When Lancme organized a small concert in Hong Kong featuring local Canto-pop star Denise Ho Wan-see, the company billed the event as "Made of Unstoppable Energy".

Obviously, it is never a good idea to stop something "made of unstoppable energy". When you do that, you get a disaster.

On June 5, Lancme cancelled the concert which was scheduled to be held on June 19 in Sheung Wan. Many believe that the action was in response to a boycott campaign launched by the Global Times, which despises the Canto-pop star for advocating Hong Kong and Tibet independence.

People tend to see this as a public relations issue. "Where are they getting their local advice from? There are a million other Canto-pop stars and TVB actresses that they could have chosen from to entice the local tai-tais without pissing off Beijing," a netizen commented. "It's crazy that Western countries still come here with no local knowledge or appreciation of local politics. It's that, or some French honcho got the wool pulled over his eyes"

The insensitivity is indeed profound. And it is beyond marketing, public relations and crisis management.

Lancme is a French luxury perfumes and cosmetics house that distributes products internationally. It has a unique relationship with women compared with competitors such as Estee Lauder, Clinique and Avon. Women see their relationship with Lancme as one based on exploration; it differentiates itself among its various cosmetic competitors.

A brand relationship based on exploration is defined as the desire to break away from an ordinary life and reach high to achieve excitement and adventure. The relationship women have with Lancme involves discovering one's individuality with a yearning for creativity and spontaneity.

To manage consumer expectations in a relationship built on exploration, Lancme's new product portfolio must continue to present people with options to fulfill their desires to explore self-identity. They have to continuously invent ways to remain fresh, adventurous and novel, and thereby keep women engaged through curiosity. Lancme's French attitude of bold glamour supports this explorational relationship; it comes through in their rich matte color palette, like vivid orange lipstick. This enables women to try on a new look and "wear" a different attitude.

A couple of years ago, Lancme hyped its new Grandise mascara with a social and digital campaign which highlights "revolutionary" technical details. In its social media channels, Lancme poked fun at the various maneuvers women make when they coat their lashes with a typical mascara brush. After using humor to get consumer attention, Lancme launched Grandise with content to back up the product differentiation.

In addition to her singing career, Denise Ho is an outspoken advocate for the "pan-democratic" camp as well as the rights of sexual minorities in Hong Kong. Naturally, Lancme would like to associate with someone like Ho - who also differentiates herself.

When Lancme made its decision to host a concert featuring Ho, they underestimated how much people on the mainland - not the central government - resent separatist tendencies. In the minds of some Westerners and Hong Kong people, the central government does not truly represent its people. They could foresee a backlash if they annoy the central government, but certainly not in the form of a spontaneous consumer boycott by mainlanders.

When people suffer from the illusion that there are "universal values", they forgot that not everyone agrees that "Dalai Lama is a warm grandpa" (Ho's words).

The "pan-democratic" camp and its foreign supporters want to link the cancellation of Ho's concert with the central government interfering with businesses. A misinterpretation of the situation will do no one any good.

Some local dissidents have begun to realize that the central government, whom they hate, is actually supported by many people on the mainland. This is the reason why in recent years they have come to despise mainlanders too. For them, inciting a Hong Kong-led revolution on the mainland to overrun the central government is no longer a realistic option. They have become inward-looking politically and instead are advocating "Hong Kong independence".

My advice to Lancme is: Hire a Hong Kong public relations director from the mainland.

(HK Edition 06/14/2016 page10)