YES, POTATOES CAN STIMULATE THE PHILIPPINE ECONOMY

By Roger Pe


How bad is your Afritada or Caldereta without them?

Without potatoes, Filipino dishes that have Spanish influences may have that rich, delectable sauciness but lack one important thing - body.

The good news is, potatoes do not make you fat.
The better news is, they’re cholesterol-free.
The best news is, they can fatten your income and keep bakeries’ business body and soul together.

How far can commercial bakery operators increase productivity and income poundage? Get up from your couch. Yield in to “Cash Potato.”

At the Philippines’ World Trade Center, World Baker’s Fair sparked a new vigor to Philippine economy by unveiling its fifth edition to capacity crowd.

The most important international showcase for bakers and its affiliate industries (manufacturers of ingredients - canned and raw materials, owners of restaurant and café services, packaging and training course providers, makers of ovens, ice cream, pasta, confectionery, cafes and patisserie equipment among others), unraveled a world of new marketing possibilities that could modernize how Filipinos in these fields operate.

Popular among exhibit goers was a little corner put up by United States Potato Board, a non-profit organization representing around 4,000 potato growers in the U.S.

Celebrity Pinoy chefs Gene Gonzales, Heny Sison, Jill Sandique and Thad Gayanelo each had a day full signing autographs for admirers as they spoke about yummy delicacies made from USPB dehydrated potatoes. Popular tv host Chef Heny dished out Pinoy goodies - Pan de Sal, Bibingka, Caldereta Lasagna, Chicken Afritada, Pancit Molo, Stuffed Crab, Doughnuts, Leche Rolls, Custard, Chocolate and Custard Cakes – among them, all devastatingly delicious, all documented in a beautiful USPB recipe book prepared by herself and her culinary team.

There are thousands of bakers in the Philippines and other parts of Asia, of varying sizes, providing jobs and serving food to millions. “Using dehydrated potatoes can help commercial bakery operators achieve economies of scale,” says Teresa Kuwahara, USPB International Marketing Manager for Dehydrated Potatoes.

Dehydrated Potatoes are so-called because of a careful U.S. processing technique that retains most of their nutrition content and fresh potato flavor. Concentrated, fat and cholesterol-free, USPB Dehydrated Potatoes are convenient to ship and have a remarkable shelf life of 9 months minimum to 18-25 months maximum.

LESSONS FROM CANNES

BY ROGER PE


Let’s get to the bottom of it all. Advertising is talking to consumers, not talking to oneself or award judges. Isolating them will make you irrelevant and so do advertising festivals.

When it opened last week, Cannes, promptly heeded the call and focused on two major things: make the annual etravaganza relevant to the times and effectiveness a factor in judging for a coveted Lion.

Art for art’s sake, no, art for consumers’ sake, yes, and revolutionizing the industry, more so. This is the new Cannes. It is not a festival for scam or ghost ads anymore – those that were done posthaste or worse, posted somewhere near a building’s parking lot just to qualify. While it’s not aiming to look like the Effies, Cannes will always celebrate premium creativity - creativity with a purpose, that is.

Cannes today means creative ads must be effective. Effective ads must be creative. That’s what it takes and that’s how Cannes is evolving and keeping in tune with the times.

Now becoming even more vigilant, Cannes will never be a Lynx Award show, where a couple of months ago, a tranche of fake ads were entered and went all the way to bag an avalanche of golds, even climbing Creativity magazine’s Top 10 and a host of other ranking tallies.

A few days before the world’s most prestigious awards competition opened its curtain, Bob Garfield of advertising bible Ad Age slammed the world’s largest adfest as “it doesn’t matter anymore.”

Another iconic celebrity creative, Jeff Goodby, exploded a bomb referring to Cannes goers, as: “We are becoming irrelevant award-chasers.”

Goodby who is managing partner of highly revered Goodby Silverstein Partners ad agency in the US, admonished: “It’s fast becoming that the majority of things we’re rewarding, as an industry, are either small or marginal efforts for legit clients, things we made for real clients that the clients seem not to have heard of, or out-and-out fakes.”

Goodby further lamented: “We’ve created a system that rewards work that is increasingly unknown to anyone outside the business. We have become connoisseurs of esoterica. And in the process, we’re becoming more about us, and less about changing the world.”

One of Cannes jury presidents Nick Brien, president and CEO of Mediabrands, responded: “It’s a serious year. It’s a year for demonstrating that we can drive the necessary blend of creativity and proven effectiveness. It’s the reason why we changed the judging criteria and massively up-weighted the amount of importance we allocate towards effectiveness and the ROI.”

THE PHILIPPINES

As Cannes registered a 40% drop in entries and 20% less in delegate number this year compared to 2008, Philippine entries, however, climbed from 167 to 215, even gamely showing up in PR Lions, competition’s newest category and in Titanium, the most expensive of all.

Aiming to put its place back to its former glory, Ace-Saatchi & Saatchi sent in the most number of entries. DM9, BBDO-Guerrero, TBWA-Santiago, Mangada & Puno and DDB completed the Top 5. JWT Manila, Creative Juice, Leo Burnett, Publicis, Lowe, McCannGroup Worldwide, Publicis-Jimenez, Campaigns & Grey, Dentsu Indio followed next. Once dominant Ogilvy & Mather was noticeably absent on the list.

How much does per entry cost? Scanning through the festival’s site, cost per individual category, (all in euros) are as follows: Titanium (1,150); Film (620); Outdoor, Direct, Media, Promo, PR (380); Press, Cyber (350); Radio (270).

Breaking the cost down, Philippine ad agencies approximately spent: 27,880 euros for Outdoor (P1,886,960.00); 18,200 euros for Press (P1,219,400.00); 5,700 euros for Design (P345,990.00); 5,320 euros for Media (PP350,440.00); 5,130 euros for Radio (P343,710.00); 4,340 euros for Film (P290,780.00); 2,660 euros for Direct (P178,220.00); 2,100 euros for Cyber (P140,700.00); 1,520 euros for Promo (P101,840.00); 840 euros for PR (P56,280.00); 1,150 euros for Titanium (P77,050.00).

At rough estimate, local agencies coughed up about P5 million pesos to enter in 10 categories mentioned above. This does not include travel, accommodation and delegate registration costs (2,175 euros each). While full registration is a lot of money, it allows attendees to savor a mind-boggling experience – a passport to a smorgasbord of the best ads from around the world, various forum sessions, seeing world-famous creative directors at the Croisette or rub elbows with them at the famous Gutter Bar.

When asked why the Philippines broke its entry record this year inspite of the economic downturn, Connie Kalagayan of the Inquirer’s Corporate Affairs, says: “What local agencies saved on travel expenses for delegates, they poured in their entries. The greater benefit meant more chances of winning. It would have been great to have more delegates experience seminars from David Plouffe (Obama’s campaign stretegist), Kofi Annan and many more speakers. Hopefully, when conditions are better, we would have both delegates and entries in record numbers again.”

Kalagayan’s tone speaks with so much optimism as big as Cannes. “The Gold Lion that JWT Manila won in 2007 is still a feat to be surpassed. More medals in more events mean Philippine creative talent is fast becoming incredibly competitive, she says.”

Inquirer President and CEO Sandy Prieto-Romualdez, number one supporter of Philippine’s quest for glory in the Olympics of advertising has words of encouragement: “Globalization has already become an intrinsic part of our daily lives and vital to our industries. Cannes highlights the need for countries to step up to the plate and become competitive not only at home but also internationally.”

She says the Philippine Daily Inquirer has been representing the country in the last 6 years and “vows to continue advocating Filipino ingenuity and talent so that we are recognized, but more so, become authorities in different fields, even to our First World neighbors.”

Romualdez salutes Universal McCann’s “Botelya, Love in a Bottle, (Johnson & Johnson) and TBWA-SMP’s “Hibiscus, Iris” (Boysen Paint) for their Bronze Lion victories. She’s hoping that with these wins inspire untapped talents to pursue greater creative achievements.

THE PHANTOM OF UNITEL

BY ROGER PE


If you can slow motion your life, what amazing things can you see?

Scene 1: From the thick rainforest foliage, the rustling leaves followed her path to a field of swaying blooms. Petals of varying hues danced with the breeze, trickles of rain pirouetted with the morning dew. Soon a rainbow arched in the sky, birds and butterflies fluttered by.

A picture speaks a thousand words. But however it is peppered with picturesque words and three-dimensional adjectives, it is just a picture. Immobile and has no emotions.

A moving picture makes you speak words by the hundredfold. It stretches your imagination farther than it did before.

But what if you can hold time in your hand or film a scene that’s faster than a speeding bullet? Or catch each frame in slow motion, with stunning details? What poignant stories can you tell, what poetic words can you spin?

Let us whet your visual appetite.

Last month, you probably saw how BBC aired a huge ocean scene, shot beneath the surface, revealing a 4-meter tall monster barrel wave. Clearly visible was a vortex created by the birth of a wave that formed other vortices. Filmed in high definition, using a high-speed camera, it captured the action at several times slower than normal speed. The result was never before sharply caught on camera.

Many Manny Pacquiao followers, the ones who’ll not stomach any graphic gore, would hide under the table had the fight filmed with the same type of camera. Every replay would have been much more dramatic, blood curdling at the very least. Imagine each boxer’s muscle fiber twitching, blood and sweat unleashed, and the splatter flow slow motion towards you. You could be knocked out by the visual spectacle punched your way.

SEEING IS BELIEVING

Having put in layman’s term how slow motion can capture what ordinary cameras have never previously allowed you with utmost clarity, let’s get to the technical bottom of it all.

The Phantom is a revolutionary high-speed camera that delivers 35mm depth of field. At virtually any desired resolution, it can bring you ultra-high frame rates beyond 2K in excess of 1000 fps at 1080p and 1500fps at 720p. If that’s a mouthful, well, it is not just a high-speed camera – it combines all the high-imaging qualities of expensive specialty cameras.

With the Phantom’s HD resolution, creative people can shoot thousands of pictures-per-second and enable them to have a seamless control of speed, including time duration – tools they need to tell a story in stunning new and dramatic ways.

The Phantom is the only one of its kind in the Philippines and exceptionally rare even in Asia’s top production houses. Unitel’s latest camera trophy further ups the ante where time, money and quality finish are the essence in Philippine tv commercial production.

Unitel is the country’s undisputed leader in tv commercial production output since it revolutionized the industry 24 years ago. It is also into quality filmamaking, continuing to professionalize, digitalize and bring new technology to the industry today.

“Quality-wise, the Phantom blends well with 35mm film and has a fast and simple workflow. A regular 16mm photosonic shoot would cost 160K for the camera, filmstock, processing and telecine (the process of blowing a tv ad up to the size of a moviehouse screen). With the Phantom, clients would spend less but get much more,” says the ever-evolving Unitel President Tony Gloria.

Gloria was chosen by the Philippine 4A’s as one of 25 mavericks of the ad industry in 2003 and Creative Guild of the Philippines’ Lifetime Achievement awardee in 2005. Advertising tv commercial director Sockie Fernandez, calls him a real visionary leader who always tried to innovate and went against the usual.

TOP DIRECTORS’ CHOICE

Multi-awarded and veteran tv commercial director Jun Reyes who has made some of the Philippines’ most memorable tv spots, is all praise for the Phantom. “The camera allows you more creative rooms to put a storyboard to life. By capturing special fleeting moments, creative people can put poetry and romance in varying degrees of slow motion. It’s amazing,” he says.

Larry Manda, another top-ranking director known for his beautiful camera-work, puts it succinctly: “With the Phantom, images look like a graded film print. The blacks held up beautifully, the whites fall off smoothly and all do not bleed easily. You get a 35mm depth everyone desires. New rhymes, rhythms and pure visual poetry can now be seen through this state-of-the-art tool.”

Long-time Philippine resident British cinematographer and ace director Matthew Rossen is all praise for the Phantom. “Even more interesting than running up to1000 frame per second at 2K is the Phantom’s 35mm sensor. If there is a data camera that can capture the subtleties of film, this could be it,” he says.

A Pinoy tv commercial director who has done tv ads in Europe, Martin Arnaldo exclaims the advantages of using a Phantom camera: “With the Phantom, you can keep on shooting at ultra-high speed without worrying about film stock and you can instantly see what you just shot. And because it’s very light, you have hand-held freedom to design high speed shots, bringing new movements to slow motion.”

Has the economic downturn affected Unitel’s high-speed trek to excellent work? Maricel Royo, VP for Client Services and Operations, is quick to respond: “Production houses come and go. When recession comes, the tough gets going and the industry always comes back to the real thing - the solid one that gives them higher value - excellence all these years.”

Almost a quarter of a century creating the best moving images in the Philippines and Southeast Asia and five prestigious Production House of the Year awards later, Unitel has remained an industry leader in innovation and creativity. Constantly reinventing itself, the pioneer has never stopped growing and unafraid to take risks, making us to ask: If you want to do a damn good tv commercial, which production house should you go?

PHILIPPINES BIGGEST CANNES ENTRIES EVER

BY ROGER PE



There are too many award shows but if you ask most Philippine creative people, there are only 4 on the radar: D&AD, Cannes, One Show and Clio.

The country has already secured a book nomination in this year’s D&AD. Leo Burnett’s “Counting Sheep” for McDonald’s 24-hour Delivery (Broadcast innovations) just might hit metal. A Pencil win just might make history. A historic win just might ignite new fascination to a show considered as the Holy Grail of advertising. Win or lose, the ad is in the book.

But this year, the Philippines’ biggest tranche of entries was couriered to Cannes, not London. According to Mundi Ocampo of The Philippine Daily Inquirer’s Corporate Affairs, the country is sending a total number of 265 entries fanned across various media, breaking last year’s record of 167.

Inspite of the unending debate on the importance of awards, especially during an economic meltdown, Filipino delegates have also signed up for the Palais des Festival’s grand advertising extravaganza.

Philippine ad agencies, which have struck pay dirt in Cannes with Gold, Silver and several Bronze Lions in the past, are upbeat, riding on the crest of Brillante Mendoza’s stunning Best Director (“Kinatay”) win in last month’s Cannes Film Festival.

BUTCHERED BY CRITICS, AWARDED BY CANNES

BY ROGER PE
Adoi, May 26, 2009


Cannes is barely a month away but the Philippine advertising industry is already celebrating with a major triumph.

Reason: one of Manila’s favourite production designers just bagged a plum award at last Sunday’s Cannes’ gala closing ceremonies.

Brillante Mendoza, whom the local advertising world knew as Dante Mendoza, was fielding a film for the second straight year. His movie “Serbis,” a local word ‘ingloriously’ bastardized to mean sexual favor, shot entirely in a rundown moviehouse, was the country’s first full-length film accepted in the festival’s main competition.

While his 2008 debut drew mixed reviews, he came back with a vengeance this time. He won the award world cinema heavyweights wanted most – Best Director. Quentin Tarantino (“Pulp Fiction”), Ang Lee (“Brokeback Mountain”) Jane Campion (“The Piano”), Ken Loach (The Wind That Shakes The Barley), Pedro Almodovar (“Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown”) among others competed and basked in the usual Cannes red carpet.

Mendoza’s “Kinatay”, literally meaning butchered, is a story of a neophyte policeman who got entangled in a web of a grisly crime on his wedding day. Throughout the 24-hour personality-changing journey, Peping, the lead character and his gang, kidnap, rape, murder and dispose of chopped parts of a woman’s body.

The blood and graphic gore of the movie, according to Mendoza, was purposely made to disturb and bring home the harsh truths that these things happen in real life.

AWARDS - AN ALL-CONSUMING AFFAIR

By ROGER PE
Philippine Daily Inquirer, May 22, 2009


Who wouldn’t want an advertising Oscar, much more the dazzling fame that goes with it? A Cannes Lion is a Lion, a Pencil - D&AD or One Show, is a Pencil, as sharp as the creative geniuses of those on the credit box, a Clio is a Clio, as beautiful as the Greek muse it’s named after.

There are too many award shows but everyone venerates these four like one wouldn’t trade a Porsche for a Mustang.

Before scam became a sticky word, we all knew that winning pieces didn’t air in the dead of the night, printed on a souvenir program nor posted somewhere in Datukmol Island. They were seen and heard on legit media. They won consumers’ hearts and contributed to clients’ revenues.

Trophies of fame were much coveted, hailed in one advertising bible as ‘hard currencies’ - metals cast in gold, silver and bronze. Hardwares that can build one’s career, step up one’s promotion, earn big bucks as incentives, and allowed people to wear glowing corporate titles.

Good As Gold, Obsession For Awards

These statues are worth their weights in gold so much so that when a CD was asked what things inside a burning house would he rescue first, he answered pointblankly, “my Lions.”

In football-crazy Brazil, winners in the Big 4 (D&AD, Cannes, One Show and Clio) get superstar status. Idolized like rock stars and hold stellar billings with Ronaldo, Pele, Zico and some of its most luminous players, their individual market value shoots up each time they win.

In Asia, a trade magazine annually publishes rankings of creative people, agencies, networks and countries based on their yearly performances in award shows. Raising the bar and keeping them on their toes, the exercise puts the personas in marquee-like fashion, becoming instantly famous.

The same may have also created a different breed of advertising denizens: those who cheat by entering scam ads, and therefore, increase their points in the hallowed walls of creative rankings.

In the hush-hush world of scamosphere, where some agencies are forced to play the game, you could meet a Makak (a fictitious name that topped a high profile Asian ranking) and whistle blowers getting bullied by those who’ve been found out.

In the truest sense of the word, award-winning agencies attract the best industry talents (no one wants to join an agency that produces crap). Agencies with a track record of producing quality work even for the smallest of brands get into the shopping list of clients - advertisers who are continuously on the hunt for advertising creativity that builds sales and marketing successes.

But awards can also be intoxicating and ego altering. The lure of success can make one so obsessed. Elbow yourself to an awards show and you’ll get a hint. “Some people would walk a mile, some would even sell their souls for awards,” says a creative director in her personal blog.

A president of a multinational ad agency counters by saying, “Awards are like sex. You won’t readily admit that you like it but once you’ve tasted it, you’ll crave for more.”

But as coin metals flip, so do the priorities of ad agencies.
Last month, Fabio Fernandes, President and Creative Director of F/Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi, one of Brazil’s most internationally-awarded agencies, issued a statement on a creative website saying, “the agency will not submit entries to any festival charging registration fees this year and wants to focus double attention on everything that is really the core of its business.”

While it has absolutely nothing against ad awards and doesn’t agree with those that find them irrelevant, Fernandes says, “it just wants the agency to channel its resources to make F/Nazca a much bigger agency.”

On Facebook, an interesting conversation among ad veterans, marketers, and creative people provides some nuggets of wisdom on the issue. We’re printing a few:

“The true test of a good creative shop is to be able to do creative ads that ring the cash register for their clients.
Scam ads are easy because there are no guidelines and the token media placement cost is taken out of the agency’s creative competition budget.” – former MD and ECD of a multinational agency

“Agencies should spend less on proactive initiatives done to keep an eye on award festivals and stop aping what’s there in award books. Their business is to stand out in the clutter, in an environment where there is a lot of sameness.” - Copywriter

“Market Share should be made as major criteria for award competitions.” – Veteran Marketing and Communications Director of high profile multinational company

“It used to be that award shows honored the art of selling. Now, we miss the point by thinking of advertising as art.” – ECD

A former President of an ad agency quoted Ogilvy: “If you my fellow copywriters or art directors want to win awards, devote your genius to making the register ring.”

“Creativity is not arrogant, it is relevant. It is a means to an end – to connect to consumers, not to award judges. It’s business is to sell.” – ECD

But inspite of the unending debate, ad agencies still continue to submit entries to advertising festivals, particularly Cannes. The Inquirer, official representative of Cannes International Advertising Festival in the Philippines, for example, reveals that local ad agencies are fielding the highest number of ads this year, breaking last year’s total of 167.

According to Mundi Ocampo of the newspaper’s corporate affairs, Philippine entries have reached the 205 mark, as of this week.

Asia Adfest, however, registered a severe drop in entries and delegate number last March. A creative magazine, described it as “a dramatic fall.” From the usual 3,000 attendees, the number plummeted to 693 and last year’s record of more than 5,148 entries dropped to 3,309.

In Advertising Age, an unwitting email exposed what ad agencies shell out for awards and it wrote: “The economy doesn’t deter BBDO and some agencies from aggressively pursuing One Show Pencils.”

Campaign, UK’s trade magazine puts this one recently:
“Should ad agencies bin Cannes this year? As recession tightens, advertisers question the festival’s extravagance,”

A major network with a mighty performance in Cannes is scrapping its legendary party at the festival. It felt “it would be wrong to blow money as the recession kicks in,” says its global chief creative officer who was twice head of Cannes jury.

“We are certainly conscious of the fact that a lot of people have lost their jobs and it felt like the wrong signal to send out. What we need is a shift to business activity that is a vital part in motivating the industry forward,” he says.

So are creative ads relevant in times of recession? Yes, they are if they are meant to drive business and serve a purpose. Certainly, creativity should not recede even in doing a simple price tag ad. Recession is not an excuse.

FISCHER PORTUGAL "Salvador"