Made in Macao | On Macau Loves Locals

Jenny Lao-Phillips

After all the festive parades and light installations of the Spring Festival, the latest hot topic in town should be none other than the joint citywide campaign of Macau’s six gaming operators.
A week ago, I was invited to attend a press conference, about which the only information I was told then was the name: “Macau Loves Locals”. The first question that popped into my head was “how much (love)?” and “who loves me, again?”
Of course, the first “person” that came to mind was the government – was there a new initiative, perhaps a continuation of MGTO’s CNY activities for local citizens? Or could it be a new government wealth sharing programme with more money for local citizens? Maybe an increase in education subsidies for local students or, finally, rental control for local SMEs? Though I didn’t think it was likely to be about protecting the local environment from real estate development, the term “Macau Loves Locals” did trigger a minute or two of sweet daydreams. That is, until I opened the file and read further about the campaign.
To my shock and amusement, I read that, the campaign was a joint act of “corporate social responsibility” carried out by the joint forces of Macau’s six gaming operators. Just a few weeks ago, I was having a discussion in my classroom on CSR, and how large corporations, at desperate moments, join forces with competitors to enhance their image of responsibility at the industry level to gain social acceptance. We discussed the basic social responsibilities of all businesses, and to what extent CSR was merely lip service for the purpose of public relations. If only the campaign had been announced a month earlier, we would have had a real, live local case to discuss in the classroom.
Then again, the planning of the campaign took only five weeks, so the initiative probably didn’t exist a month or so ago. I imagine that the six gaming heads sat down six weeks ago and decided they needed to give something back to the local community, and thus “Macau Loves Locals” was born. At least, I guess there wouldn’t have been much dissent among the “Big Six”, as they have very efficiently agreed upon and taken action to provide locals with a series of benefits. Now that is some real love! So, one week into this campaign, how much love have local citizens felt?
It is unfortunate that the campaign met with a bad start, with locals complaining about the violation of their privacy when some non-gaming outlets asked to copy personal information from their ID cards. This was quickly resolved, but to my surprise, there wasn’t much more about “Macau Loves Locals” on social media. So I started proactively asking locals about their participation in this campaign. Apparently, the campaign has not managed to stimulate much excitement among the locals. According to most people I’ve interviewed, the campaign was not attractive enough to encourage them to go visit any of the outlets. Some claimed that they tried to redeem the offer, but were disappointed because the outlets they visited did not offer discounts, and one didn’t even recognize the Macau ID card. Quite a few locals didn’t know that there was a campaign going on at all. Well, their loss for not reading newspapers, I must say.
But what other channels has “Macau” used to communicate this campaign to the locals, aside from the press conference? Now that the Big Six have joined forces, shouldn’t “Macau’s” marketing efforts be much stronger? Of course, by “Macau” I mean the six gaming operators, though I didn’t realise that they speak for all of “Macau” now. Maybe it was too clumsy to call the campaign “Non-gaming Entertainment in Macau Loves Locals,” but I should pay more attention next time I say “I love Macau”. Jenny Lao-Phillips