Huawei just put up a LinkedIn post looking for a director of public relations

Huawei Technologies is currently looking for someone to be its director of public relations in Southeast Asia. 

Hmm, we wonder why. 

According to the LinkedIn job description, applicants would need to have at least eight years of experience wrangling with public relations, marketing, or brand management. They’d have to be able to be well versed in English, Vietnamese, as well as Chinese (of course), and will be tasked to develop marketing strategies and campaigns to cultivate positive media coverage for the brand. Standard stuff. 

The new job posting today may or may not be entirely related to the fiasco Huawei created last weekend when it raised the ire of Singapore’s boomer population — the company certainly failed to prepare for a large turnout of elderly folks wanting heavily discounted smartphones. 

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But to be fair to Huawei, they’re trying to “make things right” by offering a $100 voucher each to the 5,000 customers that registered at its stores to get their hands on the $54 entry-level Y9 Pro phones. A decent gesture I suppose, even if Huawei’s misfired promo did prompt the deployment of armed cops across various retail stores to quell hostile mobs. 

In any case, the company probably does need someone to take the reins and steer its stature back onto a respectable road. The person who’ll take on the job will also have to be based in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, but we imagine the recent shenanigans in Singapore will still be under his/her purview. 

The brand is, of course, no stranger to bad press, given that its been denounced by parties even bigger than older Singaporean folks. In fact, Huawei’s trade war crisis could have actually propelled it into a household name. 

ilyas@asiaone.com