Opinion: In defense of Mediacorp’s Channel 8 CNY video...

You know Chinese New Year is fast approaching when brands unleash their festive red and gold cheer into the world.Keeping up with the festive feel. local broadcast giant Mediacorp has also released its annual Channel 8 CNY video which is available according to a its Facebook post, Singtel Music Store, Spotify and iTunes.Unfortunately, members of the public were not generous with their positive comments when it came to the video. The video has met with some significant backlash from media websites and netizens. The point of contention being Channel 8’s incorrect use of the dance move “dabbing” (this is a dance move which sees the dancer simultaneously dropping his/her head in one arm while raising the other. It is said to resemble sneezing).The move by the stars was called out for being “embarrassing”, “weak” and a feeble attempt to capture the attention of the younger crowds familiar with the move.On Facebook, the video which was posted about two weeks back (9 January) garnered 313,130 views, 3,900 reactions, 7,229 shares and 188 comments at the time of writing. The response on YouTube, posted on 3 January, however garnered 142,344 views, 547 likes and 232 dislikes.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaC5YwfMMewNow, this is where I come in to defend the spot.  As a Singaporean Chinese girl who has grown up watching Mediacorp’s annual videos, I found this year’s video to be a refreshing change for what they did in the past. Here are some reasons why.Consistent with its usual brand of CNY contentThe video still has everything which is typical of a Channel 8 Chinese New Year music video – mandarin oranges, red packets, singing and dancing and auspicious red and gold festive decorations plastered in nearly every frame. Aside from the dabbing, the video was pretty much consistent with the CNY feel. Yes it wasn't outrageously creative and ground breaking work worthy of numerous awards, but it still holds on to the Chinese New Year feel.Terrible dabbing – but at least they triedThe awkward and critically panned dabbing in the video showed an attempt to reach out and stay relevant to a younger crowd – even if it might have backfired a little bit. Although Mediacorp got a lot of heat for the move, I found the attempt to stay relevant rather endearing.However, what may have helped their case is better briefing of the talents on how to do the dab correctly – which is a face down movement towards the arm. In the video Mediacorp talents Zoe Tay and Chen Hanwei got the move completely wrong.Maybe Betty White would be a better mentor? Random Hockhua Tonic product placement was so bad – it was goodBrands have been called out over the years for product placement which is done distastefully or for being too obvious. (Remember Transformers?) The same might ring true for Mediacorp, as the product placement with two Hockhua Tonic employees dancing with the mascot chick in the video did not add any value to the prose whatsoever.But thank you Mediacorp Channel 8, for reminding me that I can still buy some last minute dried goods for my reunion dinner at Hockhua Tonic. Or if I needed some last minute bird’s nest to impress Mama Tay.Although bad, the product placement was certainly effective as I am now craving some honey lemon tea from the store.They tried and composed something newAs opposed to past years where Channel 8 got its talents to sing the same familiar Chinese New Year songs, Channel 8 upped its game by composing its own song. Although the song was not a hit maker, it was rather catchy and certainly pays a homage to the Singaporean chase for luxury goods – Guji = Gucci.I can't really say thumbs up Mediacorp. But I guess I can say good try. (Photo credits: Mediacorp and GIPHY)