Real Leaf Frutcy Apple Green Iced Tea – schocking new product launch that is more like an ampalaya juice drink

it was an interesting packaging and i was thirsty and this was the only drink available at the store. it was the first time that i saw this brand and i thought i should get an apple drink variant. i thought choosing the apple variant was the safest bet, how can you go wrong with an apple flavor?

well, i was wrong. this one tasted bad.

the drink i bought was Real Leaf Frutcy, an apple green iced tea. okay, fine the brand name “frutcy” was trying too much to be cutie, but it had an interesting packaging – the green frosted plastic bottle was unique and it had a wide ribbed body that felt good on the grip.

it was cold when i bought it. being thirsty, i thought a cold apple drink will be great. but i was disappointed – the drink had a bitter after taste. the bitter after taste was so strong that it felt like i drank some kind of ampalaya juice drink. to make things worst, the ampalaya bitter taste stayed in my mouth for a long time, a few hours after i had take the drink. the drink tasted so bad that i was able to drink only 1/3 of the 480 mL drink.

i wondered who made this lousy product, i thought this must have been made by a cheap run of the mill juice drink maker. i was driving when i drank the green tea drink so i was unable to read who made it.

when i hit a stop light, i looked at the label to see who was the manufacturer of the Real Leaf Frutcy drink. i was shocked when i read the label – it was from the Coca Cola Company (Coca Cola Bottlers Philippines Inc.).

first thing that came to my mind – how can coca cola launch such a lousy product into the philippine market?

coca cola is not only the leading drink company in the country but also in the world. it is also one of the best marketing companies in the world. they do everything right and takes pains on doing things right.

coca cola does a lot of consumer research and for sure they must have done not one but a few consumer researches on this product before they launched it into the market. a product consumer research must have been done to vet the flavor and other things about the product.

how did coca cola miss on this one big time on the bitter ampalaya taste of this product?

for sure this one is the equivalent of a WAWAM on product launches. it’s not a waste of advertising money but a waste of product launch money.

corporate greed : telcos with multi billion revenues refuse to refund consumers on overcharging on text

this is the news today – giant telcos Smart and Globe have been overcharging consumers on the text messages they have been sending in the past year to the tune of a total of P1.4B according to the Philippine Daily Inquirer (PDI).

philippine consumers have taken to texting as the most often used way to communicate with each other that the philippines has become the texting capital of the world. the PDI article says filipinos send a total of 20M texts a day or 600M texts a month.

the overcharge is a result of the telcos charging consumers P1.00 per text instead of P0.80 as directed by the NTC (National Telecommunications Commission) effective December of last year.

the order to reduce text costs to consumers was a result of a separate directive by the NTC to reduce interconnection charges. interconnection charges were reduced to P0.15 from P0.35 but the telcos did not pass the savings on to consumers.

the whole idea behind the reduction of interconnection charges was to reduce the cost to consumers but telcos instead decided to pocket the savings and fatten their profits.

(read PDI article in full here: Text overcharging bared)

the telc0s in their interviews are saying they will contest the refund in the courts. in other words, they really want to keep the P1.4B for themselves even though these savings were obtained for precisely the reason of reducing charges to consumers.

what will happen to the telcos if they refund consumers? nothing.

for sure, they will not go bankrupt nor will they loose sleep even for a night, not even during siesta if they give the refund. the P1.4B refund is a mere 0.8% of the combined revenues of  Smart and Globe of P166.8B (source: PDI article). the telcos refunding the consumers will hardly affect their bottom line.

while for sure the telcos will not go bankrupt, it will certainly be appreciated by consumers. around 85% of the philippine population belong to the DE socio-eco classes and that means these are the bulk of the customers of globe and smart. in the first place, it is  this high percentage of the poor being their customers which has made texting the most popular service of the telcos. to the poor, even a few peso savings and in this case in texting cost matters a lot.

happier and appreciative consumers will mean increased usage by the consumers. so in the end it will be a no loss and in fact a gain by the telcos. whatever amount they give to consumers for sure will come back to them in increased usage.  except of course when corporate greed strikes.

Ford Focus direct mail effort – impressive spending but unimpressive mailer material that fails

i got a surprising knock at my house from LBC – they delivered an odd sized package to me. quickly, i made a mental audit – am i expecting a package or document from anyone? the quick answer was – none. bells in my mind  rang!  oh, is this a surprise from someone? 

i opened the pack and i found a mailer from Ford on their new car, the Focus. i checked the envelope and yes it was addressed to me and it had my address. i wondered if it was sent to “occupant” or if it was sent to my house by mistake. no such mistake.

i was impressed with the direct mailing effort of Ford!

it was impressive as this was the first direct mail i got through LBC and this was addressed specifically to me. sending direct mail through LBC is a very expensive proposition. LBC cost alone is a killer of advertising budgets.

the other thing that is equally impressive was that it was  specifically for me. i was surprised they got my name and address. coming from marketing and advertising myself, i have for many years not given out my name, address and even cell phone number to almost anyone or any organization that i thought can  turn my personal information into data in a direct mail effort.

the most i do is sign my name when asked by any organization, including the schools of my children, retail outlets, stores or any other organization. when an address is required, all i put is the city name, not the complete address. for telephone or cell phone numbers, i would usually put some random number and very far from my real cell phone number.

this ford focus mailer was very targeted, having the ability to reach potential buyers. a targeted direct mail effort is very difficult for many direct mail agencies to pull off. this means this direct mail agency has a very good data base.

although i was impressed with the direct mail effort, i was not at all impressed with the mailer material they sent out.

front page & letter

the main weakness of the mailer is that it is just a re-layout of their print ads and a restating of the key elements of their TV ad. not saying the mailer should have a different advertising strategy and ad components from the TV and print ad, as  they should have the same but they should have changed the execution and implementation of the elements.

the mailer does not look like a mailer, it looks like a print ad but printed in glossy paper and folded. except for the letter that came with it, the mailer had nothing in it from a design and content standpoint that will get the recipient to take action or even just enjoy the mailer.

aside from coming up with a new design appropriate for a mailer, it should have some elements that exploit the mailer format medium. it could have been more interactive or leading where the recipient will want to read, interact with or manipulate  the mailer because it is interesting or creative.

the Focus has a few features that are unique in the market and potentially very attractive to potential car buyers. while these were mentioned in the mailer, it was not exploited in a way that is creative and compelling.

the mailer as an advertising medium is self contained and has the target audience practically as captive, designing the mailer to exploit the great features of the car and the characteristics of the medium would have served Ford very well.

inside pages

another key weakness of this mailer is that it does not include some kind of an incentive for the recipient to take action – for the recipient to go to the Ford showroom and look at the car or as the letter suggests to test drive the car.

the end objective of this mailer is not just to generate awareness on the features of the car, it is to get the target audience to go to the showroom to look and test drive the car. the weak design of the mailer fails in achieving this key objective.

the mailer may succeed in informing the target audience of the features of the car but it may be failing in getting them to take action.

lacking this incentive and the weakness of the design and concept makes this mailer a WAWAM! What A Waste Of Advertising Money!

———-

we will be going to a Ford showroom to complete the experience and effort of this mailer. will post a write-up here.

 

~~~ mindscape landmark ~~~
carrlo arvisu

 

wawamTECH: philippine call center agents are the biggest liars in the world

if you have a cell phone service, a dsl service at home or a telephone landline in the philippines, then you have experienced this for sure. it is an experience we all have when something goes wrong with any of these services. and one more thing, it is never a happy experience.

1. “I’ll just put you on hold for 1 to 2 minutes” -  that can be anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes. never once did i wait for just 1 to 2 minutes when i am put on hold.

2. “I’m sorry for the inconvenience” - saying “sorry” is just lip service. if they are truly sorry then they would ask their management to fix things and get things done faster.

3. “I do understand your concern…” - this is a hit and miss thing. you will be lucky if the call center agent dealing with you really know your concern. this is one of those lines the call center agent say just to pacify you or make an attempt to make you feel better.why do they use this line when it really does not work?

4. “I’m sorry, my supervisor is not available now and is attending to another customer.”  - you did follow the procedure by talking to the call center agent, the first line of defense by your service provider. but after some minutes of dealing with the the agent. being patient or checking your anger you give up and ask to speak to the supervisor. the customer asking for the supervisor is something the call center agent does not like. she is supposed to fix your concern and for the customer asking for the supervisor means she has failed in her job to satisfy the customer. the customer asking to speak to the supervisor is a point against the call center agent. that is the reason why every call center agent in the philippines says this lie. it is an attempt to dissuade the customer from doing that.

we have dealt with call centers of US companies, like several banks. online stores and tech companies, we never experience this with them. ask for the supervisor and the supervisor talks to you in a few seconds if not immediately. it is strange that the call center companies that service US companies are able to do this and yet those servicing philippine companies are not while both are manned by filipinos and are based in the philippines.

5. “I will call you back.” - after some excruciating minutes, your problems with the service has been fully understood and recorded. they know admit something is wrong with their service and that the customer needs relief and action. the call center agent says this to make you feel better, to give the impression that they are there to fix things for you, that they want you to be a happy customer.  but they never call back to tell you if the problem has been fixed or not fixed.

often i will ask the call center agent exactly what she/he will do and what will be said when they call back. i ask that several times just to be clear. i also ask them what time will they call back. they will of course not be precise as to what time they will call within the day which is a ridiculous time frame. it’s weird that call center agents think you will actually wait the whole day for their call.

you push and they relent and give a time frame instead – anywhere from within 3 to 6 hours. you push and ask for a shorter time frame. the most you can get is within 2 to 3 hours.

but do they call back? never! again we have not dealt with a call center agent who calls back as promised.

6. “My name is…” – often i find that that names call center agents give of themselves are not their real name and not the name they use when they are on duty. they do this to keep you off track when you call back and complain about the service you get from call center agents.

i know that as i do call back to complain about call center agents who do bad in their handling of customers. i find out they gave you the wrong name as the person i am talking to will usually say they do not have call center agents by that name. worst, i ask the person i am talking to what is the name of the call center agent who entertained my call based on their record and they say a different name.

7. “My ID number is…” –  one of the other things i do is ask for their ID numbers aside from the names of the call center agents i deal with. the ID number is in many ways a better info than their names. but of course you really can’t be sure that is their ID number. they give you this lie for the same reason they lie about their names.

8. “I will do this myslf…” – this is supposed the  ace in the conversation with a call center agent. this is meant to reassure you that something will be done to fix the problem you had called them for. they are saying here that they will not just make a report and wait for someone to fix your problems but they will take action themselves. don’t believe this, it ain’t gonna happen.

this is a really sad affair not only for these telco companies but for the philippine call center industry as a whole. the philippine BPO industry is supposed to tbe the leader in the world and wants to not only maintain that status but grow it even bigger and faster but behavior like this, the lies that say to customers is not going to get them there.

the other despicable thing about this is that this happens a lot with call centers of telcos like Globe and PLDT (DSL). these are communication companies and yet these examples show they are bad communicators. the worst kind of communication are the ones that lie to customers.

i say it again, why is that filipino call centers handling philippine companies behave so differently and so badly compared to filipino call centers handling US companies? aren’t they the same company and son’t they follow the same metrics of performance and philosophy?

why this is happening is the next topic in this blog.

wawamTECH: how bad is globe service? smart launches a national ad campaign to exploit it

competitive advertising  is one of the most effective advertising concept and format. competitive advertising takes many forms, one is calling out the weakness of your competitor to set up your brand as the superior brand to the inferiority of your competitor. it is one of the most effective as consumers will always go for the superior brand.

not only that, users of your competitive brand, the inferior brand will be encouraged to switch to your brand. that is the main reason why smart telco has launched a new advertising campaign.

globe, it’s only other competitor has been experiencing network problems for many months now.

click to read here : wawamTECH: globe handyphone service failing for months now, collapses metro manila wide on the weekend

globe service has been very unreliable with frequent downtime, inconsistent signal strength, fluctuating signal strength from zero to 2 bars, 30 minute to several hours of receiving and sending text and inability of subscribers to make calls. this has been happening to globe for several months now. this happens area to area but the other weekend the globe system apparently failed metro manila wide.

smart very smartly exploited the inferiority of service that globe has been showing by launching an national ad campaign calling out globe’s network failures. the advertising objective is to get globe subscribers to switch to smart and to prevent new subscribers from going to globe.

this move of smart is very unusual from an advertising strategy standpoint. ads like what smart ran are usually aired by new brands just launching into the market, not by a brand that has been in the market for almost as long as globe is. newly introduced brands use this type of advertising to get loyal consumers of competitive brands already in the market to switch to the new entrant.

globe has been having network problems as a result of a mismanagement of their switch over to a new hardware and system from chinese supplier Huawei which was supposed to upgrade their service – faster service and bigger handling capacity. the change over is so bad that it is wrecking havoc to globe service. (read link, above)

smart obviously knew this as you don’t normally run ad campaigns that feature competitive weaknesses that can easily be solved and quickly. doing that will waste advertising money. smart must have known that the network problems of globe will be going on for a long time that they can actually air an ad campaign on it. smart’s competitive ad campaign has bite only if globe continues to have an inferior product.

this cellphone service war can very well be named as – how your own upgrade can kill yourself.

~~~mindscape landmark~~~
carlo p arvisu 

“make it makati” campaign – logo that works hard and beautifully

we have been seeing these banners on the main streets of makati along the ayala avenue business area and it caught our attention on the positive side.

we think it’s a good logo design and even more brilliant was how the logo design concept elements of colorful lines were flawlessly incorporated into the banner design. the whole thing is so put together with elements or components  and the whole working well together.  it’s a very classy logo and banner design which is a perfect fit to makati city and most appropriate to the target audience of business people and investors.

our push back though, although minor is the readability of “makati”. the lines in white and color makes it not very easy to pick up. the eyes naturally separate the lines, deconstructing the shape of the letters.

bayo apologizes and pulls out their mixed race ad campaign – what’s next for bayo?

bayo finally does the right thing by recognizing their error, not making excuses for it, apologizing for their error  and announcing they will pull out the offensive ad campaign.

Bayo says sorry for ads, will bring down billboards

By Francine M. Marquez, InterAksyon.com · Thursday, June 7, 2012 · 11:06 pm

On Thursday evening, an official statement issued by the company through its VP for Product Research and Development, Lyn Agustin, said: “We at BAYO deeply apologize for the message our campaign—‘What’s Your Mix?’—has unintentionally conveyed. We would like to express our regret to those who have been offended or felt discriminated against.

“Our company and our partners have always taken pride in being pro-Filipino as we continue to celebrate our uniqueness and achievements. We believe that being a Filipino will always make you 100% beautiful. It is unfortunate that this message got lost along the way.

“We thank everyone who has shown support for our thrust of promoting Filipino beauty, talent, and creativity.”

In a phone interview with Bayo’s GM Pinky Estrebillo, the clothing brand’s executive said that the company will also temporarily bring down all its billboards with the said ads. The campaign, she said, was conceptualized by its in-house creative team with the help of a consultant.

http://www.interaksyon.com/lifestyle/bayo-says-sorry-for-ad-will-bring-down-billboards

the statements of apology no longer come from the spokesperson but two other company officials. that is a good move. the spokesperson who released a statement first did not do a good job at it and we even think may have harmed the brand even more by attempting to rationalize their error.

they should have released the latest statement of apology and ad recall at the very start. people have been offended by the ads,. no amount of debate, argument or excuses can change that. making excuses for the error will only deepen the hurt and prolong the agony of a failed and insulting ad campaign.

what’s next for bayo?

1. new ad campaign – quick! they need to release a new ad campaign quickly. this may take longer than usual as they need to do some very serious thinking on the next ad campaign. this will be a tough assignment as the new ad campaign need to take into consideration the ill effects of mixed race ad campaign.

they need to find the correct balance. in a situation like this, doing too little and too much are both detrimental to the brand. will they ignore what happened? or will they recognize it?

very serious strategic thinking need to be applied on the next ad campaign.  more importantly, they should do things other than just advertising. a holistic, strategy driven and integrated effort need to be done.

2. comprehensive PR campaign – now! while they are developing their new ads, they need to go on a PR offensive to smooth things out with the public  and their target market.

equally important, they need to do a PR campaign for their suppliers, the malls that house their retail outlets and their employees. for sure many of their partners and employees feel demoralized from what happened. bayo needs to restore confidence and faith on the company and company management.

3. get rid of  the consultant, do not engage in house communication group to do next ad campaign –  the press statement said a consultant and their in house communication group did the ads. getting them to do the next ad campaign will be counter productive. getting them involve will not result to good things as they will for sure feel defensive and tainted.

4. re-train and re-tool in store dealing with customers by sales personnel -  byo should not forget that being a retail operation, the company does have direct contact with their customers at the stores. theirs is  unlike mass consumer goods marketers whose contact with the customers is mostly through advertising. people who buy a bottle of coke or sanitary napkin for example just go to the stores and buy the product, no other interaction takes place with the customer.

that is not true with retail stores. the clothing company actually has direct contact with their customers via the sales ladies in their retail stores. these sales ladies need to be given guidelines and training as to how they will behave and what to say to customers.  for sure the bayo sales ladies will be faced with questions on the ad campaign by customers. they need to know what to say and how to say it.

5. completely drop the mixed race advertising campaign, not even with a ten foot pole   – they should NOT, not even put a hint on the mixed race campaign.

the fact is the ad campaign they had was a race-driven campaign, it was not even about clothes or fashion, it was about race. race and religion are the two things in this world that no advertising or brand should have in their advertising campaign. race and religion are always very touchy subject matters where the line between doing good for the brand and doing bad is a very, very thin line.

to begin with, the advertising strategy for their mixed race ad campaign was a total failure. the ad campaign was selling the idea of mixed-fashion which is not unique to their brand and something that other clothing companies can claim. it is a very generic claim that does not build brand equity for them.

just to simplify the point, they could have for example sold their clothing line on the basis of having the best yellow color in the industry. that is ownable and unique . mixed fashion is not.

the ad campaign was selling the idea of mixed race, zeroing in on the celebrity talents they had in their ads. race has nothing to do with clothes or fashion.

this ad campaign is a celebrity endorsement ad campaign gone wrong and done badly.   they took the idea of celebrity endorsement ad campaign to the extreme – selling their endorsers instead of the product which is clothes.

this is the weakness of the philippine advertising industry as a whole. the ad industry in this country knows nothing else but celebrity endorsement ad campaigns. a huge 80% to 90% of the total ads aired on tv and radio and published in print feature celebrity endorsers. celebrity endorsement has become a go-to ad campaign concept for the industry.  it has become the default ad campaign concept.

the bayo mixed-race ad campaign has taken that ad campaign concept to the extreme that they were already selling the mixed race element of their celebrity endorser rather than the clothes they were supposed to advertise.

in developing all of the above, the company needs to face the fact that they have offended the general public and their target market.  not only that, most people will now know them as the clothing brand that insulted the filipino. that is no easy issue to face.

~~~ mindscape landmark ~~~
carlo p arvisu 

bayo’s anti-filipino ad – advertising creativity gone horribly wrong with twisted logic

we join the multitude of netizens condemning the bayo ad as anti-filipino. we join them as a filipino and as a marketing/advertising practitioner.

from the advertising and marketing standpoints, it  is very unfortunate since bayo is one of the country’s local fashion shops who is doing well in the market with many outlets in almost all the major shopping malls in the country. there is nothing worst that any one brand can do in advertising  than being anti-filipino for a filipino clothing line whose market are filipinos.

for us, there is no question on the meaning of this copy : “Call it biased, but the mixing and matching of different nationalists with Filipino blood is almost a sure formula for someone beautiful and world class.”

filipinos with mixed blood are “beautiful and world class” while unsaid, the implication is clear that those with pure filipino blood are less beautiful and not world class.

there is no mistaking the meaning of that line. the whole intent of the line is to put “mixing” as a better or even superior option to the “pure” kind. of course they refer primarily to clothing choices but the reference to mixed races is clear. the use of an australian-filipino celebrity as model for the ad makes that crystal clear as well.

how can a filipino advertising agency and a filipino clothing company make such awful statements?

before that, let’s  first go to a lesson in advertising 101 courtesy of the bayo spokesperson quoted by rappler.com

“The words are badly put but the intention there was never to offend. Who would want to offend anybody?” said a Bayo representative who requested not to be named.

“At the end of the day, we’re all just trying to say that Bayo is all about mixing and matching things. That’s how we relate it to mixed races. It’s sad that something positive…na-twist nang konti,” she told Rappler. The representative, however, admitted that the ad “was really open to misunderstanding.“

in fact the bayo spokesperson need to learn more than one advertising 101 lessons:

1. do not release ads with words that are “badly put”. ads are supposed to make people feel good about the product being advertised. words used in ads are supposed to put the brand always in a good light. being put in a good light is definitely a necessity before desirability and purchase action  kicks in.  words in ads are as important as the pictures in them.
2. “what you see is what you get“- that is one of the first things you learn when you take an advertising job for the first time after college. the audience absorbs what you put out in the ad, both in visuals and copy (words or text). visuals and copy contain your message/s. what you write and show in your ad is what the audience gets, not intentions, even good intentions as the bayo spokesperson was trying to say in his/her attempt to make a lame excuse for the ad. intentions are always invisible to the audience. so making a point of it when asked by media about a failed ad shows a very poor understanding of the communication and advertising philosophy and its dynamics. rather than say this, the spokesperson whould have just apologized for the error. we think this bayo spokesperson has done slightly worst than the ad agency that did the ad for bayo.
3. release ads only if you are 100% sure it will build business – never, ever  release an ad that is “open to misunderstanding” , even the with the slightest chance of “misunderstanding”.  clients advertise because it wants to generate business. generating business through advertising demands brand building which includes brand image that leads to brand desirability which in turn leads to brand purchase. the ideal is to have advertising that generates all those positive points, the next best thing is “target market neutral” where they are not affected by the ad and  neither are they repulsed by it. the worst of course is when the target market is repulsed by your ad. we have done this many times in our career in advertising – we junk ads that have in them even a single element that has even a slight chance of being interpreted as negative. the fact that an ad element has the chance of being interpreted as negative is like putting a tiny grenade in your handbag. it may be a small grenade but if something happens in your handbag, it can still explode. small negative elements in ads can be made bigger as your consumers talk about it and others who may have missed it are now made aware of it.

we think the “mixed race’ campaign idea in the ad has been brought about by  the heightened national attention given to other “mixed race” celebrities that we have been recently admiring like the azkals soccer team, Robin Lim the winner of the CNN Heores, miami heat coach erik spoelstra and most recently just weeks ago, american idol runner up jessica sanchez just to name a few. the phenomenon of the celebrities with filipino blood being admired by the country is really a recent development, having started  something like  just in the past 4 to 5 years ago. the bayo ad wanted to ride on this bandwagon.

that is fine except that they used the idea of “mixed race” in a very wrong way. they wanted to create the analogy of mixed clothing is as good as mixed race. the mistake was that they put the idea of “mixed” on the superior level calling it “beautiful and world class”. the inclusion of  ”world class’  plays up to the point i raised about the azkals, spoelstra, lim and sanchez who are all seen as world class.

it is twisted logic at its best. it takes the proposition from the backdoor, rather than a straight up communication of the message. it is an ad that is too intelligent. it asks the audience to go through a complicated thinking process to appreciate the message. “intelligent ads” are very tricky and prone to misinterpretation.  these types of ads are very easy for the audience not to get what it means and or as it is in this case, to be misunderstood by them.

the creative team who wrote this ad cannot deny it – they were writing advertising with the intent of positioning the brand on a superiority platform. a superiority positioning is ALWAYS what creative writers aim for when they write advertising. superiority more often than not sells brands. consumers will hardly deny a brand that they think is superior over others.

that by itself is benign. a superiority positioning is the best kind of advertising. the problem is they referenced that brand superiority positioning with race – filipino  mixed with other races versus pure filipino.  that we think is more than insulting.

whenever we look at an advertising campaign, we always look for two things – what it says  about the brand and if there are things in the ads that can generate negatives. having a hundred positives in an ad is turned worthless with even just one negative. that is the nature of advertising.

whenever we look at advertising research, we always look at the negatives and consider them in the decision making. in fact there are even advertising  research tools that purposely look for negatives in ads.

advertising that works are those that are simple and easy to understand. having complicated ads not only result to poor communication, it can bring negatives to the brand as is the case in this bayo ad.

bottom line, it is a WAWAM – What A Waste Of Advertising Money.

~~~ mindscape landmark ~~~
carlo arvisu

=============================================

[VIRAL] Bayo’s ‘What’s your mix’ campaign earns ire of netizens

 BY RAPPLER.COM

MANILA, Philippines – Filipinos on social media are reacting to a recently-launched campaign by local clothing brand Bayo.

The campaign, which caries the tagline, “What’s your mix?” features Filipino models of mixed descent accompanied by text that “breaks down” their genealogy.

The campaign in itself has been mildly controversial on social media, but one particular ad is being branded by netizens as “racist” and offensive.

The ad features Fil-Aussie Jasmine Curtis-Smith, and is accompanied by copy explaining the “What’s your mix?” concept.

“This is just all about MIXING and MATCHING. Nationalities, moods, personalities and of course your fashion pieces,” the copy reads.

“Call it biased, but the mixing and matching of different nationalists with Filipino blood is almost a sure formula for someone beautiful and world class.”

The ad was never released on any of the brand’s social media accounts, a Bayo representative told Rappler; it was uploaded on their official website to explain the rationale behind the campaign.

One user, however, supposedly took a screen shot of the ad — that’s when it went viral.

Foul

Users on the thread cried foul over the ad’s implication that Filipinos of mixed descent are superior to others, while others said that reactions to the ad were exaggerated, adding that they didn’t see anything offensive in it.

“The words are badly put but the intention there was never to offend. Who would want to offend anybody?” said a Bayo representative who requested not to be named.

“At the end of the day, we’re all just trying to say that Bayo is all about mixing and matching things. That’s how we relate it to mixed races. It’s sad that something positive…na-twist nang konti,” she told Rappler. The representative, however, admitted that the ad “was really open to misunderstanding.”

philippine tourism ad campaign launched in london

the london cab and london bus are two of what are iconic  in london . using these to carry the country’s tourism message is a very good idea. launching the ad campaign at this time, during the celebration marking the 60th reign of queen elizabeth makes it even more special. london must be full of people during the week long celebration. that will mean more people will be exposed to the “it’s more fun in the philippines” ad camoaign.

“It’s More Fun in the Philippines” Campaign Debuts in London

3 May 2012 – Philippine tourism received a rousing boost in the United Kingdom (UK) with the rollout of 75 iconic London black cabs and double-decker buses sporting the new “It’s More Fun in the Philippines” banners last May 1.

Philippine Ambassador to the United Kingdom Enrique A. Manalo and Philippine Department of Tourism-London head Rosario Afuang saw off a large group of invited officials, travel trade partners, media representatives, and members of the Filipino community who gathered at the Philippine Embassy for the start of a ride on the “More Fun” vehicles around central London.

 The Philippine motorcade travelled through some of London’s most famous and visited areas, making an unscheduled stop on Oxford Street – Europe and the UK’s busiest commercial district – to allow passengers to disembark and give delighted British shoppers an impromptu performance of Philippine song and dance.

 Upon completion of their trip, Ambassador Manalo feted the guests to Philippine food and drink at the Embassy.

“This is just a sample of what you will experience when you visit our country”, he said.  “A culture of fun, beauty and excitement await every visitor. With 7,107 islands, guests are sure to find islands that will suit their adventure, and with more than 90 million hosts, you are definitely going to have more fun in the Philippines.”

According to Ms. Afuang, apart from the exteriors of 50 black cabs and 25 double-decker buses, “It’s More Fun in the Philippines” images will appear on 75 panels at some of London’s busiest underground stations, including Piccadilly Circus, Covent Garden, Leicester Square, Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Circus.  There will also be 30-second “More Fun” ad appearing on 1,400 digital screens onboard London cabs.

The advertisements in the UK are part of synchronized efforts with the Department of Tourism in Manila as it launches a worldwide campaign on CNN International which began last April 30.  The UK campaign will remain in time for the millions of visitors from around the world attending the Queen’s Jubilee in June, the Olympic Games in July, and the Paralympic games in September.

The UK ranks 1^st in Europe in number of tourist arrivals to the Philippines, and 10^th overall.  Over 100,000 British tourists travelled to the Philippines in 2011 alone – an all-time high. END

http://dfa.gov.ph/main/index.php/news-from-rp-embassies/5323-its-more-fun-in-the-philippines-campaign-debuts-in-london

“its more fun in the philippines” campaign should get Jessica Sanchez in advertising campaign

the department of tourism of the philippinjes just launched its new tourism advertising campaign, “it’s more fun in the philippines”. it’s a great tourism ad campaign and we have seen it’s execution in tv ads somewhat when ads were aired at CNN when the news network featured the philippines just a few weeks ago. how good are those ads aired at CNN? that will  be for another topic.

one of advertising 101 principles is recency and relevance. this is pretty basic – for an ad to work you need it to talk to the audience of today. it does not matter what the age of the target audience is, the ad needs to feel, look and contain advertising promises and execution that says to the audience, the product being advertised exist right now and is talking to them right now.

just yesterday is one such event – jessica sanchez, the filipina-mexican-american 16 year old girl came in second in the very popular american idol singing reality tv show. jessica was born in the US, that’s where she got the “american” part while she has a mexican father and a filipina mother.

american idol is not only a popular tv show in the US but also all over the world. the show is closely followed by audiences worldwide.  for most watching the telecast after it’s aired in the US and in this case social media giving a blow by blow account of the performances. it follows that the contestants who battle it out in the show also gain worldwide acclaim and popularity.

and this is where jessica sanchez and the DOT’s  (department of tourism) tourism advertising campaign meet each other. the country’s tourism campaign by the nature of tourism being global, where tourists from all over the world is a target market makes jessica sanchez a natural choice for its ad campaign. aside from it is safe to assume jessica has a global following , jessica coming in as runner up at american idol says she has a very wide  fan base in the US, one of the largest if not largest market for tourism for the country.  the finale had a total of 130M votes, an american idol record. taking out multiple votes, at least 90 M people in the US know who jessica sanchez is. 90M people is the population size of some countries, like the philippines. having asian roots also make her a naturally strong magnet for tourists in asian countries.

bloggers and social media citizens have pointed out that based on social media responses to the results of the american idol finals,  philip philips who won is the “american idol” but jessica sanchez is the “world idol”. jessica apparently has gotten more positive feedback from all over the world than philip philips had.

the recency factor is also a big plus for jessica as an effective endorser.  but that also puts a lot of urgency for the department of tourism to sign up jessica for an ad campaign.  getting her to appear in an ad sooner will be better for the campaign as a whole.

a tv ad featuring jessica necessarily will need to involve jessica to sing. it is what she is known for and it is what people worldwide admire her for. the DOT may p[erhaps commission a filipino song writer to write the jingle. there are many talented song writers in the country and for sure it will be easy to get a most appropriate one.  this jingle needs to work well in english and in filipino. we;re thinking the ad needs to be shot in both languages.

the filipino version can be used mostly in the philippines  and not only will that generate domestic tourism, it will unite and generate nationalistic pride among the pinoys. the onky question of course is can jessica sing in filipino?

jessica’s global popularity is a built in advantage for the tourism ad campaign. people not only know her but also admire her. having her in a tourism ad will automatically generate a lot of goodwill and call attention.  it also helps a lot that pinoys in general like music and are known to be good singers. there is no hotel in asia that do not have filipino bands playing in the bar or restaurants. a tourism ad for the philippines that features a popular singer is a perfect combination.

the talent who will appear in the ad clearly determined, the only question will be what is the content of the tv ad. – what is the advertising strategy and what are the consumer insights. and how this will fold in nicely to the “it.s more fun on the philippines” concept. we think the last part is a must.

the risk of getting a popular endorser like jessica sanchez in an ad is that the ad agency forgets about strategies. insights and campaign concept and just write copy to exploit the power of the endorser. while this type of ads may pull in audience and recall, it will fail in building a brand for the country.

 

~~~mindscape landmark ~~~
carlo p arvisu 

marketing & advertising 101 : how to apply hard core mass consumer marketing & advertising to the intangible product “family planning”

we have started a series of articles on our experience on applying hard core mass consumer  marketing & advertising to the intangible product called “family planning”

 this will be a first of a series of articles that will explore how hard core mass consumer marketing and advertising have been successfully applied to a near intangible product called “family planning”. the product “family planning” is actually a mindset and a practice and something you cannot buy like a detergent bar for washing clothes that you can get in a supermarket or sari-sari store (neighborhood store),

while family planning can eventually take the form of real and tangible products like condoms or pills which has real brand names and packages that can be bought in retail and drug stores, what the effort intended to do was to get the target audience to buy in or believe in “family planning” and for the same target audience to decide to use any one of family planning methods available.

source :  http://bit.ly/ycZ5QI

read the full article on the key findings on the first  part of the qualitative research done for family planning here:  http://bit.ly/ApfPVi (why pinoys who are single or married need family planning in their relationship)

read how the focus group discussion was designed within the lines of the kinds of research done for mass consumer products: applying mass consumer marketing & advertising to the intangible “family planning” product (click here:  http://bit.ly/ycZ5QI)

~~mindscape landscape~~

carlo p arvisu

a disruption to family’s dreams and aspirations – what unplanned pregnancy is to filipinos

that is the final slide in the introduction to a qualitative research powerpoint presentation conducted for the purpose of developing advertising and marketing efforts to encourage the use of family planning in the philippines. a series of qualitatve research, focus group discussions were conducted in metro manila, davao and cebu.

the respondents said,  to them  the family is the most important, even over themselves. what they were presently doing were for their families. they said they will do anything and everything for  their families which is exactly what they were doing at the present.

they were asked – what will it mean to you when you find out you are pregnant now? their answers to that question was captured in the chart, above.

find out more about this research here:  http://bit.ly/ApfPVi 

willie revillame will sue everyone, enumerates good deeds, vents on sponsors, show off the air on live tv – watch video here

this is a video shown on live tv of an embattled  man – willie revillame as he rants on live tv in his show “willing willie” at abc 5. wait a minute, this is willie revillame, so what else is new? we have seen willie do this on live tv before. not the same topic but on the same sort of emotions and yes the same sort of topic – his misdeeds on his tv shows.

this one is in relation to his most recent misdeed on his new tv show at abc 5 where he allowed a 6 year old, jan-jan,  boy do a macho dance (read : male striptease dance) on live tv. he not only allowed the boy do his macho dance, he also asked the boy to repeat the dance several times with the proper annotation from him on why the boy is doing the dance. what made it worst was that the boy was in tears while he was dancing and the audience, including revillame not only approving the performance but also wildly cheering the boy on. (watch the macho dance video here: http://wp.me/paTrm-1ut)

pinoy internet universe reacted to the macho dance when it was posted in youtube with calls, actually howling, of protest against willie revillame and willing willie. pinoy netizens of twitter and facebook  took to thye streets ofr the internet and called for the ouster of revillame from the show. this is not new to these netizens, they have done similar protests before.

shortly thereafter,  government agencies took notice and declared revillame’s action on the show was child abuse.  the mtcrb, human rights commission and DSWD have put revillame on notice for his latest infraction on the 6 year old boy.

part 1:

this went on for a few days. revillame and abc 5 of course went on a defensive and yes offensive move agaisnt the new storm hitting on the revillame franchise. revillame and the tv station was of course not repentant, not even humble. they clearly declared no child abuse occurred. they did not even admit to a moral mistake, not even a disrespect against the boy. the show went on in between the offensive fight theyput up to defent the honor of revillame and the tv show, unmindful of what has been done to the honor of the boy.

until Ad Power (read : as in People Power) hit the tv show – major advertisers, jollibee, procter & gamble, CDO, lhuillier, del monte and uni-lever pulled their ads off the tv show.l (read it here:   http://wp.me/paTrm-1uy). these advertisers are major advertisers, that means they are the biggest ad spenders in the industry. uni-levfer, procter & gamble and jollibee most probably belong to the top 5 biggest ad spenders in the industry.

Ad Power got the attention of revillame. it’s not surprising, as this power hits revillame and the show where it hurts the most – at the wallet. money is something revillame understands very well. the pull out of these advertisers mean the show cannot go on airing as every day they go on air, they will lose money. and this is not just small change, we are talking of possibly millions of pesos on a daily basis.

with Ad Power slamming its face on the willing willie tv show, revillame last friday announced the show will be off the air for two weeks. revillame is a businessman, he knows the power of Ad Power. revillame will not only lose his salary, he will also lose profit as revillame owns the show and produces it. he finances the show. a pull out of advertisers mean  not only a loss of salary but also profit for his company.

part 2:

this particular live performance  of revillame was supposed to be a simple announcement of the tv show taking a 2 week hiatus but it actually became a stand-up performance of revillame which was actually not funny. it became a rant not only against certain groups but against the world as well.

he first said his tv show will be temporarily off the air for two weeks to return after holy week but in succeeding rants, by accident he let it slip out that the show might not come back on the air.  if the show does not return on air,  we can only conclude abc 5 management had decided to cancel the show  to avoid further problems in the future. he mentioned that he had talked to the GM of the tv station and owner, manny pangilinan.

revillame also ranted, actually threatened to sue fellow celebrities who criticized him on this macho dancing scandal. apparently he felt his fellow celebrities should have just kept quiet about their displeasure on other celebrities.

list of celebrities revillame will sue:

Revillame delivered an emotional 25-minute speech at the end of his program on Friday night. Among other things, he accused celebrities Lea Salonga, Jim Paredes, Aiza Seguerra, Tuesday Vargas, Agot Isidro, Mylene Dizon and Bianca Gonzalez of “prejudging” him on the microblogging site Twitter.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20110410-330314/Revillame-Dont-pulverize-me-I-want-to-help-poor

when he enumerated  the list of celebrities he will sue,  we thought he was unkind to aiza seguera. he challeneged sequera “to be a man”  (“magpakalalake ka”). seguera is a lesbian. he also mentioned the fact that aiza was once a child star herself. we are not sure the connection to the issue at hand, but we think aiza being a child star herself is in a very good position to know how it is to feel exploited as a child which is the charge government agencies are lodging against revillame. we do not know if aiza was exploited when she was a child star, but for sure she has a clear understanding of what is right and wrong for child stars.

with such a long list of celebrities that revillame is planning to take to court for whatever alleged crime/s, we like to congratulate revillame’s lawyers for what might be windfall profits and revenues this year.

where is revillame now after this announcement on tv? we think he is in bigger trouble than before the announcement.

nothing about the announcement was humble, apologetic, reconciliatory or even wholesome. he turned a simple  announcement of a hiatus of the show into a rant and whining about his problems and detractors.  he couls have used the opportunity to gain sympathy from a wider audience other than his fans but instead he may have angered more.l with this announcement he draw the battle lines even deeper and wider.

he may have said things that can be used legally against him, if it comes to a court trialo. for sure, the MTRCB, the human rights group and DSWD will be hard put to kinder and more lenient on revillame with hyis performance in this rant. the message that these government agencies is getting is that revillame will deserve whatever punishment they might put on revillame.

from a PR standpoint, revillame loses badly, dramatically in many ways. his performance in this rant is a PR nightmare. revillame did not defuse anything, did not gain sympathy, he may have ignited more disagreement with what he has done and those against him hardening their positions.

for sure, revillame has a talent in getting ratings. he did it again here but for the wrong reasons and it will hurt him more.

Ad Power puts willie revillame’s “willing willie” tv show off air – uni-lever is 6th company to stop ads

this is called advertising power – with withdrawals of ads from the tv show, willie revillame has announced his willing willie tv show will go off the air for 2 weeks.

before the exodus of major advertisers from the tv show, willie revillame in his show and in interviews, including the tv station’s spokespersons were adamant and strong about no infractions and no child abuse occurred in the show.

it appears money talks and it talks loud to willie revillame. as soon as 5 major advertisers pulled off their ads from the show, revillame showed repentance so it seems and decided to pull off the air his tv show for 2 weeks. without the ad moneys in his tv show, it would have been a huge financial loss for revillame who is the producer and financier of the show.

uni-lever is the 6th advertiser to pull off its ads from the show with procter & gamble, jollibee, del monte, CDO and lhuiller announcing ad pull outs earlier on.  procter & gamble, uni-lever and jollibee are the country’s top advertisers, probably belonging to the top 5 biggest ad spenders in the industry.  private businesses is doing the country a very good favor in pulling out its ads from willie revillame’s tv show.

it is interesting how this is playing out as abc 5 is owned by manny pangilinan whose company PLDT also owns Smart Telecommunications, the country’s leading mobile phone service provider and also one of the top advertisers in the country. will Smart pull its ads as well?

read here : http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20110409-330148/Ad-pullouts-hit-Willie-show

‘Willing Willie’ to go off air for 2 weeks, Revillame says

INQUIRER.net
First Posted 22:17:00 04/08/2011
Filed Under: Entertainment (general), Television, Celebrities
MANILA, Philippines—Controversial television host Willie Revillame announced Friday night that his primetime game show “Willing Willie” will go off air for two weeks starting Monday next week (April 11).

Revillame expressed disappointment over the companies that pulled out their ad placements from his show.

He maintained that he did not commit child abuse in an episode of “Willing Willie” exposing a boy simulating a striptease.

Revillame also warned to file charges against some celebrities who “attacked” him on the social networking site Twitter.

List of companies who have withdrawn their ads from Willie Revillame’s “Wiling Willie” tv show:

1. jollibee corporation
2. procter & gamble philippines
3. del monte philippines
4. lhuillier pawnshop
5. CDO
6. uni-lever

webb et al SC acquittal – was a massive PR effort launched? did they have prior knowledge on decision?

some observations on this whole thing.

• a few weeks before the SC decision on the vizconde massacre acquitting webb et al, did you notice all of a sudden there was news articles and tv interviews were in media from the webbs?
• this case has been in the courts and i guess at the SC for a very long time and nothing has happened, then all of a sudden we got a barage of news bits on the case after 10 to 15 years.
• when things got heated up in the press, sometime within that time frame, lauro vizconde came out to say corruption and collusion has occurred among the SC justices on the case and that a decision was imminent. if i remember it right,  lauro said there is one SC justice who is spearheading the effort of convincing the other justices to acquit.
• then even closer to the decision date of the SC,  facebook accounts were set up detailing the defence of webb. this one centered on  webb’s alibi that he was in the US when the crime was committed.
• prior to this, the defence’s legal team went to the SC to ask that a DNA test be conducted on the semen sample obtained from carmela vizconde. it was established that carmela was raped before she was killed.
• only to find out weeks after the semen sample has been lost, interestingly enough between the NBI and the local courts.

those were the events that transpired and now the SC released it’s decision on the case. some more observations:

• both defence and prosecution were surprised on the release of the decision, they did not expect it this soon.
• the SC decision to acquit webb et all was mostly centered on two things – the  credibility of the star witness, jessica alfaro which the majority did not believe and the acceptance of the alibi of the defence.

some observation:

• isn’t it too much of a coincidence that  the facebook accounts of webb made a big deal of the alibi and that the SC decision to a large part accepted this alibi?

of course you can say conspiracy theories are a dime a dozen these days. i too like to watch oliver stone movies. but here is the thing –  if you look at the whole thing, it does look like an excellent, well thought out , brilliant PR effort.  the event pieces seem to fall precisely on their proper places that read like someone put together a PR plan behind the whole thing and executed it flawlessly. it also shows brilliant strategic thinking. this is a brilliant and classic PR effort.

we invite PR, advertising and marketing students to look into this matter more closely and study it. there is a lot to be learned and admired behind this effort (if it is a planned effort).  if there are students out there reading this blog and would like to take this up as a class project or thesis, i will offer my services as advisor.

to start off the students, i would suggest the first thing you do is put together an exhaustive timeline on these media events from start to finish.

one last thing we left out – IF this was a planned PR effort, this also means one thing – the group who launched the PR effort knew in advance what the SC decision will be. lauro could be right.

“Pilipinas Kay Ganda” fiasco – how to tie a rope around your neck and pull it

we are printing here a very good article on what happened to the whole “Pilipinas Kay Ganda” branding exercise by the  DOT. this is an interview with Yolly Ong and Marlene Villapando who are the top officers of Campaigns & Gray. the article gives an excellent view of what happened behind the scenes and how the much maligned lined came to be and not to be.

on a separate post, we will be giving our opinion on this one,.

in the meantime, together with the article were logo studies done by Campaigns & Gray on the “Pilipinas Kay Ganda” concept. we are giving our point of view on them.

here are our views on the logo studies:

• we would have not chosen the top one, the one the DOT went with. while that logo showed some character, we think it was not unified and appears  too flighty. we think it’s a weak logo.
• the biggest reason why we are not choosing it is that it is too close to the Poland logo. to us, it is an violation of intellectual property rights of the Poland logo.
• however we do like the images of the tarsier and the coconut tree in there. the tarsier in particular we think is the strongest of all the elements.
• we would have chosen anyone of these two logos – logo on the lower left side and the logo at the bottom.
• we think these logos are very unified and speaks very well of the “islands” in the country. going to the “islands” we think is one of the key reasons tourists go to a country to visit.
• we just have a slight suggestion on the choices we made – revise the rendition of the island to remove the possibility of it being seen an image of a face on its back.

————–

Anatomy of a failed tourism brand

SUNDAY, 28 NOVEMBER 2010 18:56 MA. STELLA F. ARNALDO

Four hours before Tourism Undersecretary for Planning and Promotions Vicente “Enteng” Romano III irrevocably resigned on November 23 from his post, accepting responsibility for the heavily criticized “Pilipinas Kay Ganda” brand/slogan, I was interviewing Yolanda “Yoly” Villanueva-Ong, group chairman of the much-maligned Campaigns & Grey at the Edsa Shangri-La Hotel, on the background of the branding effort.

Several executives of the advertising giant were having a planning seminar at the hotel, and, in fact, I jokingly asked if one of the conclusions from their seminar was, “Therefore, we resolve to never propose a project or have anything to do with the DOT again!” She tittered at this, seemingly unaffected by the storm that she and her agency got caught up in, all because, as she later explains, shortcuts were made, and there was lack of research.

As everyone knows, it was Campaigns & Grey which proposed the “Pilipinas Kay Ganda” slogan—along with four other choices mostly in English—but it was the one in Filipino that struck a chord with Romano and, ultimately, with Tourism Secretary Alberto “Bertie” Lim.

Here Yoly and Campaigns & Grey chief of corporate affairs Marilyn Villapando explain what went on in the making of the failed tourism brand, the reason for the use of Filipino in the slogan, and why they don’t consider the logo plagiarized.

So tell me, what usually is the process in creating a new brand, and how long does it usually take?

Ong: Depende rin ’yan kung sino cliente ha. Ang Procter & Gamble ang whole concept can be a year. In fact, planning can take one to two years kasi fiscal year sila. Palagay mo na, second half of the fiscal year, they start doing the planning and this is coming from a long-term three years…mahaba talaga ang vision nila for the brand. And as it comes closer, they flesh it out with programs and then everything, nothing airs without testing.

If you’re going to a new market, meron “insight mining” from the consumers. Although Asians, for example, have a lot of universal truths, siyempre me differentiations rin. It takes quite a while.

Of course, not everybody can afford that kind of process. Sometimes we do shortcut it, but always, always, always, before you produce, before you spend one centavo on any production before airing, you test. That is something we will never violate. Even on a 90-day political campaign, ite-test muna namin ’yan kahit pano.

Testing will come from your end or from their end?

Ong: We recommend the methodology. Sometimes we give guideline questions. In our case, we call a bid from among the capable research agencies depending on the scope. They provide a bid in addition to the guides, then we all agree on the final test questions, and in fact, we agree on the format kung ano’ng unang question. In an FDG (focus group discussion), for example, there is a rotation [of questions] if you’re testing several concepts. We agree what kind of definitions the panels will be—age, socioeconomic classes. In this particular case [DOT], ang recommendation namin is one group na nakapunta na sa Pilipinas at isang group na ’di pa nakakapunta sa Pilipinas. So that we will see talaga which concepts will resonate with them.

But beyond the logo and theme line, no production has been made whatsoever because the understanding is ipe-preview nila, tapos after the preview, ite-test market. ’Yun ang next step. In fact, we sent them the guide questions and we gave a recommendation na tawagin ’yung three international research agencies because the test will be in North America, our “low-lying fruit”—ang tawag nila dyan—Korea, Japan, China, ’yan ang main markets.

Then meron silang “missionary” markets—Europe and maybe Israel. Pero ang top [markets] based on last year’s number of tourists are Fil-migs [Filipino migrants] and Fil-Ams. Then Korea, China, Japan. So proposal namin, we will test the concepts in those markets. Not we ourselves ha, but by a proper research team. Ang recommendation nga namin is to ask a bid from TNS, kasi may international network sila, Milward Brown and AG Nielsen. After we give the guidelines, our suggestion was tawagin nyo yung tatlo para mag-bid.

You did that because they basically didn’t have a budget to pay you to do it?

Ong: We would have bid it out ourselves. ’Di kami gumawa ng research. Also because their [DOT] bidding process requires COA [approval].

So what did you really undertake for DOT? Branding? Marketing? Advertising? Ano ba talaga?

Ong: August ba tayo tinawag? (turns to Villapando) August tinawag kami and they were asking—si Enteng [was asking]—if we can do what we call a “brand architecture.” If they’re going to do a new brand to replace “WOW Philippines,” what is the process and what is the strategic approach they can use to arrive at a new brand. So ’yan ang initial request sa amin. So kami naman, ‘Enteng ’di pa nga kami binabayaran eh (referring to a P4-million medical tourism campaign Campaigns & Grey did in 2009 for the Philippine Visitors Convention Corp.).

So it was a friendly call na “huy, tulu ngan nyo naman ako…”?

Ong: Oo. In fairness, he asked us naman to try and write out a TOR [terms of reference]. Kasi ang sinasabi nya, after much haggling, the allocation for that exercise, was…(looks to Marilyn).

Villapando: The total proposal is P550,000 plus VAT. That’s the process. And the end of that is directional.

Ong: Kasi I was very conscious of the bidding process, kasi alam namin ’yan. Mahirap na, dapat i-bid out, ’pag executional already. And then somewhere along the way….

mead johnson milk products for children hit by product recall

a product recall for a milk product for children is an absolute nightmare to happen. safety and quality are two product attributes all mothers expect that a milk product will deliver as most basic. they are a must have.

but the FDA had ordered mead johnson to recall two for their products for not meeting the fat content standard set by the FDA.

what makes the recall bad is that  the statement of the FDA in it’s recall order has the following words in them:

“thus indisputably making the same non-compliant to the standard of inferior quality,” Tacandong said.
—
Continuous distribution of the milk products would present “gross deception” to consumers and may “present risk and injury to young children,” said the FDA order.

the FDA categorically says the recall need to be made to prevent “risk and injury” to young children. we are not sure how a milk product that does not meet fat content standards can “injure” young children, but those are the words being used by the FDA.

read more about this here:

http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/2010/09/mead-johnsons-brand-and-corporate-image.html

babes in orange mini dress arrested at world cup 2010

it’s official – doing ambush marketing can get you arrested at the world cup 2010. read more here:

http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/2010/06/babes-in-orange-mini-dress-arrested-for.html

make unlimited overseas calls to the US from the philippines for free

it’s the magical gadget called magicJack that will allow you to make unlimited overseas calls to the US  practically at no cost. the magiJack is sold in the philippines but it’s initial cost is more than twice than in the US and it’s annual fee after the first year is more than 3 times the cost.

find out here the work around to get magicJacck in the philippines at the same low cost in the US. click here: http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/2010/06/magic-of-magicjack-in-philippines.html

note : we are not connected in any way to magicJack, we are just sharing with our readers our experience with the magicJack.

globe telecom’s loyalty and rewards program that creates disloyalty

marketing 101 says loyalty and rewards programs are very effective tools in keeping subscribers happy with your service and more importantly to stay loyal. that means loyalty and rewards programs are meant to prevent existing subscribers from cutting off their subscription with the company and switch to a competitor.

it is also much more cost effective to keep customers loyal than to look for new subscribers. marketing and acquisition costs for new customers is much higher and much more difficult for companies.

what makes all of these critical is that the mobile phone service industry is probably the most competitive mass consumer market  in the country.  we know this with the unending and heavy advertising and promotions launched by the top three competing companies – sun, globe and smart.

the three competing companies offer unique plans and a full range of options for the consumers to choose from. many of these are value packed, offering very low cash outlay and monthly fees. when the market already competes on price, you know that the market is reaching maturity and is already near saturation point.

the market is also reaching near-saturation point where a large part of the demographics, in practically all segments already own a cell phone and already subscribe to a mobile service provider.

what this tells you is that a mobile phone service provider’s way to market share and revenue growth is to (1st) keep your current customers loyal; (2nd) increase usage of loyal customers through more value added services and (3rd) gain new users.

what is the point then that globe has kept it’s loyalty and rewards program secret from it’s subscribers?

we have been getting some feedback from a yahoogroup we are a member of.  members are saying the loyalty/rewards program of globe has been there for a long time, it’s just that they don’t tell their subscribers about it. you only get to know about it by accident – from friends or when you call their hotline number and accidentally ask about it.

apparently, smart is less secretive about their loyalty/rewards program. smart puts it in fine print on your cell phone bill to let you know about it. it is in fine print but at least you are told about it. globe does not put it anywhere in your bill and  they don’t tell you about it when you call them. you get to know about it only when you ask them about it.

for me, keeping the loyalty/rewards program a secret from subscribers indicates insincerity. why would you develop a rewards/loyalty program when you don’t intend to let your customers know about it? keeping it a secret from subscribers is very much equivalent to not having one.

we are familiar with rewards/loyalty programs  - the SM group has one, mercury drugstore and national bookstore as well. these stores publicize it with posters and their cashiers ask you if you have one. if you don’t , they will ask you if you want to get one. to these stores, it’s not a secret they actively recruit members to it.

the most obvious negative effect of keeping it a secret from subscribers is that the program is not being used as a tool the way it is intended to be used. not having a lot of subscribers using it also says the program is not achieving it’s objectives.

there is a feedback given in the yahoogroup we are a member of  -  this subscriber has been with globe for a long time, since year 1 of globe operations in 1996. she accidentally found out about globe’s loyalty/reward program from a friend. she calls the hotline number  to inquire about it and globe did not even apologize for not letting her know about its existence. disappointed, she closed her globe account and switched to smart. since she moved over to smart, she has gotten 2 new cell phones as her reward and is very happy with smart.

in that incident, the loyalty/reward program that was kept a secret actually caused disloyalty from a subscriber. it achieved the exact opposite of what it is supposed to achieve.

we know that smart telecoms monitors their churn numbers on a daily basis. churn is the result of subtracting the number of subscribers dropping the service versus the number of new subscribers joining the service.  having a positive churn means the total number of subscribers is increasing while a negative churn means the number of subscribers is shrinking. a positive churn means increasing market share of number of users while a negative churn is a decrease in market share.

to smart telecoms, it’s important that they continue to grow in market share. a negative churn turns them into a panic and will immediately launch new programs to entice new users or keep existing ones.

that is the kind of marketing that smart does and it shows as smart continue to be the dominant mobile service provider in the country.

smart has an interesting history. smart actually built their market through very aggressive marketing.

smart was not the market leader when they started in the market. piltel which was still owned by pldt and separate from smart was the market leader. globe entered the market and took leadership away from piltel. through aggressive marketing, smart over took both piltel and globe and since that time, smart has not only sustained it’s leadership, it has achieved dominance.

in case globe is wondering why they are unable to get switchers from smart subscribers, perhaps the answer can be deduced from this incident – smart does not keep their loyalty/rewards program secret from their subscribers, they tell them about it. smart users  are loyal subscribers because they are hooked by their loyalty/rewards program.

on the other side, in case globe is wondering why  they keep losing their post-paid clients to smart – it is probably because they have kept their loyalty/rewards program a secret from their subscribers.