Can you really outsell a bad product or service with good marketing? This is a topic that fits one of the popular events, this is probably one of the most talked about events for the week.
Sky Lantern Festival
The Sky Lantern festival in Sentosa is one of the most unique events to happen in Singapore in a while now, where hundreds of people can come together, write their wishes onto the sky lantern, and release it into the sky in hopes of good luck.
Buzz of the mainstream media
When it was first announced, the event organisers mentioned it would be like Shifen in Taiwan and sold the idea of being like in Tangled, it soon created a buzz on social media, mainstream media, along with many other outlets, like Must Share News and Timeout Singapore.
The theme song of Tangled started playing in everyone’s mind while booking their tickets, until the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore posted on their Facebook page just a few days ago that releasing Sky Lanterns in Singapore is illegal.
The organisers updated that the lantern can fly up to 10 metres with a string holding it back, and it will be pulled down when the event ends.
On Wednesday, hundreds of participants gathered around the grounds of Palawan Beach with the expectation of the clear Sentosa sky being flooded with the floating sky lanterns, but nothing happened. Instead, the guests were given LED candles and asked to tie their sky lanterns to the event barricades, they were not allowed to send their lanterns into the sky. For SGD$50, all the guests got was a string, LED candles, and a sky lantern they could not put up.
Event that burned like a forest fire
News outlets reported days later that the organisers of a sky lantern festival suddenly cancelled the segment because the organiser had failed to adhere to fire safety guidelines listed out by the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) to them last year. There was a huge demand for refunds, and many labelled the event as a scam or Singapore’s version of the Fyre Festival.
The organisers are in talks about providing the participants with refunds.
So to the question of whether good marketing can save a bad product or service, we can clearly see that it’s not happening. When it comes to planning events in Singapore, you might want to get additional assurance through event planning companies such as Tembusu events with years of experience running events rather than a team that has never done something at this scale before.
Can Good marketing save a bad product?
Good marketing does not save a bad product unless you expect your marketing team to also serve as a crisis communication team. If you are looking to promote your events, we can help you with your advertising (crisis management not included).