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Always found it weird to see governments paying for PR consultants. It's like : I give you tax money to do a good job, but you spend it to convince me that yo
by al3xandre 7y ago
Always found it weird to see governments paying for PR consultants.
It's like : I give you tax money to do a good job, but you spend it to convince me that you're doing a good job instead of actually delivering getting shit done.
- wendyshu 7y agoAgreed but it looks like this instance is about convincing foreign people.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y agoTo be fair, there is quite a lot of money being spent to convince you that they are doing a bad job, so it is reasonable to fight that.
- AlexandrB 7y agoAny sources on this? I don't get the impression that the protestors are well-funded.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y agoI'm not speaking about China specifically. The parent said: > Always found it weird to see governments paying for PR consultants. And that is what I'm responding to.
- Mikeb85 7y agoSome of the protest leaders have been bankrolled by NGOs with connections to the US government since the 'Umbrella Revolution'.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- woutr_be 7y agoThere's quite a few crowd funding campaigns by protestors that have raised millions of dollars. They were able to buy full page ads in major international newspapers.
- partialrecall 7y agoHire PR professionals to stave off these other PR professionals. This industry operates like a protection racket.
- naniwaduni 7y agosee also: advertising
- dredmorbius 7y agoAnd law. And fashion.
- ummonk 7y agoDo you also think a good product doesn’t need marketing? And a good engineer doesn’t need to sell their accomplishments in performance reviews?
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoYou shouldn't need marketing when the "customer" has no other option but to deal with you. If you legitimately don't suck then the customer will figure it out through their experience (because they have to deal with you). Hiring PR firms to gaslight the public is not something a decent government does.
- Cerium 7y agoSome customers can choose, I recently decided not to fly to HK.
- Retric 7y agoThat sounds like you’re saying you are not a customer. What exactly is your point? I mean if you where a visited in the past with first hand knowledge that decided not to come back, then PR is not going to have an impact.
- short_sells_poo 7y agoParent is saying they are a customer shopping for holiday/business destinations and they decided to to do business with HK. In other words, HK just lost a sale.
- Retric 7y agoCustomer is one who purchases something as in that’s what it means. So they can’t be a HK customer if they don’t make a purchase. Potential customer’s is generally referred to a Lead specifically to make this distinction.
- JamilD 7y agoFor tourism and appeal for businesses it can have a clear ROI; both of those are important for Hong Kong.
- wavefunction 7y agoI was planning to visit Hong Kong before this began but won't now for the foreseeable future due to the actions of the governments of HK and China. I want to visit China too but the rapid development of their omnipresent surveillance state has me putting those plans off presumably forever, which is a shame as I am fascinated by Chinese history and culture.
- phantomathkg 7y agoI would say it still worth a visit to see it first hand. Protest and civil disobedience normally occurred during the weekend. r/HongHong even has a link to a Google Calendar on all the events that are going to happen.
- greggman2 7y agoYou should visit China just to see the scale. 20 cities larger then NYC. Just one example, Tokyo's bullet train station has 4 tracks Shanghai's has 24. Also make sure to visit the country side and see how many people need to be helped out of poverty.
- wavefunction 7y agoThanks for your suggestions. I have to admit I enjoy nature over man-made achievements but I would appreciate visiting China's mills of industry in addition to absorbing the local culture and cuisines throughout the nation (food is perhaps most accessible and direct experience of local culture?)
- madacoo 7y agoI'm currently in Hong Kong (planning to leave in December). Honestly if you want to come as a tourist I can't see you'll face any problems. Just be sensible and you'll be safe. Unless you don't want to fund the economy of Hong Kong through tourism because you disagree with politics of its government and China. In which case, fair enough, really. I'm avoiding pro-China companies as much as possible myself. Although obviously the necessities of living do get a little in the way of that.
- tempsy 7y agoIt's definitely not just PR Consultants...the gov't hires management consulting firms like McKinsey, Accenture, etc. all the time.
- Green_man 7y ago"The people must learn how well I govern them. How would they know if I did not tell them?" -Dune, by Frank Herbert
- contingencies 7y agoAdded to https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup
- telchar 7y agoThis looks like a neat program. (As someone who has never used ruby): how do I run it? This isn't obvious to me.
- slenk 7y agoSince it declares the interpreter at the beginning (https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup/blob/master/taoup#L1 https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup/blob/master/taoup#L1), you should just be able to chmod +x it and run it as ./taoup Since it's an executable like that, this would also allow you to put it in /usr/local/bin (or wherever you keep bins) and call it from anywhere in your shell with 'taoup' (my technical wording may be off)
- hlynurd 7y agoI don't remember that quote at all, who said it in the book?
- Green_man 7y agoLeto is talking to Paul, and he is talking about either a region or a chemical process that is important for the production of film stock. then he sardonically says something like, (paraphrasing): "Film stock is very important. we have the finest propaganda offices. The people must learn how well I govern them. How would they know if we didn't tell them?" he means it sarcastically, but propaganda is important to keep useful people on the planet and to win the general populace over. Leto knows he's backed into a corner on Arrakis and he's focusing on what he can. I also could only find the part i posted originally online, its not one of the more frequent quotes from the book.
- SN76477 7y agoSame things go for companies that fight their employees. There wouldn't be any fighting if companies would stop acting against their employees best interests.
- cirgue 7y ago> the government wanted a firm to "address negative perceptions in key markets overseas to maintain confidence in Hong Kong" It seems like the point of this particular exercise wasn't to convince citizens of anything, but rather to convince people that want to do business in HK that it is still a good idea. This definitely seems premature to the point of being stupid and massively tone-deaf, but does not seem especially ill-intentioned.
- kiba 7y agoSometime people do need to spend money on PR to announce the fact that they can do a good job, because doing a good job is not always self evident. But you're right in that it feels slimey when governments hire out PR to dress up problems instead of solving problems.
- chrischen 7y agoThe’re PRopaganda consultants.
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago> I give you tax money to do a good job In a democracy, sure. In a dictatorship, you give them tax money because they said so, and they’ll do whatever the hell they want with it, because they aren’t accountable to you in any way.
- xwolfi 7y agoAlso to pay for retirement, roads and safety. Dictatorships have many shapes, they're not all corrupt to the core so much they tax-enslave their people. Singapore and HK, for example, have very low taxes.
- Wowfunhappy 7y agoSure, but GP was making a statement about the “purpose” of their tax money. Without accountability, the purpose is whatever the government wants, not what citizens want. That might be roads, but it could well be PR firms.
- SilasX 7y agoWell, I can understand the need to publicize stuff that might not go unnoticed. But I definitely scratched my head at how the US postal service was doing major, ostentatious sponsorships of cyclists on the Tour de France, and was like, "uh, are people really not aware that the Post Office is a thing?" Edit: Side note, I remember a slashdot thread from a while back that mentioned the "Word of Mouth Marketing Association", and someone was like, "um, what? Isn't the whole point of word-of-mouth marketing that it's not organized by some committee, top-down?"
- C1sc0cat 7y agoWell there is the brand marketing aspect and I suspect that US post also has European business to promote.
- colordrops 7y agoIsn't it also for tourism and external investment? Image is important.
- hkai 7y agoOften policies don't matter as much as how you promote it. China and Singapore are two places that promote their policies in a way that makes people at home patriotic and many people overseas jealous. There was an article here on HN about Singapore a few days ago and I was relieved to see that not everyone in the comments is buying it.
- alexanderdmitri 7y agoBasically it's politics and where there's politics there's going to be a need for PR.
- United857 7y agoUsually, a government's diplomatic arm (e.g. US Department of State) serves as their "international PR" function. So yes, governments do "pay" for PR, it's just done by their own employees most of the time. Hong Kong is a special case as they're not a separate country, so China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs handles all their diplomacy for them (for better and for worse).
- Stevvo 7y agoIt has come full circle; the PR industry was created to apply the principles of government propaganda in corporations, but propaganda isn't cool anymore, so they have to hire the PR firms.