High5-ing again

Follow up blog time, more than a week ago I posted a story about the supposed pictures of a certain bread maker’s secret factory inspection. It left some readers wondering what the bread maker and its PR firm were doing to managed this viral ‘crisis’

The answer can be found in the newspapers and from my chat with Integrated Marketing Solutions Group (IMSG) chairman, Rose Tan. High5 is a client of IMSG in case you’re wondering.


The viral emails and of course blogs as well have led to the lawyers coming in and cleaning up the mess. They’ve placed legal ads in various newspapers and not just the English language papers too. Here’s one from an English language newspaper though (left).

And the lawyers have also instructed High5 to make a police report to find the culprits of the fake pictures. When I spoke to Rose Tan, chairman for IMSG, she laid down the law to me on how they approach such problems.

“Any good PR agency would sit down with the client and find out what is true and what is false and then advise the client to tell the truth. If the product is a health hazard then we have to tell the client to recall it. In this case, the truth is High5 bread is safe for consumption. This has been verified by the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore. The bread is halal and safe for consumption and we believe this (the viral pictures) is the work of spies and espionage. A police report has been made.”

Woaah! So now we know what they think (as in team High5) but what do the bloggers think? Is it espionage or disgruntled workers or do some people still think the pictures are actually accurate?

What I do know is this forum of blogs and viral videos and emails can be deadly to a brand. As I said last week, it really doesn’t matter if the pictures are fake because the average person probably doesn’t care or worst case scenario, they don’t trust printed media anymore.