HTC has suffered another loss at the executive level with the sudden resignation of Lorain Wong the vice president and head of global public relations. Wong joined HTC only four months ago to lead HTC’s global communication strategies, including PR, media, and corporate communications. Wong has over 25 years of experience in marketing, communications and media and at one time was the Director of Partnership Marketing for AT&T responsible for negotiating and managing sports and entertainment partnerships across Southern California.
Her sudden departure comes at an uncertain time for HTC which has lost six senior executives in the past 2 and a half years. Other recent causalities to HTC failing market position and worsening financial situation include HTC's Chief Product Officer, Kouji Kodera and HTC’s Asia CEO Lennard Hoornik. Before them, marketing chief John Wang and Chief Financial Officer Winston Yung also moved on to greener pastures.
The reason given for Wong’s departure are the standard “personal reasons” which is almost double-speak for she was pushed. However it seems that Wong is still of some value to HTC as according to Chief Marketing Officer Ben Ho, her direct manager, she will stay on as a consultant for three or four months. This consultancy role is probably necessary during the handover period to the next head of PR, who has yet to be named.
Back in May product strategy manager Eric Lin left HTC and advised all his friends still working at the Taiwanese smartphone maker to “just quit, leave now.” Eric’s tweet went on further to say “it's tough to do, but you'll be so much happier, I swear.”
Back in June HTC revealed that it had signed a two-year marketing deal with Iron Man star Robert Downey Jr. that was estimated to be a worth a cool $12 million for the actor. The total spend for the campaign is thought to be around $1 billion. The first series of adverts of the “Change” campaign focus on the idea of transformation, and comically used combinations of words that start with the letters H, T, and C, such as "Hipster Troll Carwash", "Hold This Cat" or "Humongous Tinfoil Catamaran". It is likely that Wong had a part in this campaign but it is unknown if the campaign’s impact has anything to do with her leaving the company.
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