Anything army-related would attract Singaporeans’ attention simply because most of us would have donned the green uniform for two years.
That’s why Ah Boys to Men franchise made Jack Neo a millionaire, and why Panadol, the brand we go for when we need to relieve pain, made an advertisement based on army life.
If done well, it’ll be a hit.
But if done in a wrong way, you can bet that Singaporeans would be triggered.
And unfortunately for Panadol, the latter happened.
Panadol Ad Campaign
Go to Panadol Singapore Facebook Page and you’ll see this cover image:
Anyone who’s in the army would know that the first thing we go for if we have headache or migraine would be to report sick.
Shoulder pain? Either yoko-yoko, or report sick.
Back pain? You’d better report sick or your spine’s going to break into two pieces.
No one in the army would take painkillers.
But anyways, that’s not what people were complaining about.
It’s their video.
Sponsored Video on Facebook
If you go through the video section in their Facebook Page, you’ll see a video titled In celebration of those who have served and are serving the nation, thank you for being our Toughies!
The video, unfortunately, can’t be embedded.
There are only 110 views, but apparently, the same video is being used as a “dark ad”, most probably to men like me. Dark ad essentially means a Facebook ad that’s not in a Facebook Page’s newsfeed.
Before moving on the comments, I as a NSman have already found many parts of the video…wrong.
Firstly, this:
That is obviously an NSF booking in for his BMT. An NSF means “National Serviceman Full-Time”, which refers to people serving their two-year NS.
But it wrote “NSman” instead; NSman is like me, a civilian who has to go back to reservist training once a year. You can argue that it could be an NSman, but the video specially says “two years in NS”.
And also, which NSman would hug his parents or anyone before booking in (in-pro)? NSmen would be over the moon because we’d be seeing our old buddies again, and we can siam all responsibilities from work! You got see people hugging before going for chalets meh?
Secondly, this:
Consuming painkillers for pain for training?
Like a wise encik once said, “No pain, no gain! Train hard, fight easy!”
Another wise encik also said, “What, back pain? Stop training immediately and go report sick now! I don’t want to be responsible if you injured leh!”
And another wise encik instructor once said, “Anyone not feeling well? Wait, you said you’ve shoulder pain and are now okay because you eat Panadol? You cheesepie, want me die is it? I.e. to say you not feeling well lah! Go report sick immediately! Wah lao wei, luckily you sound out if not I kena…”
You get the gist: we take our safety very seriously, and no one in their right mind would have Panadol, or even self-medicate anything, just to continue training.
And based on the comments in the dark ad, which has well over 200K views, people seem to agree.
But what’s even more…shocking is that Panadol replied to the triggered comments along this line:
As an NSman who’s being through two years of training and some reservist training, here’s what I’d say:
Thanks but no thanks.
I’d rather sing songs to relieve forget my pain.
Here’s a simplified summary of the South Korea martial law that even a 5-year-old would understand:
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