The new uniformed hottie making viral infamy (soz, Yandao policeman), set hearts aflutter when it was revealed that he was very much single and available. Sorta. After all, 22-year-old Lee Minwei just wants to focus on his career as a Certis Cisco auxiliary police officer in Changi Airport, and who can argue with that smouldering gaze.
But local dating app Paktor saw an opportunity to jump on his viral coattails. Sure, marketers need to hop on any trending topics to stay relevant (we’re looking at you, Schooling opportunists) and the fact that Lee’s a handsome (and single) Singaporean dude makes good fodder for a dating app. And so they did, featuring Lee on their Facebook page and offering users the chance to date him.
The decision to plaster him in their own marketing material proved to be pretty disastrous because… they didn’t get permission from anyone involved before launching the campaign. Paktor didn’t ask Lee first if he even wanted to be featured; Paktor didn’t ask Changi Airport if they could use the image they took in their marketing material; Paktor didn’t ask Certis Cisco if it was cool to have one of their employees take part in it.
Speaking to Marketing, Paktor regional brand marketing VP Darryl Liew clarified that they wanted to ‘test water’ first with the Facebook post to gauge the response — if it was successful, only then would they reach out to him to offer a sponsored user account.
Like what Marketing‘s Vivienne Tay wrote, there were indeed “concerns on the reproduction of an image for commercial gain via a marketing activation” — and Liew fully admitted that they didn’t reach out to Changi Airport to seek permission for the use of the image. Sure, anything uploaded on Facebook is technically public domain, but damn dawg, that ain’t cool.
Presumably, being fielded by multiple sternly-worded requests cut that shit out, and Paktor has since taken down their opportunistic post. “We regret to hear of any unhappiness resulting from the post as it is definitely the last thing we wish to see,” they wrote, with no mentions of what exactly the “unhappiness” was.
Then this dude chimed in with a perfect response:
But to be honest, Paktor probably isn’t the only corporate entity attempting to hop on Lee’s fame bandwagon. If the Certis Cisco officer is smart enough, he won’t agree to get involved in frivolous videos, offers to be an influencer or other consumerist muck.
