks who laughed off the “oversensitive” sentiments.
Others took it one step further:
Nevertheless, no matter which side you’re on, all the internet debates, opinion pieces and Facebook posts about the ads are definitely working for Circles.Life, which is getting miles of publicity and awareness about the brand.
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