SINGAPORE'S tourism board has been forced to remove a YouTube video designed to promote the city-state to the Philippine market, after it was derided as “so bad it will go viral”.
The three-minute clip depicts a young Filipino couple displaying astonishment as they visit various Singapore sights, including the iconic Marina Bay Sands casino and the Gardens by the Bay.
At the end, the woman presents the man with a gift box — which turns out to contain a positive pregnancy test. “I knew Singapore always had a surprise waiting for me!” her husband exclaims. “Happy anniversary, honey,” she replies, as cheesy music plays in the background.
The video was withdrawn from YouTube on Monday after it drew a wave of derision in Singapore, but duplicates have been widely re-posted on social media.
“This has to be a spoof. Nothing can be THIS bad,” wrote YouTube user Ferexx under one version of the promo.
Singapore social news and lifestyle website Mothership.sg pronounced it “so bad it will go viral”, describing it as “cringe-worthy”.
“The acting. The music. The surprise twist,” wrote another commenter calling themselves “Sing a Poor” below another version. “The worst tourism ad ever made in the history of advertising. Well done guys, you did Singapore proud.” The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) said the video was produced for the Philippine market by Manila's ABS-CBN network “in an effort to customise content for this audience”.
The tourism board said it posted the video on its YouTube channel after its television run in the Philippines ended.
“We subsequently removed it as it was not resonating well with audiences,” STB said.
“We thank readers for their feedback on the video and acknowledge that some aspects of it could have been done better.”
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