Next Great Thing

In the last week of January, scandalous pictures of Hong Kong superstar Edison Chen together with a whole list of Hong Kong female artists were circulated over the internet. (Americans might recognize the actor/singer from The Grudge 2.) At first, his reps announced that the pictures were manipulated and were probably fake. However it was later discovered that the pictures were leaked when Edison Chen sent his laptop out for servicing.

The media in Hong Kong–and all over the world–ate up this juicy piece of news. But beyond the gossip factor, here’s a look at what made it interesting for PR folks:

- The Internet magnified the incident by a million times
The pictures were circulated over the internet, which spread the news far and wide. In Singapore it was covered everywhere from small gossip rags to the largest daily paper, the Straits Times. The Times story was picked up by Reuters and appeared all over the world. A friend from as far as Australia also knew about it and even saw the pictures!

This left the actors/victims very little time to respond. Most went into hiding but were stalked by paparazzi round the clock. His record label’s initial response to the media was flaky and investigations into the issue went on by the public and the media, only to discover more.

- A blog was used as a successful means of communication
Following the release of the pictures, large numbers of media went to Edison’s blog and scrutinized everything there, including the profile description. This even prompted a reply entry on his blog that was, again, picked up by the media.

- Digital media played an important role in crisis recovery
Instead of a press release, a video clip was posted online, and even on youtube. The impact of such a video clip is a lot more effective compared to a media release. Chen’s hair, attire and facial expressions communicated a sense of distraught and guilt as he begged the public to destroy the evidence.

- Messaging was to the point
Edison positioned his video message very well, carefully avoiding the acknowledgement of the photos as ‘real’ photos and urged the public to move on and “let the wounded heal their wounds.”

–Kevyn Eng, NGT Correspondent from FH Singapore