the power of social media – violent man in Makati’s mono bloc incident identified

as many have been, we watched the videos of Mayor Junjun Binay supporters “defending” and assaulting policemen in horror. it was a very violent video of Binay supporters throwing mono bloc chairs at the policemen who stood firm and just covered themselves with their shields from the assault.

there was one man who stood out in that video footage. this man went at it over and over again, picking up the plastic chairs and with all his might struck the police behind their shields. if the policemen did not put up their shields, this man would have inflicted serious injuries to the policemen.

we wondered about two things – who was this man was and when will he get arrested. there were many more men who did what he did, but this man stood out.

to answer those questions, we posted this over twitter.

this man was the most violent at Makati, surely he will be arrested, right? @CIDG_PNP #Binay pic.twitter.com/3xfyys4v5z

— WAWAM (@wawam) July 1, 2015

we did not know who he was. all we got were the pictures that were being posted on social media. traditional media and social media as far as we knew were not asking the question we were asking.

we were surprised that after awhile, this post was made :

https://twitter.com/NoOtherNicky/status/616062816605188096

as far as we can tell, the man in the pictures i posted is Jose “Monoy” Lazaro. we were shocked that in just a short period of time an unidentified man in a random picture can be identified by name at twitter.

other pictures of Lazaro surfaced. he apparently has a Facebook account and voraciously posts pictures on it.  he seem to be a barangay official of Barangay Olympia.

from this experience, we made a few conclusions:

• social media, twitter in particular is very powerful – it has the ability to identify, get the actual name of people in pictures. we do not how it was done, but the experience has clearly shown it.
• being active in social media makes it easier for you to be identified by others. lazaro by the looks of it is very active in Facebook, his numerous posts in Facebook has made it easy for others to get his name and even the things he does.
• we sometimes think the internet is anonymous, it is not entirely correct in this case.
• a  public misbehavior can be attached to all your previous good behavior. for sure lazaro has been posting in Facebook to herald his good deeds. but this one misbehavior with the mono block chairs puts the rest in question.

we do not know what the action is of the police authorities on lazaro. but to us it is clear they need to take action on lazaro. letting him get away with this without any consequences will embolden others to take similar actions against the police. the police needs to assert their authority.

if the arrest is made, has social media helped the police?

 

 

new UP Fighting Maroons logo’s retrogressive design

the UP Fighting Maroons, University Of The Philippines’ senior basketball team in the UAAP recently announced a new logo.

when i saw it, i fell off my chair.

 

 

LOOK: UP Fighting Maroons unveil new logo in time for UAAP S78

Read more: http://sports.inquirer.net/184521/look-up-fighting-maroons-unveil-new-logo-in-time-for-uaap-s78#ixzz3dTMQd64p
Follow us: @inquirerdotnet on Twitter | inquirerdotnet on Facebook

UP as a university is known for it’s fine arts and design (and architecture) graduates. if you are into fine arts or design, UP is the school for you to go to. it is popular for these courses. in other words UP is known for good taste.

but not this new logo of the UP Fighting Maroons – it is ugly. and yes, i call the design “retrogressive”.

we are guessing this is how the design process went and how it was sold to the UP officials.

the old logo they had was the image of the oblation. and we suppose the direction for the new logo was to have something more active and aggressive, to be more in keeping with the idea behind a “fighting maroon”. the old logo was not “fighting”, it was just standing, not to mention it is naked except for the fig leaf. the last one though is a digression.

the new logo is supposed to embody the “fighting” spirit – a native warrior holding a spear and a long shield. the spear is the “fighting” part but we think the long shield and the stance of the native can be argued as really more of defensive rather than offensive. it is not really as aggressive as you want it to be.

the added plus is that the man with the spear and shield is the most basic component of basketball – offense and defense. the spear is the offense and the shield the defense. it’s logical and it’s also cute. but for us being cute does not count much.

the other part of the logo that we really do not understand is the giant maroon shield with green lining behind the native. what is that for? a warrior with a spear and a shield in front of  a giant shield? really? we think the logo would have worked anyway if they removed the giant shield behind the native and let the native just stand on the “fighting maroon” text.  we even think the logo would be nicer and more manly without the giant shield behind the native. it will also give better focus on the native, which is the major change in the logo.

this can be minor, but why is the warrior wearing a bandana on his head? we do not see that in the oblation. we think this was an unnecessary component of the design.

the main changes in the new UP fighting maroon logo are : a maroon colored  warrior in a “fighting” (or defensive) stance  with a spear and a shield.

that leads us to the UE Red Warriors logo. oh yes, UE calls itself “warriors”. although we are very sure when the new UP logo was presented, the presenters were very careful not to use the term “warrior” but used “native” instead. never mind that the UP “native” is also wearing a bandana just like the UE warrior is. and let’s not even mention the color red of UE is very close to the maroon of UP.

the actual images may be different – UE has just  a head of the warrior while UP has the full body of the native but we think they are just too close for comfort. the new UP logo is like he full version of the UE logo which is just an abbreviation. it’s like if the UE warrior was shown with a full body, it will look like the UP native with or without the spear and shield.

the logo is the main identity of what they represent. it is best to be unique, to be unlike any other. that is the most basic. the other basic component of a logo is its meaning or meanings. the new UP logo is an obvious attempt to fill it up with meanings but it has forgotten the other component of uniqueness. we think the logo being too close to the UE Red Warriors is its biggest sin.

aside from those, the design elements do not make sense. the design appears to have been some kind of high school project where shapes and symmetry were put without a view for good aesthetics.

one key component of a new design is it is supposed to be better than the old one. this one does not do that. it looks bad versus the old one, a retrogression.

bring back the oblation, please.

this is a WAWAM!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ads that don’t communicate, need to be explained

ads is a very visual medium – what you see is what you get. and what you get is what it communicates. in these ads, you need to think hard what it is trying to say to you.  what you see are these familiar objects that are being unwrapped to show chocolate.

now with that visual, one of the following is being communicated :

• they are selling chocolates shaped as a coffee maker
• the object, in this case the coffee maker, makes chocolates
• you will find chocolate when you  unwrap a coffee maker

that is what the visuals say.

but after some much thought and reading the text on the bottom right of the ad, it looks like what the ad is trying to say is – give yourself a treat this Easter and buy appliances in this store called Currys. i guessed that much after using google to find out what Currys is. it is a retail outlet in the U.K. that sell electronics and appliances.

we got that after reading the small texts at the bottom of the ad and AFTER using google. it does not help that the texts at the bottom of the ad were small. we think many consumers will not bother doing what i did to understand the ad. consumers will most likely just stay on the giant visuals and just say one of the above.

the idea of  giving oneself a treat this Easter is very carefully hidden in the visual. it is actually unsaid and the ad is asking you ro logic it out and find the connection between chocolates and a treat.

for us this is a WAWAM!

ad visuals that kill interest – gross out potential subscribers

we saw this ad at facebook. it is an ad for an iOS app where all you do is say the foreign words and the app will translate the words into your preferred language for you to understand what they mean.

that is potentially a great idea for an app except that the app is being sold using this visual in the ad.

i don’t know about you but to me nothing in that visual is pleasing or inviting. it is gross, scary and feels very, very painful. i don’t know how many FB users will find that visual appealing or enticing for them to go to the app store to buy the app because of that visual.

one of the principles in good advertising is visuals that work hard. one way to achieve that is have an image that visualizes the benefit.

yes, okay that visual does the latter – the visual is showing the closed zippered mouth is being opened for it to be able to speak. that is what the app is supposed to do – open the mouths of a foreign language so you can understand them. a closed zippered mouth is something we will not be able to understand.

while the zippered mouth being opened is what the app does, the choice of the zipper on the mouth goes beyond the message. the visual delivers another message which we think is more compelling and more powerful – that of pain and being grossed out. we can have a tagline that says “it’s so good you will kill yourself to get it” to communicate strong desirability but having a visual to execute that thought with something like someone blowing your brains out with a gun will not do it.

this ad forgets that there are other considerations other than accurately visualizing the message. a great  ad is a combination of many components and each of these components while they should work well together, all should also help the ad sell. one of the components not working for the ad and in this case killing the ad will make the whole ad fail.

this is a WAWAM!

~~~mindscape landmark~~~
carlo arvisu

 

 

consumer data is king, consumer insight is the queen

“consumer-driven-data” – that is a principle in marketing that is central in any marketing or advertising plan. it is also often used and referred to in many marketing and advertising plans and yet in reality it is hardly used and even more often very few really know what it is and how to find it. it is in many ways something of one of the most “lip service” done in marketing and advertising (“strategic” is another lip service”).

here is one article we found at the Washington Post on fashion retailer Timberland where consumer data is king and was used to renew and in many ways reinvent the brand to a successful turn-around. while consumer data is king, the consumer insight is queen.

always, it is not enough to have consumer data, what is equally important and to some degree slightly more important is to know how to understand, interpret and translate consumer data into a consumer insight that is used in marketing and advertising plans.

it is in that bridge between consumer data and consumer insight where most marketing and advertising practitioners fail at or are weak at.

How Timberland used customer data to reboot its brand

STRATHAM, N.H. — There are few shoes more recognizable than theTimberland yellow boot. You know the one: The high-top styling, the sturdy-looking nubuck leather, the rubber lug sole to protect feet from sheets of rain or piles of snow.

But the durable boot — and the rest of Timberland’s footwear and apparel line — was having trouble weathering a fast-changing retail climate.

Timberland’s revenue was basically flat from 2006 to 2012. It was losing market share in the Americas, its home turf and most crucial market. And it was barreling forward with a confusing and slapdash patchwork of marketing and product strategies.

Here in the United States, it had become something of a hip-hop brand as rappers name-checked “Timbs” in countless songs. In Asia, it was thought of as a comfort brand; in Italy, it was more fashion-oriented. Still more customers perceived Timberland as gear for the rugged outdoorsman, the kind of guy who hikes in the woods for days with nothing but his backpack and his Eagle Scout skills.

“The brand had become stale in many ways, and the focus wasn’t there,” said Stewart Whitney, Timberland’s president.

In the past year, though, Timberland has staged an impressive turnaround, with salessurging 15 percent in the most recent quarter even as the broader retail industry has posted only modest growth. Its sales have improved in every global market and every product category, delivering a fatter profit margin — about 13 percent in 2014, up from 8 percent in 2011.

Timberland has revamped everything from its product design to marketing to merchandising strategies. And data science provided the fuel and the framework for each of its changes.

The company says that the cornerstone of the comeback has been a two-year customer study in which it collected data from 18,000 people across eight countries. In analyzing the trove of responses, Timberland was able to diagnose its problems and to zero in on its ideal customer — an urban dweller with a casual interest in the outdoors.

“Research wasn’t a driving factor as much in the previous 20 years,” said Jim Davey, vice president of global marketing. “It was kind of a product-driven organization.”

This data-driven approach was implemented after the family-run business was bought in 2011 by VF Corp., an $11 billion apparel company based in Greensboro, N.C., that has undertaken a similar analysis at other brands, including the North Face and Vans.

read the rest here : http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2015/01/02/how-timberland-used-customer-data-to-reboot-its-brand/

what is this queen? how do we define and how do we get this queen that is consumer insight?

1. consumer data is not consumer insight – results from consumer research, be it quantitative or qualitative is NOT yet consumer insight, they are just raw data on consumer information, attitudes or preferences. these are just raw data that needs to put into some kind of a mental machine that will churn own consumer insight. many confuse “consumer data” and “consumer insight” as one and the same as when they certainly are not.

for consumer data to become consumer insight, you need to put a few of them together, connect them into a sensible whole and get them to jump out of a trampoline. consumer insight is something that needs to leap out of something, a composite of many points where eventually what comes out is very different from what came in.

2. your experiences or observations, those of the advertising and marketing executives, from the client or from the ad agency is NOT consumer insight nor is it the penultimate consumer data – okay, fine what you or your client think may be part of consumer data and consumer insight, it is not in no way the whole thing or even the core of what consumer data and consumer insight is. a person or even several people’s points of view, experiences or observations are of course valid but they may not be what most of the consumers think and feel. they may or may not be the prevailing and most dominant among the target market. the real and maybe the painful truth is that we, those of us in marketing and advertising are NOT the target market or target audience. our views and experiences are at best anecdotal and taking them as THE consumer data and consumer insight is like playing russian roulette.

3. once the right consumer insight is discovered, it becomes magic where everything makes sense, it gains power on its own and everything flows – that is how powerful consumer insights are. once you find it, your marketing and advertising plan will flow very smoothly from start to finish. you will see that ideas, concepts and strategies build on each other, on to like a strong pyramid. that is how consumer insights are used – they become the core of what you do,

it is possible to have several consumer insights and several may be used in a marketing and advertising plan but there will be a very clear order of things where the weight of one is the shadow of the rest.

we have been witness to just how powerful a consumer insight is. finding it defines the success of a brand. do not use it as lip service, take it seriously, its discovery will make you.

 

~~~mindscape landmark~~~
carlo arvisu

 

the spam text epidemic among Globe Telecom subscribers and Globe’s anti-Globe-subscriber red tape non-solution

there is an epidemic of spam texts that has been infecting Globe Telecom subscribers, both post-paid and pre-paid subscribers. you know the epidemic exists because you are a victim yourself, you read about the complaints to Globe on Twitter and in fact if you read any of the Globe accounts on twitter like the @Talk2Globe account, you can read that most of the complaints are on spam text.

there are now two kinds of spam texts that have been hounding Globe subscribers.

the first one is the “Ad & Services Spam Text“. these are texts that sell you something – a product or service. the products are mostly condo units, some kind of insurance or medical service.  the most rampant ones are sent by Ayala Land and Megaword, two of the country’s biggest property developers. insurance and medical services were mostly sent by Caritas. In fact Caritas was even featured in Philippine news as apparently it sent the most number of spam that some lawsuit  or complaint with the government agencies have been filed against Caritas.  

the second spam text is the more dangerous one for Globe subscribers as this one is criminal – this is the “Scam Spam Text” . this is not just dangerous, this kind of spam text can be very costly to subscribers, it is a scam where the sender intends to fool the Globe subscriber to send the scammer through Globe’s “pasa load” facility. “pasa load” is the facility where one can send a cash value to another subscriber. that cash value is charged or added to the sender’s cellphone bill and the recipient in effect receives a cash value that can be used to pay for cellphone consumption. it is like a money transfer from one’s bank account to another bank account.

this kind of spam text goes over beyond the inconvenience of getting unwanted text from someone who wants to sell you something. this one is an attempt to steal money from you.

ans example of this is this one:

@Talk2GLOBE disable +639261264979 and +639261267812 #StopSpamText pic.twitter.com/QCh9XzmyjE

— WAWAM (@wawam) November 7, 2014

the Scam Spam Text has several components :

• the text sender pretends to be from Globe Telecoms or the text was sent by Globe itself, from “Globe Postpaid”. this is to make the text appear as legitimate.
• the text claims the receiver or intended Globe subscriber victim of the scam was incorrectly charged of something by Globe like an LTE service, an overcharging on roaming or something else
• to stop or get reimbursed of the incorrect charge by Globe, the intended victim is asked to quickly send a reply text to a number
• there is an instruction how to send the reply text.  this instruction in truth is the code text Globe subscribers use to be able to do a pasa-load. in the above example, 300 means a P300.00 cash value will be sent to the number indicated on the number
• the number that it will be sent to is a different number from the one that sent the scam spam text to the intended Globe sub victim
• once sent, the Globe subscriber victim is charged that amount while the same amount is added to the recipient’s load

we got tired of getting these spam texts. the spam texts are sent at no particular time and some of them even at times when we are resting or in meetings. because we receive the text, some effort is made to get our phone and at least look at who sent the text. that is inconvenient and irritating on its own and it gets worse when you receive a lot of it. they also occupy some memory on our phones. memory is a precious commodity to cellphones. a lot of memory occupied means the phone can lag or slow down. aside from the need to look at the text, it consumes time and effort to delete the spam texts and tag the number of the spam send sender as spam.

tagging the cellphone number as spam effectively blocks that number from sending you text or calling your number. you will not even notice you receive a text or call from the block numbers as they are their calls are automatically blocked or their text automatically and silently sent to the spam folder.

we wanted to do more than just block the numbers of the spammers from our cellphone with the use of the blocking function, we wanted Globe Telecom to do something about it so that the practice is stopped at their system itself. we also knew that there were many more Globe subscribers who are being victimized by the spammers. to do that, we have taken our cause on Twitter (@wawam).

we have been sending screen caps of the offending spam text to the @Talk2Globe twitter account and asking Globe to “disable” the cell phone numbers of the spammers.

at the start of the spam epidemic at Globe, the twitter account handlers of Globe didn’t know how to handle the complaints. we suppose no guidelines were yet set at the start. sometime after, the Globe twitter accounts were asking for proof and netizens started sending them screen caps of the spam text. based on our own experience, Globe twitter account handlers said they will handle it and even said they will be sending warning messages to the spammers.

we sent our tweets that contain the screen caps of the spam text with the hash tag #StopSpamText . we noticed that at some point in time other twitter account users with Globe accounts also used the same hash tag that we started.

recently, we found out that there was a new policy at globe :

we thought this new policy was all wrong, violates the privacy of the victims of spam texts, makes it extra difficult to file a complaint and get action from Globe and tends to favor the offenders, the spam senders and disadvantages the victims. Globe was supposed to protect its subscribers, instead it protects the spammers.

Globe wants the victims of spam text to :

• give Globe through twitter the spam victim’s cell phone number
• for the spam victim to agree for Globe to give their cellphone number to the text spammers the victim’s cellphone number once the spammers dispute Globe’s action on the spammers

we feel the last requirement was the most damaging of them all.

• it violates the privacy of the spam victim. people do not like their cellphone numbers to be given to just anyone and everyone. we only give our cellphone numbers to people we know and only if we like to.
• Globe giving our cellphone numbers to the spammers opens up the possibility of the spam victims being harassed by the spammers. if Globe gives the victim’s cellphone numbers to the spammers, it will be a cycle of harassment and even more spam to be sent by other numbers that the spammers  can use after the old one has been disabled by Globe

we do not see how that requirement will help Globe subscribers who are being victimized by the spammers. Globe fails to see that those who receive spam are actually the victims. the victims are asking help from Globe, for Globe to stop the spammers from further victimizing legitimate subscribers and Globe seem not to be up to helping its subscribers with their problems. instead of helping their subscribers from being victimized by spammers, they are protecting the spammers and in effect allowing the spammers to continue their spamming efforts.

if the spam victimized Globe subscriber does not give his cellphone number to Globe and not agree to allow Globe to give their cellphone number to spammers in case of disputes, Globe will drop the case and not pursue any action on the spammer. that means the spammer in question is left by Globe to continue victimizing Globe subscribers.

we do not understand why Globe is not taking action against the spammers.

• first, the spammers are claiming to be from Globe. that alone should give Globe enough reason to disable these accounts. they are illegally using the Globe brand name and Globe corporate name. it is misrepresentation and misuse of the Globe brand and company name. it is patently illegal.
• not only are the spammers illegally using the Globe brand  and corporate names, they are damaging the brand image of the company and the brand.
• the screen caps of the spam texts is a visual proof of these efforts.
• for sure, Globe has a way to find out in their system if a certain number is sending spam texts to others. Globe should have a record of the texts each number sends. a quick access to the text records of the spammers would show the spam texts.
• even if Globe does not keep a record of the actual texts sent by their subscribers, they can for sure know how many texts each subscriber sends out in a given day. a very high number of outgoing texts at any one time is a clear indication that that number is being used to send spam text
• these are spammers, they send hundreds or thousands of texts to other subscribers in a given day, for sure other legitimate Globe subscribers who are victimized by the spammers do not want to receive spam texts. once a number is reported by at least two (2) Globe subcriber victims, that should be enough for Globe to scrutinize the cellphone number if it is sending out spam texts
• there can be some kind of a computer program that they can develop to do this kind of investigation and analysis. all of this can be automated.

why should Globe eliminate spammers and disable their numbers?

1. they are illegally using the Globe brand name and corporate name, this is illegal.
2. they are not just spammers, they are scammers, they are doing illegal activities. legitimate globe subscribers are being victimized.
3. with rampant text spammers, it makes the Globe experience unpleasant and irritating for their legitimate subscribers. a bad brand experience leads users to transfer to other mobile service providers.

Globe has adapted a very strange policy on spam text. rather than help and fix the problems their subscribers are bringing to them, it is making it difficult for their own subscribers, asks information and agreement from their subscribers that put their subscribers at risk of more harassment and in effect protect and help the spammers who in the first place are doing illegal and irritating activities.

 

neastea’s layers upon layers of leap of logic TV ad that fails – “say yes”

we think the intent of this ad is to be cute and amusing, then after that to be memorable to build a brand image for nestea. but on the road to achieving those goals, we stopped way ahead of it – we didn’t understand the TV ad.

we did not get the ad after seeing the ad once for the first time. it took us a few more times watching it to understand what was going on in the ad.

ads that you don’t get on the first time you watch it are weak ads. good ads work even after seeing it only once. that didn’t happen for us on this ad. and even after seeing the ad several times more and being able to finally get what the ad is all about, we still didn’t get the ad.

there was too much leap of logic in the ad. layers and upon layers of them.

what we didn’t understand was why did  the male lead who was making the presentation break into song on top the table after the boss who was seated at the end of the table saw a picture of his daughter with the male lead on the screen?

we got it that the male lead mistakenly showed a picture of himself and a girl on the screen who turned out to be the daughter of the big boss.

why did the male lead break out into a “say yes” song? and even the people around the conference table also broke out into song?

nestea a tea drink positioned here as having the ability to cool things off in “hot situations” apparently led the male lead to sing.

forcing ourselves to understand the tv ad, we think the story in the ad was that to save himself from the embarrassment of   accidentally showing a picture of himself and the daughter of the big boss, the male lead led him to propose marriage.

yes, propose marriage not to the big boss who was a male but to the daughter of the big boss who was in the picture with him. but the daughter was not in the conference room, just the dad and his office mates. since the girl was not in the room, to whom was he proposing marriage to? the song had the lyrics “say yes” which we are thinking it meant “say yes to my marriage proposal”. marriage proposal to whom? the dad? nope. to the daughter. but she is not in the room.

the above explains why we did not get the TV ad. the ad has layers and layers of leap of logic.  the ad is asking the audience to accept too many things and not only that, to make their own conclusions not only once but many times about the story in the ad.

TV ads are usually just 30 seconds. it is such a short time that effective  ads are those that deliver the story of the ad, the message in a memorable way and finally to impress or capture the audience in just 30 seconds. this ad fails right at the very first stage of the process.

we are wondering if this ad was tested. we think this ad will fail miserably on understandability and recall. it will probably come at par or score close to likeability but its over-all score will be bad.

the likeability score will be its best score because of the song. while the production value of the song is poor, it’s obvious the male lead was not singing the song, the melody is interesting enough to make it okay on likeability,

we also think the ad was made because of the song. we are guessing the creatives and the client liked the song a lot, and when they fell in love with the song, they somehow convinced themselves it is a good ad.

and then propose marriage just to save yourself from embarassment of showing a picture with the girl? come on! they were not even naked in the picture!

 

it is not a good ad. it is a WAWAM! (what a waste of ad money)

 

~~mindscape landmark ~~
carlo arvisu

pictures from twitter that made imprints in my mind

all pictures picked up from twitter feeds.

the perfect picture when talking about love, happiness and pride in the family. they are not Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, they ate lolo and lola enjoying the love of having their first grandchild in their arms for the first time.

yes, it is that painful! La Salle superstar teng shows just how painful it is to get hit in the groin in a game.

these are uniforms that make it look like they are naked. they are real uniforms of a real cycling team in columbia. i do not know why the heck the uniforms are like that.

the girl beside Ateneo Blue Eagles superstar kiefer ravena is wearing a La Salle jacket. she went up to kiefer to ask for a picture to be taken with him. and that is the pose she wanted – her middle finger pointed at kiefer. kiefer said he did not realize she did that when the picture was taken but everyone in social media did. why ask a celeb for a picture when you will do this?

i almost fell off my chair when i saw this picture. the lady on the left is a queen of a european country and the man on the right is noynoy aquino, the president of the philippines. that is not all, aquino for some strange reason is wearing an ID. why was he wearing one? and it is just like the two guys at the back who it looks like are security people.

 

this to me is one of the best pictures from the occupy hong kong protest. a young teen-ager holding his cell phone up using it like a candle and behind him are thousands of young people like him doing the same thing. i thought this is such a perfect shot of  a revolution happening in 2014 – very today and very young. the cellphone after all is the ubiquitous gadget of the youth in 2014.

public safety & preparedness campaign asks drivers to tweet, putting safety at risk

before 6 am of april 2, saw this tweet by @IMReadyPH of GMA News & Public Affairs of the country’s largest TV network GMA 7. it was asking those who were commuting and driving to tweet the traffic situation on the roads they were travelling.

 

 

traffic is an on-going problem in metro manila. social media has also been a popular way to get information for many in the city. but the problem was @IMReadyPH was asking those driving to send tweets. driving and texting at the same time is a very dangerous thing to do. tweeting, getting your cellphone and looking at it and spending time, even just seconds to send a tweet can cause major accidents for the driver and those around the person sending the tweet. it means the driver is distracting himself, taking off his concentration from the road and a much bigger risk, the driver takes his eye off the road.

we replied to that tweet of @IMReadyPH and called its attention to what it did with its tweet – asking drivers to tweet is like inviting road accidents to happen. the twitter account did not reply to us. instead, we saw another twitter account replying with a traffic situation where he was. to that, @IMReadyPH advised the twitter account to “be careful”.

 

reading what the twitter account @IMReadyPh is all about, we were shocked to read that it is “the official public safety and preparedness campaign of GMA News & Public Affairs – for safe and convenient living“. (underscoring ours)

it is ironical or maybe a real failure for this “public safety” twitter account of GMA7 to tweet and ask people to be unsafe by asking them to tweet and drive at the same time.

at around the same time, i encountered on twitter some statistics from the US on the real risks of texting and driving. the data is sobering and clearly states the high risk that driving and texting has. we sent the same infographics to @IMReadyPH but we did not get any response. i thought being a “public safety” twitter account, it will acknowledge the infographics, retweet it to its followers and even apologize for what it had sent out in twitter earlier. none of that happened.

 

social media, specially a twitter account is very popular among philippine media. twitter has immediacy, you can send out news bits in practically real time plus it has a very wide reach among pinoys. in fact many pinoys get news on on-going news events from twitter at times faster and definitely much better than the traditional media of TV and even radio.

but that should not stay there. media outlets should understand and have the competency on the twitter accounts they set up. this one was for “public safety”, it needs to understand what that means and apply its mandate in every tweet it does.

this one was obviously a failure, a big WAWAM!

when use of a celebrity in TV ad fails – the new security bank’s TV ad with Megan Young

use of celebrities in ads is a huge trend in the philippines, it has been for decades years now.  almost all the ads you see in TV, print, billboards and hear on radio use a celebrity. use of a celebrity in advertising is the go-to ad concept for most if not all the advertising agencies in the phiippines. we do not know how that happened or if that was instigated by ad agencies in general or clients in general. that is an interesting question but it is for another article in the future.

for now, we are interested in this particular celebrity TV ad by security bank using megan young.

megan young won the Miss World beauty title in 2013. she has brought so much glory to the country for this win
specially when it has been a long time when the country has won a major international beauty contest title.

beautiful women and men have been big choices for philippine advertising agencies specially if they have gained celebrity status. the usual choices are TV and movie stars and big sports heroes like manny pacquiao but beauty queens specially someone like young who has won a major international beauty contest classifies her a celebrity endorser.

security bank is a medium sized bank in the country. it has a good reputation among institutional or business bank clients but not as popular and in fact has very little mass consumer clientele like the top 3 major banks. you would know very few among your friends and relatives who bank with security bank.

security bank is not a big advertiser among the banks. it makes sense that it is not since its clientele, specially among mass consumers is not that much but it has been known to try to get into attract mass consumer clientele from time to time in spurts and in very limited efforts in the past.

this advertising with megan young represents a giant marketing effort for security bank. it has been many, many years since it had released any kind of advertising and in this magnitude. it has been airing heavily in the past weeks.

in marketing this megan young TV campaign represent what is called a brand relaunch where the bank re-positions itself and puts across a “new bank”, a new security bank.

based on the TV ad, security ad wants consumers to “switch to the new security bank, you deserve better“, the tagline of the ad. the “new security bank” offers the following new services : “priority queuing”, “exclusive privileges” and a “relationship manager” with all that intending to give clients better, more efficient, faster and personalized banking services. the ad shows young going into the bank and talks to the camera about her “new relationship” and she breezes through the bank services and gets attended to by a handsome relationship manager who wears a suit, no less.

well, that part of the handsome relationship manager in a suit is for certain an over promise and the roominess and good ambiance of the security bank branch featured in the TV, we do not think there is one single branch of security bank that has that kind of employee and branch design. but let’s pretend that is not an issue in this ad for the moment.

the ad also shows megan young being served coffee by the relationship manager. another over-promise that we should pretend we did not see in the ad and something we should not expect in an actual security bank branch.

the issue we have on this TV ad is much more than the over-promises of what a security bank branch looks like and what happens to customers inside the bank, what we are making a point on is the choice of the talent in the ad, the celebrity endorser and what the promises of what a new security bank is all about.

first a side bar – technically, security bank as a whole has not been changed. it’s not really a “new security bank” but its a just new product that security bank offers to well-off clients. this “new relationship” or the “new security bank” that is being talked about in the ad will be given to a select number of clients – those who have a minimum P100,000 deposit in the bank, not to all clients of the bank. because it is offered only to a select few of its clients, it is just one product in the bank. do not expect to get the kind of servicing in a security bank if you are an ordinary bank client.

this new product of security bank  is being pitched to young bank clients, the yuppies given the use of young who is herself young (pun unintended) and the ad uses references to “relationships that are not complicated” a modern-day reference to social media (facebook) that young adults are familiar with and most likely very few older adults know about.

from there the question comes up on the defined target market of the ad – young yuppies as we would think very few of them can afford to have a remaining balance of  P100,000 in their bank accounts. they can afford to buy an iPhone worth P30,0000+ but hardly will you find people at that age bracket having that large amount of cash in their bank accounts.

now back to megan young.

the point of this “new security bank” but actually the new security bank product is that it promises to give its bank clients “special treatment”, something that clients of other banks and other security bank clients will not or do not get. what it is saying is that bank clients get the regular treatment of having to line up, no privileges and no relationship manager tending to your personal needs (including coffee being served). it is saying many bank clients get the regular treatment, not the special one.

and that is where the choice of megan young as talent in this tv ad shows a disconnect.

megan young IS A VERY POPULAR CELEBRITY. everyone knows her. for being a celebrity and this kind of beauty with an international beauty title, she WILL get special treatment from any bank or in fact any establishment like restaurants, department stores and malls even if she does not do anything, ask for it or have P100,000 with her to open a bank account with. getting special treatment, even the priority ones is part and parcel of the benefits one gets in being a celebrity and being an international beauty titlist.

we are willing to bet that if she enters any branch of any bank, the branch manager will most likely stand up from her desk and attend to her. she is that recognizable and that is what we do for celebrities.

using her in this ad then destroys the whole concept of the “new security bank”. if the bank used a regular person, a non-celebrity in the ad and the ad proceeds to show this regular person gets special treatment in security bank, then the ad works and delivers the message very well.

the point of relationship products like this is that one gets “special treatment” even if you are an ordinary person but has P100,000 minimum deposit. a regular person gets special treatment, that is the idea.

in this ad and with the new security bank product, the choice of a celebrity endorser destroyed the very idea of the new product. it’s a WAWAM!

 

 ~~~ mindscape landmark ~~~
carlo arvisu

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Caltex Techron’s message cleans the wrong way

 

this is a poster appearing in Caltex gas stations. to say the least, the message it is trying to communicate is anywhere from confused to non communication of the intended message.

we are guessing that this is the message they intended to communicate with the poster – Tachron has been reformulated to include an ingredient that cleans the engine as the car runs. we do not know the exact science of it but we are guessing they included a cleaning agent additive to the formula of Techron.

that could be an interesting proposition for car owners – a clean engine means it will run better and more importantly the car will be very efficient in burning the fuel which enables the car owner to save on gas consumption plus a better maintained engine.

but the poster is not communicating that. with the suds emanating from the car and even bigger bubbles on the trees and roadside, the poster seem to be saying the car is cleaning the environment, not the engine. the car or Techron cleaning the environment? that is a crazy idea and totally unbelievable.

or… maybe that is what Techron does – it cleans the environment and not the engine of the car as we had understood it. whatever real benefit the new Techron has, cleaning the engine or the environment, the poster fails in clearly communicating what it was meant to say.

it’s a WAWAM!

 

~~~ mindscape landmark ~~~
carlo arvisu

 

sleaze in kataxpayer billboard that fails to sell or even make sense

this is a billboard that is on that road where White Plains subdivision is in Quezon City.  we were of course driving when we first saw the billboard and two things caught my eyes – the mini-skirted legs of the woman and the words “tax accounting”.  as we were driving, we didn’t get the message of the billboard, did not have enough time to read all of it.

but just the same, as we drove past the billboard, we thought something was not making sense in that billboard. we were unable to connect in any way the woman’s mini-skirted legs and tax accounting. they were just unrelated even if we stretched the meaning and message of the ad with those visuals and words.

we drove really slow the next time we went past  it to be able to read the whole thing. our instinct was right, the billboard didn’t make sense. it used sleaze in a bad way and nothing in the ad made sense, nor does it make a sale.

 

 

this is a close up of the main visual and the headline in the billboard.

 

 

 

the visual is sleazy and totally appalling  – it shows a before and after situation where the mini-skirted woman in the before picture had her legs crossed and then spreads her legs apart after a man supposedly offers her an engagement ring. yes, the woman spreads her legs!

why would anyone put this kind of visual in an ad? it is insensitive and very offensive. the sexual meaning is blatantly disrespectful.

and the main visual  is just the beginning.  there is more on how this billboard totally fails.

the legs spread apart with an engagement ring has nothing to do with “tax accounting”.  the product being sold here is apparently a tax accounting seminar. legs being spread, sex and tax accounting seminar all don’t mix well and don’t make sense. there is no message there. the message is all lost and probably because of the obsession with sex and sleaze.

the sleaze in this billboard is heightened with the subhead “it works all the time”. like saying it’s a “sure thing” the legs will be spread.

there is a large chunk of unsaid message in that billboard – taking the tax accounting seminar is a “timely solution. important investment” that it will be most useful and will work all the time. but all that is actually unsaid because the ad has been so obsessed with the sleaze.

there are many more ways, more effective and more sensible to deliver that message than use the sleazy visuals. there is an attempt to be creative here but it is used badly and being used just for the sake of showing some sleaze.

aside from the advertising component failure of this billboard there is another one – the billboard is actually right beside the gate of St. Ignatius Subdivision where we can assume  families live there.  their young children see that billboard on a daily basis.

this is a WAWAM!

—

call these numbers to ask them to bring down this billboard : (998) 979-3922;  921-6107

 

la salle and UST’s teng brothers very gay pic – topless shows a brand character failure

we saw this picture of the teng brothers jeron and jeric posted at  twitter by sportscaster TJ Manotoc (@tjmanotoc) that accompanied an article posted at the  PhilStar website (Philippine Star), Lifestyle section. my initial reaction was – omg, what is the point of that picture? then i tweeted (@wawam) this :

source of pic and the article here : http://www.philstar.com/supreme/2013/10/05/1241418/sibling-rivalry

we thought there are so many things wrong with that picture:

it is a very gay picture of the Teng brothers. we have never seen a much more gay picture of two basketball players in philippine sports. while we have not seen all the  pictures of US basketball players, of those that we have seen on the internet and in sports magazines, this is the first time we have seen a picture of this sort even in feature articles like the one posted at philippine star. and even in sports magazines and in sports pages of philippine newspapers.

what of the picture are we talking about? well two men who are topless, showing lots of manly muscles, hands held  together in an “embrace” that way, with their bodies so close to each other. plus the bottoms not being shown makes you wonder if they were completely naked. although i have to admit, maybe the last point is taking it too far.

basketball players are always shown in their uniforms and if not in uniforms with clothes on, tops and bottoms included. seeing them topless and in this way is unheard of, also unseen. basketball is a sport of skill and mental prowess, it is not about muscles or brawn. in fact the shorts that basketball players now are very long (started by michael jordan) showing very little leg muscles. even the tops that basketball players wear show very little muscles. showing shirtless basketball players is a shock and very much way off.

a follower of ours in twitter, @econcepcion asked “where are the school colors?”. that is a very good point. basketball and most specially college basketball in the philippines and UAAP is all about the team colors – green is for la salle and yellow for UST. we see that all the time during the games. in fact it is the colors that people wear to watch the games that separate and identify the audience as to what school one supports.

shirtless means the teng brothers are not showing the school colors.

the article is published at the “lifestyle” section of the Philippine Star, not at the sports section. so that also makes you wonder what this picture and article is all about. reading the article though is about what happens to the brothers during and after the game, its about sports.

from a communications standpoint, this picture is very much off strategy and off-brand character in several levels. it is a very confused set of communication material where the visuals do not match with the content of the article,  most certainly the sports of basketball and most specially the basketball skills and talents of the teng brothers.

just like in advertising, pictures even in newspaper articles also tell a lot of the story that you read. this topless pic of the teng brothers  is way off and does not contribute to the story being told in the article. there is no way one can actually rationalize or defend that that picture should accompany the article.

we saw a picture from rappler.com that is actually a perfect fit to this Philippine Star article. it is a picture of the teng brothers entangled in court during the first game with each of the teng brothers not allowing the other any room or advantage. we saw that play out on tv during the game and those few seconds on the court were totally intense but  it felt like it almost went on forever as each one fought the other for space and positioning. it was really beautiful basketball skills.

you appreciate the intensity and professionalism of the brothers even though they had their school colors on and not topless.

from what we know, writers and specially editors labor at choosing the pictures that accompany articles. they know that pictures that accompany articles does play an important role n the appreciation of the article. on this philippine star article, nothing of that sort happened.

aside from accompanying the article with a very gay picture of the teng brothers, this picture is way off strategy, way off brand character and does not make sense at all. it’s a WAWAM!

iReader ads meant to sell ebooks but also sells books

i saw these ads at Flipboard and at first glance and without reading the copy (text) yet, just seeing the visuals, i thought wow this is a great ad for books.

i thought, yes that is what happens when you read a good book – the story that it tells in words come alive to you in 3D, like a diorama or (my favorite) pop up books. when stories are written very well, they take flesh and you see the action in described in the book, not just imagine it.

i clicked the picture of the ad to read the text and i was surprised – the ad was actually selling ebooks and not books. and the visuals that were coming out in diorama farm depicts the killing of trees to produce the book you are reading.

it had the line –  “iReader. every book is a tragedy for trees. read ebooks“. 

now talk about miscommunication!

the whole experience talks about what they say about ads – the visuals communicate the message. this one had a very powerful visual and it very immediately communicated the message to me. the only problem was i picked up the wrong message. not only was it the wrong message, it was the exact opposite of the intended message. the ad wanted readers to stop using books because books kill trees and use ebooks instead.

but to me, i saw the adventure and beauty of reading books. it’s a real dilemma – use a highly creative execution to communicate something that could be misunderstood and have the exact opposite of the intended objective of the ad.

miscommunication aside,  we still think this is a great ad! at least on the execution side. but it fails on the strategy side. and on that basis this makes it a WAWAM!

~~ mindscape landmark ~~

New Balance ad blooper – also need to pursue excellence in grammar

i was impressed by the number of New Balance billboards in Boston, MA – they were like all over the place. it’s hard to miss them, they are in the subway and the streets in almost every place where billboards are allowed.

but being impressed stopped there as i read the headline.

first time i saw the billboard was when i was riding the subway train. it passed my view for a few seconds, something got lit up in my mind – was that what i read? it bothered me throughout the train ride and kept assessing the words. i told myself i have to look at their billboard again to make sure i read the right thing and take pictures of them.

the New Balance billboard had this headline : ” To Light, Liberty and the pursuit of excellent”

i liked the subtle touch on patriotism, specially when at the time i was in Boston, the Boston marathon bombing just happened and the city was still looking for the perpetrators.  being patriotic which was what the billboard sort of said was a good thing for the brand.

i thought to myself, okay it’s good they want to get to “light”, truth (?) and liberty, but to the “pursuit of excellent”? that was shattering, New Balance needs to take on the “pursuit of excellence” in grammar.

that does not end there. just now, we checked the New Balance website (http://www.newbalance.com/) and we found this one. The need to pursue “summertime excellence” in grammar.

this is a WAWAM!

 

~~mindscape landmark~~

sports photography – just one or two more seconds for the money picture shot!

the alternate title – damn it’s hard to take sports shots! sub-title – specially if you do not have the camera and lens for it.

those are things we knew before but got confirmed when we actually tried it.

the football match was between the juniors teams of Ateneo and FEU at the Ateneo football field for the UAAP. given that we did not have the right camera and lens for sports shots, the expectations for great pictures were intentionally set very low.

sports photography is probably one of the few types where you do need really specialized cameras and lenses. you need a fast camera, a fast and very long lens (telephoto or zoom)  and one that can take many multiple shots one after the other with each shot perfectly focused. these types of cameras and lenses will cost easily more than $100,000 versus the camera and lens we used which was a fraction of that cost.

but we took the pictures anyway.

we wanted to capture a a specific shot – one that an Ateneo striker kicking a ball past the  FEU goal keeper. i was hoping that the picture will show the ball just passing through the goal keeper.  the shots we got were multiple shots and resulted to some nice pictures of the ball getting kicked, sailing to the goal keeper and then passed the goal keeper down deep into the net for a goal.

but no shot where the ball just passing the goal keeper. we missed that shot by a mere one or two seconds!

nice try, better luck next time.

photo #1 : ateneo player prepares to kick the ball into the net. feu goal keeper prepares himself to defend

photo # 2: football sails through the air after the ateneo player kicks it

photo #3 : well in this space is supposed to be the shot we wanted to record – the ball sailing just past the goal keeper. but the camera motor failed me as it was unable to take the shot. we swear our finger was continuously pressing the shutter button!

photo #4: it’s a goalllllllll! football hits the net as FEU goal keeper looks at it and the Ateneo player runs back to his team mates to celebrate.

the other thing we experienced was the need to stalk the play of the game. we intended to take a goal shot and we needed to read the game and get ready to take the shot when the goal was supposed to be made. looking at the viewfinder the whole time to follow the flow of the game didn’t work. we needed to remove the camera from our eye to watch the game. and as soon as a developing goal was about to be made, that’s when you put the camera up to your eye.

these were lucky photo shots as we were able to read the play correctly and a goal was made. but, those one to two seconds delay didn’t allow us to achieve our goal.

oh well, that is what happens to amateur sports photographers with amateur cameras and lenses. (insert laughter here)

ad review: “Pangmadaliang Sarap, Pangmatagalang Hirap” has 2 fatal errors

in our ad review, the above ad suffers from two fatal errors -positioning RH as anti-sex and the bigger fatal  error, as anti-children. we think that error was brought about by a lack or no strategy and consumer insight.

rerad about it here: http://on.fb.me/niFq2p

new starbucks logo – the resto without a name or the queen with two tails

what? the starbucks logo has a siren? where? since when?

seriously, until now i did not realize the starbucks logo had a siren in it. i know there is some kind of image in it but i didn’t realize it is a siren until i read this whole new thing that is happening to starbucks.

starbucks on it’s 40th year anniversary has announced a change in it’s logo. – from a siren in the middle and around is a band of green with the words in white that says “starbucks coffee”.  they have now changed that to having just the siren and the words all together taken out. the starbucks CEO says it is reflective of the changes that will happen for the companystarung this spring.

to me the starbucks logo are the words “Starbucks Coffee” in white over green, dominant, strong and very clean, very simple and great or in many cases those words on green. geea, they just removed the logo i am familiar with and like from their logo. it  might be the end of the world!

we don’t get it – starbucks just removed from it’s logo their own name. and the one element that most people can relate to and have come to appreciate.  they have removed the equity they have successfully built over the years and during the years when starbucks was most successful.

we think starbucks has 3 enduring brand equities – the logo and name, the decor and design of their shops and their coffee. they just removed 1 of 3 equities that they own.

with the siren logo without a name, what are we supposed to call starbucks now?

we can just see a new generation of consumers, those who are children and not yet coffee drinkers referring to starbucks as The Siren resto or as someoen attempted a similar thing – The Resto Without A Name.

we have seen that happen with  Prince. prince built his act and popularity with the name prince. but for some reason and i am sure a stroke of genius in his mind, he changed his name into this characters or symbols that nobody understood, much more pronounce. (they had a sound?) with the name change, he was then called The Artist Withyout A Name or the Artist Formerly Known As Prince. Prince eventually gave up on his creative idea and brought back his old name.

So now we have the same two options to call this resto – The Resto Without A Name (TRWAN?) or The Resto Formerly Known As Starbucks (TRFKAS?).

Oh, there is a 3rd option, people can call it The Siren. That is of course assuming it will be obvious to people the image in their logo is a siren. Come on, let’s face it, with that logo, people can vfery well call it Queen With Two Tails (QWTT?)

if starbucks persists on using this logo, we can have the next generation of starbucks consumers all confused and referring to their restaurant in many names other than starbucks or the options we have  here.

why a big company with fiercely loyal customers will want to confuse their future customers is beyond us.

not that they are not having problems with their present customers. there is va firestorm being raised by its customers over the internet complaining and disliking the nameless logo.  seriously, we think the starbucks logo is exactly like the Coke or Gap logos – you simply do not mess with it.

this is a WAWAM!

 

reason for change, from thestarbucks website (source: http://www.starbucks.com/blog/looking-forward-to-starbucks-next-chapter):

As we look forward to Starbucks next chapter, we see a world in which we are a vital part of over 16,000 neighborhoods around the world, in more than 50 countries, forming connections with millions of customers every day in our stores, in grocery aisles, at home and at work. Starbucks will continue to offer the highest-quality coffee, but we will offer other products as well – and while the integrity, quality and consistency of these products must remain true to who we are, our new brand identity will give us the freedom and flexibility to explore innovations and new channels of distribution that will keep us in step with our current customers and build strong connections with new customers.

You’ll begin to see our evolution starting this Spring. And there will be much more to come, as we celebrate our 40th anniversary by honoring the millions of customers and thousands of partners who’ve made Starbucks such a welcoming presence around the world. We think you’ll like what you see.

the creatives explain the design change, from the starbucks website (source:  http://www.starbucks.com/blog/so-who-is-the-siren

As a writer, though, I can tell you that there is a lot more to her than just the design and how she looks. This is what she means to me, and to us.

She is a storyteller, carrying the lore of Starbucks ahead, and remembering our past. In a lot of ways, she’s a muse –always there, inspiring us and pushing us ahead.

And she’s a promise too, inviting all of us to find what we’re looking for, even if it’s something we haven’t even imagined yet.

She means something different to every one who sees her, who knows her. For me she’s kind of the final say on the spirit of everything I write and everything we do. Even as I’m writing this, I wonder what she thinks. (She likes it, by the way.)

Here we are today. Our new evolution liberates the Siren from the outer ring, making her the true, welcoming face of Starbucks. For people all over the globe, she is a signal of the world’s finest coffee – and much more. She stands unbound, sharing our stories, inviting all of us in to explore, to find something new and to connect with each other. And as always, she is urging all of us forward to the next thing. After all, who can resist her?

Not me.

WAWAM! after hours blog reaches half a million hits

sometime on march 26, 2010, this blog, WAWAM! after hours reached a new milestone – it reached half a million hits. we like to thank the authors and blog readers for making this possible.

what is the real reason for declaring martial law in maguindanao?

we are publishing here this news article in full. we think this is a very important topic. this is next in wawam! after hours.

 

Bernas warns of amnesty for Ampatuans

By Cathy C. Yamsuan
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 03:47:00 12/09/2009

MANILA, Philippines—A member of the 1986 Constitutional Commission Tuesday warned that the Ampatuans might be granted amnesty by the government should they be found guilty only of rebellion.

“Murder committed in pursuance of rebellion is not considered a separate crime and is therefore absorbed by the charge of rebellion. The government must take care to prove two separate offenses, that murder preceded the charge of rebellion and was not committed as part of it,” said Fr. Joaquin Bernas, SJ, a former dean of the Ateneo College of Law and a columnist of the Inquirer.

In an interview, Bernas noted that testimony gathered by investigators already included the confession of “a perpetrator who said the order given to them was to kill [the Mangudadatus]. There was no connection to rebellion [at that time].”

The government has arrested members of the Ampatuan clan of Maguindanao for the Nov. 23 massacre of 57 people.

Witnesses have tagged Datu Unsay Mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr. as the one who ordered the killings.

Mind testimonies

Bernas urged government prosecutors to pay attention to testimonies that the mayor had ordered the murders.

He noted that acting Justice Secretary Agnes Devanadera and President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, in her 20-page report to Congress, had alleged that rebellion was committed by the Ampatuans to justify the declaration of martial law in Maguindanao.

“Rebellion runs the risk of being granted amnesty, which can be pardoned by the President following final conviction,” said Bernas, who has been teaching criminal law since 1962.

Earlier, administration critics voiced fears that the rebellion charge against the Ampatuans might override the multiple murder charges stemming from the Maguindanao massacre.

“Murder done in pursuance of rebellion can then be absorbed in the rebellion charge. But if the murders were done separately, then these should be treated as a separate crime. If murder is committed before a rebellion, if it precedes the rebellion, it must be treated independently,” Bernas said.

Congress’ power

In the same interview, Bernas said Ms Arroyo was not allowed to extend the 60-day martial law declaration in Maguindanao without Congress’ consent.

He said Congress had the power to revoke martial law through a majority vote of the Senate and the House of Representatives voting jointly.

“Congress can also extend martial law if requested by the President, because [she] cannot do it on her own. If Congress wants to stop martial law, it can vote to do so. However, the Constitution is silent on how long Congress can extend martial law,” he said.