THE PHILIPPINES CAN BE A GLOBAL LEADER IN ADVERGAMING

by Roger Pe

Who doesn’t know Angry Birds?

It was one of 2012’s biggest buzzwords, a hugely successful smartphone video game that got millions of people worldwide, across all age groups playing like crazy.

This year, the Philippines is on the cusp of becoming a world leader in video-gaming as a proudly made Pinoy video game aims to surpass what Angry Birds has reached in terms of popularity and dollar payback.

But that’s getting ahead of the story.

From a 140 thousand dollar investment, Angry Birds returned with 70 million dollars in revenues. The blockbuster hysteria that it created is a great case study for the growing importance of video games as new media highway for forward-thinking advertisers.

A case in point is the rapidly evolving online, social, and mobile game markets. They all have captured the hearts of Asian and world gamers.

Huge market untapped

Video game is a $48 billion industry and is expected to grow to $68 billion this year. The two-year old online social gaming is worth $600 million and will jump to $1billion by 2013 alone.

Let’s focus our eyes on Asia.

There are more than 180 million online gamers in China and the industry outperforms the national GDP growth.

According to the 2011 China’s games industry annual and 5-year forecast report, published by Niko Partners, a leading research firm specializing in Asian games market, the 2011 growth rate reached 21.4% or a revenue of $5.8 billion.

The World Bank has projected a growth-rate of 9.3% for China’s gross domestic product for the same year. Southeast Asia follows China’s lead, predicted at $1.7 billion with 100 million gamers by 2014. To make the good news even better, paying gamers are now a majority.

A cinemablend.com report declares the Asia-Pacific region as the largest gaming market in the world. It is expected to be the fastest growing region within the next five years.

By 2015, there will be more than 100 million gamers throughout the emerging markets of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Asia-Pacific also dominates the mobile games industry, accounting for over 60% of the $13.4 billion global market. This has been driven primarily by Japan and South Korea, and now China, the world’s biggest mobile market.

FUN MEDIA

Nike, Nestle, McDonalds are some of biggest brands that have utilized video gaming to connect to its core target more intimately and in a fun way.

Called Advergaming it is fun marketing using a downloadable video game that advertises a product by weaving the brand as part of the game.

“The beauty of it is that it gives you not only online and offline consumer interaction but also results in real time with real metrics,” says Homer Nievera, the man at the helm of Bazinga, Inc., largely responsible for marketing Pinoy digital ingenuity to the world.

As cool as the video games he markets, and a social media expert down to e-commerce and e-wallet, Nievera, “Homerun” to many, prefers to call himself a serial global technopreneur.

Nievera’s prime advocacy is helping start-ups succeed through multiple streams of revenues.

As an expert business developer who has helped local and global tech companies achieve hypergrowth, Nievera is a sought-after consultant and speaker. He currently does the rounds of meetings and conferences for topics such as social entrepreneurship, gamification and hyper sales growth.

Endless possibilities

“In Advergaming, you might see a character having a soft drink, a car driving past a snack food billboard, teeners chatting on their tablets, a gang hanging out in a mall, a dad making a bank transaction, a housewife indulging in a beauty saloon, etc. The possibilities for branding and, most importantly, consumer engagements, are infinite,” Nievera says.

Along with his business and marketing director August Martinez III, Nievera is gungho about selling Pinoy video games to the world – even ‘crazy’ with a cool promo idea offering a brand new Audi for a soon-to-be launched online game on social media.

As for Martinez, “We are an enabling techno-Pinoy company whose main focus is to market world-class Pinoy digital work through innovative technologies and creative solutions,” he proudly says.

Martinez is proud of Bazinga being a digital entertainment company engaged in providing fun to the public through casual and social gaming.

“Starting with our flagship offering, Bazinga World is ready to help talented Pinoys in monetizing their digital ideas,” Martinez exclaims.

Bazinga World

Bazinga came from the word used by celebrity Sheldon Cooper in the sitcom “The Big Bang Theory,” meaning “gotcha” or “eureka”.

The dynamic company has immensely talented, young and innovative people, experts in their respective fields with proven track records. It has grown so fast that it now has offices in California and Texas which help market Pinoy video games and entertainment content worldwide.

“We support local game programmers and developers by providing the right ecosystem to realize their dreams of having their software programs and games see the light of day,” Martinez explains the company’s mission.

Bazinga is poised to be a major global player in digital entertainment. In fact, it is all set to launch a bunch of Philippine made video games globally: WordTrotter and about a dozen exciting more.

All of them created in partnership with undoubtedly, the Philippines’ top digital gaming developer, Palmagick Entertainment whose wizard is Gil de Palma, a UP graduate, writer, artist, filmmaker, and creator of WordTrotter, “the world’s coolest word game,” as described by online video game diehards.

In 2001, the University of the Philippines National Writers Workshop, one of the most prestigious writing fellowships in Asia, awarded de Palma its first fellowship for screenplay.

De Palma was also a finalist in 2007 Asian Television Forum SuperPitch (Singapore); 2003 Moondance International Film Festival (Hollywood); 2002 Cinemanila International Film Festival; Semi-finalist, 2001 Paramount Pictures-Chesterfield Film Company: The Writer's Film Project (Hollywood) and 1999 Big Australian International Screenplay Competition

Apart from WordTrotter, de Palma also was the creator of the superhero pack Taekwondoggs. He is currently co-developing a video game with an international brand of health and beauty products. The game allows players to build a business empire using product purchases built-in to enhance the total gaming experience.

Philippines: World capital for video games

Just like Pinoy world-class animators used by Hollywood and other filmmakers around the world (Hanna Barbera, Walt Disney, Pixar), the Philippines is slowly becoming one of Asia’s biggest sources of online video games to the world.

In WordTrotter, de Palma brings into play the technique of word retention by familiarization—multiplied a thousand fold by the thrill of casual gaming.

It is designed with the non-violent play-and-learn casual gaming model to reach practically all demographic sectors worldwide.

“WordTrotter is unlike any online word game you have played. Here, you’ll meet characters that are able to walk upside down and sideways,” de Palma says.

“The amazing thing about it is you get to build your English vocabulary in the process—whether you like it or not. And you’re going to have so much fun doing it,” he adds.

Want to share the game? Easy. One click and your friends will get it. Want the world to know your top score? Just click. Want to send a free game, power-up gifts, and other game freebies? WordTrotter on Facebook will handle it all for you.

With the continued gamification of media and humans getting wired for fun and games, the troika of Nievera, Martinez and de Palma is poised to put the country on centerstage of world advergaming.

HE BRED THOROUGHBRED CREATIVE DIRECTORS

by Roger Pe

Everything in this agency is ‘disruptive’.

For one, those sparkling Agency of the Year trophies displayed in the foyer make you envious.

From the moment you step into the building, located just across a coffee factory along Yakal Street corner Chino Roces, the creative aroma in the lobby already wafts in the air you want to explore more.

To describe what you see is like using the network’s famous global campaign for Absolut Vodka. Absolut delight.

But that’s getting ahead of the story.
Allow us to disrupt this conversation a bit by getting familiar with “Tibwa” – the cool way people address this awesomely creative ad agency.

TBWA-Santiago, Mangada and Puno is the ad agency some ad industry folks don’t even know what its acronym stands for: Tragos, Bonnange, Wiessedanger and Ajroldi. Surnames of American, French, Swiss and Italian management, marketing, creative and client services experts, in that order. The Filipino managing partners are Jimmy Santiago, Melvin Mangada and Jacinto Puno.

TBWA was established in 1970 in Paris, which the agency founders hoped to tap “the richness of different cultures and the thrust that comes from diversity.”

Since then, TBWA has become part of the Omnicom Group, one of the world’s Big 4, and the holdings company of an agency network with a formidable creative reputation. Two of its sibling agencies are BBDO (Batten, Barton, Durstine and Osborn) and DDB (Doyle, Dane and Bernbach).

Only 12 years old in Manila, the agency is in a different class, in a league of its own, poised to earn the title – the ad agency with the most number of Agency of the Year titles, all of them five and going to its sixth.

Why is this so? The agency practices what it preaches, according to TBWA-SMP Manila founder and managing partner Jimmy Santiago.

“Everyone in the agency is trained in the culture of ‘Disruption’. We are unconventional in our thinking and in what we do. It is evident in our way of life,” he proudly says.

Santiago walks the talk. Where people used to do the same things over and over again, he tells Business Monday: “Before creating an ad, we begin at the root of it all and ask ourselves, what are the business issues?” Call it sound thinking and even sounder creative work, that’s TBWA-SMP for you.

DISRUPTION AGENCY

The agency’s ‘Disruption’ philosophy was written by TBWA’s worldwide chair Jean-Marie Dru in the 90s and has become the network’s global mantra.

In layman’s terms, it is a belief, a religion, a culture of doing things that puts aside the conventional way in order to rise above the clutter and finding new discoveries.

Just how unconventional is TBWA-SMP?

From the unassuming office location to the interior surprise, from the pieces of furniture to exquisitely fine paintings hanging on its walls, from out-of-the-box Christmas party presentation ideas (short films that’ll ultimately become concept presentations to clients) to how they conduct brainstormings, TBWA-SMP is indeed a media arts hub. Even in the way this interview was conducted.

“Melvin Mangada, Chief Creative Officer and one of the agency’s managing partners, makes all the difference,” says Santiago.

Mangada is largely responsible for making TBWA-SMP a sparkling jewel in the TBWA crown in Asia. He sits on the TBWA Worldwide Top 20 Global Creative Directors elite group, which screens the network’s entries to awards shows.

Santiago spotted Mangada in a UP College of Fine Arts thesis deliberation where the latter had the most unusual concept among the rest – “an A3 poster within a poster” for a copying machine brand.

Mangada was offered an Art Direction position straight out of college. The rest is now history, and history is continuously being revised to accommodate his yearly blaze of glory. He is the Creative Guild’s first Hall of Fame awardee.

Multi-awarded Mario Monteagudo, one of Santiago’s aces at Ace-Saatchi, acknowledges his former boss: “Jimmy knows how to bring out the best in you, very inspiring. He was my ECD when I won the Creative Guild’s Print Ad of the Year for 4 consecutive years, he says.”

Santiago was one of 17 children of a carpenter and a peanut vendor in Bulacan’s Baliuag town. A public school awarded him “Natatanging Anak ng Baliuag “in 2005 and picked him one of the “Most Outstanding Alumni” during its Golden Jubilee Year.

At age 14, Santiago was already writing short stories for Liwayway Magazine, and at 19, wrote the Tagalog libretto of Jesus Christ Superstar (Aliw Awards winner for Best Dinner Theatre Musical, 1977). At 20, he contributed teleplays for television.

He was the only student who passed UP college admissions test in his batch. He enrolled in UP CFA and graduated on top of the college’s pioneering advertising course together with Eleanor Modesto who became the first Pinay ad agency country manager in Indonesia.

Santiago started as a copywriter at Ace-Saatchi and rose to become VP Executive Creative Director from 1989 to 1995. Together with a stable of highly talented creative people, they made the agency a hot shop for creativity. The results were resounding successes one after the other, with the agency dominating every Ad Congress and Creative Guild annual competitions.

In 1980, he joined the Metro Pop Songwriting Contest together with Jose Mari Chan with the entry “Hahanapin Ko”. He won the FAMAS for Best Theme Song from a movie “Pakawalan Mo Ako”, collaborating with songwriter Louie Ocampo. He recently contributed to the Second Christmas Album with the song “Pagdating ng Pasko”.

Santiago was a Creative Guild president and a Lifetime Achievement awardee from the same award-giving body. He was elected 4A’s president in 1995 and was Ad Congress Creative Committee chair in 1991, 1997, 1999 and 2001.

YOUTH BELIEVER

Santiago believes in young people. “I believe in fresh graduates. Melvin Mangada was the first-ever fresh grad to become Art Director on the first day of his working life,” he says.

“I believe that people are born into advertising. They can never be made to like advertising. It is a craft so difficult to master but those who are born to be good at it are having a ball doing iconic work,” he says.

As an employer, Santiago believes that the people who leave their agencies for the so-called “challenges outside” are not leaving the agency. They are leaving their bosses.

Management style? “As a department head in need of someone in his department should hire the candidate who has the strongest potential to be his future boss,” Santiago says.

“I believe in “succession”. He cites this example: Cid Reyes, former head of Ace-Saatchi creative department, hired me at Saatchi. Later on Cid reported to me as his ECD. I hired Mon Jimenez Jr (now Philippine Secretary of Tourism) from UP as part of my P&G team at Saatchi. Mon later on became co-equal to me, and Cid when he was promoted to ACD.

“By-passing the CD level, Mon became ECD in 1987. Cid and I were his Creative Directors for a year until Mon left to form Jimenez and Partners. After a few months, I became ECD, that’s when Cid reported to me.”

TBWACADEMY

TBWA-SMP isn’t just an agency. It is an organization with a soul. Santiago and his team conduct a series of lectures on Disruption and Media Arts in different universities like De La Salle, St. Benilde, U.P. and Miriam College. Santiago and Mangada are adjunct professors in U.P. College of Fine Arts.

Yearly, TBWA supports Fine Arts Advertising majors who could not enrol and enter their senior (thesis) year due to lack of finances. “We cover their tuition and allowances until they graduate— no strings attached. When they finish the course, they would be free to apply to any ad agency in the country,” Santiago says.

TREASURE TROVE OF AWARDS

Talk about ad agencies that consistently figure well in Cannes, Clio, One Show, Asia Adfest and Spikes Asia, TBWA-SMP is top of mind, one would run out of space enumerating them. The agency also always lords it over or at least lands in the top 3 of Araw and Kidlat Awards.

This year, the agency was proclaimed Grand Prix winner in the TBWA Disruption Awards for Boysen KnoxOut Project Edsa: Clean Air Campaign, upstaging over 80 countries in the global TBWA network.

The agency says, “the award champions the champions of disruptive thinking, a key methodology for TBWA offices to help businesses fast track their growth strategies.”

IN AN EXPAT-LADEN REGION, THIS PINAY BRAND BUILDER ROSE TO THE TOP

by Roger Pe

She idolized the likes of Brandon Tartikoff, the television guy who made many primetime hit series (“The Golden Girls”, “Punky Brewster”, “Knight Rider”, “Empty Nest”, etc) and Barry Diller, the media executive who created Fox Broadcasting Company.

She could have been a scriptwriter or a network star.

To pursue them, she took up masters of communication arts, majoring in writing and tv production in Los Angeles’ Loyola Marymount University after graduating from Ateneo de Manila.

Though fate intervened, she still ended up in a related field – advertising.

On her very first ad agency, Mitos Borromeo was tasked to manage multinational brands because she was perfectly fit for the role.

She was cut to be a leader early on because she had a commanding presence and she never feared to express her thoughts when she was right.

On her way to tougher positions in advertising, she became a client services director around Southeast Asia.

She was destined to be because it was up her alley, an expat in the truest sense of the word who spoke English with ease in a corporate world surrounded by tough multinational brand builders.

Mentoring, training, accounts servicing on the job, battle-tested Borromeo was one fine example of a Pinay who succeeded in foreign expat-laden region.

No wonder she became an executive vice president in Thailand for two years, a managing director of a giant multinational ad agency in Manila, eventually expanding into a bigger and challenging role - CEO of a multinational media agency, and coming full circle in an atmosphere she’s very at home with.

In the lead role at Bates 141 Philippines today, Borromeo’s career is colorful, each sequence as vivid as the colors of life, each episode, an enthralling story in itself and as exciting as Tartikoff’s series.

She first handled Colgate-Palmolive brands at DYR (Dentsu, Young & Rubicam) Alcantara (formerly Grant Advertising which became Y&R Manila that had also bought out the Alcantara family).

She was naturally piratable. Lintas, predecessor of Lowe Worldwide, gave Borromeo more space to grow as a management supervisor. Her account management style would bring her to the huge, complex Indonesian market handling the Unilever business for six years.

Together with Eleanor Modesto, the Filipina country manager at Lintas Jakarta, Indonesia’s biggest ad agency, she did strategizing and herculean efforts to improve the ad agency’s accounts servicing standards.

She would soon spread her wings to Lintas Bangkok replicating her Jakarta role as advisor and on to executive management position. “Though English was a problem, I had fun with the Thai people,” she says on the lighter side.

Next was Lowe Malaysia where she was once again on top of a highly demanding job, making sure that the agency’s bread and butter business were in place. She handled the confectionery business of her agency in Kuala Lumpur.

She’ll discover that one of her strengths was handling operations. Over a decade of managing different brands and clients in different markets, Borromeo was ready to to go back to the country. She was appointed Managing Director of J. Walter Thompson Manila.

OFF TO BIGGER THINGS

The booming media business was transforming Manila’s advertising landscape. It was time for Borromeo to go for bigger challenges.

Mindshare, the global marketing and media network with 115 offices in 82 countries throughout the USA, Latin America, Europe, Middle East, and Asia Pacific, beamed on the horizon.

Borromeo was picked as Managing Director largely because she was a non-media person. The company needed someone who had a grip on the bigger picture, somebody with a broader scope and knew how to develop strategies, meeting them and making plans realized.

Her star shone brightly even more in 2004 when GroupM hired her as CEO of the Philippine office.

GroupM has over 17,000 employees around the world with 400 offices scattered in 81 countries.

The company is also under WPP Group, formed to serve as the parent company of the holdings company’s media agencies: Mindshare, Mediacom, Maxus, MEC, and Kinetic (the world’s largest outdoor media agency) among others.

It handles over 32% of the world's media billings, making it the world's largest media investment management operation.

Borromeo wore two hats at the same time, the person in-charge of Mindshare and GroupM. “I find pleasure in solving a problem in each of this organization,” she tells Inquirer Sunday Biz.

For that, she was greatly rewarded. At the
Philippine 4As Agency of the Year Awards, the most desirable and credible in the Philippines, according to industry folks, Mindshare won the Media Agency of the Year four consecutive times.

She woke up one day, tired and said: “I want to enjoy life.” Borromeo travelled across the globe and changed the course of her career. Rejuvenated when she came back, she joined Good Thinking, Inc., a communications company owned by Ferdie Frejas and Issa Baron, as a strategy consultant.

Today, she’s made a 360-degree turn and back to managing an ad agency she wants clients to respect for its creative output, and wholistic approach to marketing.

“I want people to think of Bates 141 spontaneously because our work speaks for itself,” Borromeo says.

Called an exceptional talent by former regional chair Tim Isaac because of her diverse perspective, Borromeo is right on track to be a formidable agent of change in the agency.

True enough, the agency recently won new businesses from Wyeth. “We go after for new business opportunities rather than wait for them to come to us,” she says.

Her management style?: Borromeo builds on people’s strengths and uses them to boost their efficiencies. “I would defend people to the end if they can show me that they’re right. I love being challenged. I prefer people with their own perspective and point-of-view,” she stresses.

For advertising freshmen, the Bates brand started in 1940, with Ted Bates as the founding father. He grew it to become the world’s fourth largest agency group.

WPP bought Bates in 2003, but the latter’s management team in Asia fought to keep the company alive and retained its BatesAsia 141 name.

In 2008, BatesAsia 141 re-branded as Bates 141 with a new logo. It also announced the acquisition of Singapore-based 10AM, one of the most creatively awarded ad agencies in Asia.

CAN YOU EVER FORGET THESE ADS?

by Roger Pe

Some ads are memorable, some ads pass like a ship in the night, quietly, barely noticed.

Sometimes it takes only one element in an ad that makes it unforgettable. Like the way the end shot of a commercial is edited.

When Alice Dixson turned to the camera after saying the line “I can feel it!” at the end of that Palmolive commercial, it stuck to the minds of consumers.

But more than that, it takes a big idea, uniqueness, inventiveness, new touch or insight, production excellence, creative catchphrase that make ads memorable.

Things we call triggers and hooks, rational or emotional that are able to connect to us.

Here are a few more:

“THE GODFATHER” (Del Monte Spaghetti Sauce, McCann-Erickson)

Part of a series that made the brand bestselling, largely because of an effective commercial that was outstanding, technically. Produced with attention to the littlest detail. The camera work had the quality of a Hollywood movie you wouldn’t think it was shot by a Pinoy.

The story replicates Francis Ford Coppola’s Oscar award-winning movie of the same title. The lead talent who played Mario Puzo’s famous character was perfect, complete with mumbling Italian accent.

Talk-of-the-town during its time and made the agency popular for its well-crafted tv advertising.

“TONYO” (Duty-Free, Basic Advertising)

Milette, the OFW’ wife of Tonyo couldn’t contain her excitement with the homecoming of her dear husband. At the old Naia airport, she shouts his name and hysterically runs towards him past the long immigration queue.

She almost trips into several baggage carts, but who cares? As soon as they embrace into each other’s loving arms, the haunting song “Babalik Ka Rin” by Gary Valenciano wafts on air.

Many people connected with this ad no wonder it consistently landed on the list of of ‘all-time favorites’. Sensitively portrayed by PETA actors and actresses.

“MESSAGE SENT” (Smart Telecom, DDB Philippines)

A simple ad with a simple message that was delivered with a strong punch. The full-page print ad came out in the country’s main broadsheets right at the heels of Edsa People Power 2.

The visual: a hand with a cellphone that says, “Message Sent” on the screen in digital font. The hand is set against a backdrop of that memorable part of our history: Edsa Dos.

The first telecom ad to win a major creative award, Ad of the Year and bagged “Araw” Silver in the 2001 Ad Congress. Creative team: Dax Dacayan (now a tv commercial director) and Gabby Alcazaren.

“DINING OUT” (Visa, BBDO-Guerrero)

The commercial opens in the kitchen with the chef giving his approval - the soup is good to go. When it is served to fine-dining Zhang Ziyi, yes, the Chinese superstar of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” fame, she finds it “too salty”.

The chef feels insulted, goes berserk and runs amuck with all the waiters ready to gang up on her. All the elements of a Chinese Kung Fu movie begin to unravel: stunning sommersaults, sidewall calisthenics, chandelier death-defying stunts, axe throwing, name it. Zhang does it with nary a scratch on her porcelain skin.

After dust has settled in the restaurant destruction, could she pay all the bills in the wake? Leave it to Visa. Multiple Clio statues winner in 2002, masterpiece of David Guerrero, BBDO-Guerrero agency founder, Chairman and CCO.

“PLANT BILLBOARD” (Coke, McCann-Erickson)

A 60-by-60-foot billboard mounted on Edsa, approaching Guadalupe from Makati made many people suffer severe stiff neck.

Why, the entire billboard was covered with real plants, Fukien Tea Plants, to be exact. So?

Each plant was said to absorb up to 13 pounds of carbon dioxide, helping alleviate air pollution within the confines of the area, absorbing a total of 46,800 pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

The whole billboard was environmentally friendly. The plants were contained in 3,600 pots made from old Coke bottles and designed to help the plants grow sideways.

According to the agency, “the potting mixture was made from industrial byproducts and organic fertilizers, and a drip irrigation system was installed, allowing water to drip slowly to the roots of plants, through a network of valves, pipes, tubing, and emitters.”

“RILES” (UP Alumni Association, TBWA-SMP

If there is such thing as waterworld, brace yourself for the railwayworld, a permutation of the harsh life in Manila’s railways. Unbeknownst to our rich brethrens, poverty has given birth to a sub-life in this part of the city.

Memorable, because of its hard-hitting social commentary: “The longer they stay, the longer they squat.” A literally moving piece addressed to our politicians, who continously fall blind to the long time social problem: how to decongest the city of urban squatters who are used only for their voting bloc power and then forgotten.

Never before an ad gave us a visually gritty documentary, toured us to the deep bowels of the railway slum area and enlightened us.

“DEAF” (Globe Telecom, Harrison Communications)

She is a pretty girl in her office attire, in a hurry as she walks along the sidewalk. She’s exchanging text messages with her boyfriend, looking forward to her dinner date with him.

She arrives at the restaurant and her boyfriend is there. We see them face-to-face from outside of the window, and by their body language, we know that they’re madly in love. And then, they start using sign language.

We find out that both of them are deaf. The commercial used actual deaf talents in producing this poignant ad, powerful story, written by Emily Abrera.

“DONUT, BAI” (2001 Cebu Ad Congress, Ace-Saatchi & Saatchi)

“Mango, Bai, “Danggit, Bai”, “Donut, Bai”. Did you hear the latter as “do not buy”? Regardless, it’s more ‘pun’ in the Philippines.

Webster defines pun as “a form of word play that deliberately exploits ambiguity between similar-sounding words for humorous or rhetorical effect.”

Indeed, the agency exploited the phrase beautifully and brought home with a sackful of awards for its Ad Congress campaign on print, radio and tv, enroute to making that year also one of the most memorable ad congresses ever
“BOOBS” (AMA Computer College, Campaigns & Grey)

Written by the acknowledged Queen of Philippine radio advertising, Ompong Remigio, this radio commercial breaks a lot of rules. It is not your usual over-the-top, saccharine, heavily emotive Filipino tearjerker with barking and over-zealous announcer.

It is candid, honest, sincere conversation between mother and daughter about going to college and finding a better life – with a comedic touch.

Mom says she will do the best she can to send her to college even if she ‘crawls on the ground’. The lines are engaging from the beginning to the end, and delivered naturally so one’s tendency is to eavesdrop on what they are saying.

The highlight is when daughter says, “mag-bold star na lang kaya ako?” to which her mom says: “Wala kang boobs.”

UNFORGETTABLE FILIPINO ADS

by Roger Pe

They may not have won awards or may have won some but the fact remains: many people loved them when they were launched and still talk about them many years after.

How does an ad become memorable and what makes it as such?

Do the ‘cab test’ and listen to Jeff Goodby.

Goodby, who? Jeff Goodby is the other half of Goodby, Silverstein and Partners, one of the world’s most creative and, note the word, effective, ad agencies. He just did a high profile tv commercial for a US President Barack Obama.

Goodby’s ‘cab test’ is a piercing look into the real market. In his stinging Ad Age article, he called some sectors in the ad industry as “irrelevant award-chasers.”

“When you get into a taxi and tell the driver that you’re in advertising, and they ask whether you’ve done anything they might be familiar with, what have you got to say?,” he said.

Goodby continued his rebuke saying “Majority of things we’re rewarding as an industry are either small or marginal efforts for legitimate clients. We’ve created a system that rewards work that is increasingly unknown to anyone outside the business.”

He has a point. Indeed, the taxi driver, the man on the street, the housewife cooking “Tinola” for her family at home, students burning the midnight candle, the blue and white collar worker, market vendors - the consumers as a whole, determine which ads are memorable. Not the award judges.

“Commercials are memorable because they can stand the tests of time. You don’t get bored seeing them again and again because they are able to connect to you,” says a well-known creative director.

Would you remember the ads you saw last night three years from now? Probably yes, probably not.

“A memorable ad is seen by a great number of people. What’s a great ad if only the creators and insomniac people saw it”, says a university communications art professor.

Ad agencies have different formula for making memorable tv commercials. When you look at them closely, they’re all one and the same, only the jargons vary.

Here are a few examples, the yardstick, to which their ads are measured:

Does it deliver the ROI (relevance, originality, impact)? Is it disruptive, does it imprint the lovemarks, create humankind advertising, extraordinary, focus on the product and nothing but the product, resist the usual, rise above the clutter, etc.

A memorable ad is simple, but not simplistic. It should immediately engage with the audience it is talking to within a few seconds.
It can be understood by the world, even if it is culturally unique. It has a universal appeal.

A memorable ad makes you smile, you learn a new insight that no one has told you before, expressed in an unusual way.

“One cannot pull a heartstring if your ad is irrelevant,” says a top marketing guy. “An ad without emotion cannot bond with the audience,” he adds.

Having said those, Sunday Biz recaps the most memorable Filipino ads based on a 10-month research. The criteria for being memorable are based on both creativity and effectivity. It is not one without the other.

“LOLO” (McDonald’s, Leo Burnett).

Before it became the first Philippine tv commercial to win gold in Asia’s toughest award competition, “Lolo” was already a favorite among millions of Filipino tv viewers.

People still remember Karen, the grand daughter whom her grandfather oftenly mistakes as Gina. Memorable for its simplicity and big idea, the burger-slicing scene was heart-tugging and made people cry.

“I like the commercial for several reasons,” says University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts Associate Professor Mitzi Reyes.

“It touches the heart to see this heartwarming scene of the grandfather showing his love and care for the granddaughter despite his failing memory and Karen, showed her love by being patient, understanding and spending time with her grandfather,” Reyes says.

Reyes says the scene may happen to one’s family and watching the ad actually made her feel like watching her own father in his old age. “The scene is so real and the acting is natural,” she exclaims.

“A commercial becomes memorable when there is simplicity and clarity in the presentation, whether the approach is humorous, dramatic or slice of life,” Reyes says.

“NOVICES” (Del Monte Spaghetti Sauce, McCann-Erickson)

Brilliant copywriting. Beautifully-produced. Made like a Hollywood movie. The tv commercial dramatizes the product’s ease of preparation when perfectly-cast talents played roles as nuns doing their daily backbreaking duties. Spawned a series of ads that packaged a local brand as premium. Rose to the sales charts unchallenged.

“CLEOPATRA” (Superwheel Detergent Bar, J. Walter Thompson)

If some people cannot remember this ad it’s probably they weren’t born yet at the time when it was at its all-time high, recall and purchase-wise.

For those who enjoyed it every time it ran on television, it was The Detergent Bar, bar none.

The campaign used pastiche of famous characters, building the brand to the top. Elizabeth Ramsey mouthed a monster catchphrse: “Magapatuka na lang ako sa ahas.”

“ANGAT SA IBA” (Sarsi, Basic Advertising)

Literally stood out from a sea of boring tv commercials in the 80s for its visual design, verve, vitality and pride for one’s own.

When the agency pitched for this account, the client was so mesmerized with its idea it was handed the account in silver platter – just a few minutes after the presentation. If aired today, it would still give you goosebumps, the mark of a true classic.

“PUNK” (Globe Telecom, Harrison Communications)

A breakthrough campaign during its launched, when all telco ads were rational, features and price driven.
This charming commercial endeared many viewers because it was about real people.
Starred “a goth, rocker chick” as Maricel Arenas, former GM of the ad agency, describes the role of the lead talent.

As her parents wait for her to be driven to school, her mom couldn’t stand her messy room and rock music. But dad has a soft side and the “real” daughter who may look like a toughie actually cares for and loves her mom.

“ISANG PLATITONG MANI” (San Miguel Beer Pale Pilsen, PAC, Philippine Advertising Counselors)

Good-natured humor with people from different backgrounds finding a common ground, Rico J. Puno, Jockey Domingo, the late boxing great Gabriel “Flash” Elorde and Bert ‘Tawa’ Marcelo star in this landmark, heavyweight, star-studded tv commercial.

Over a pitcherful of San Miguel Beer, Marcelo orders “Inihaw na Pusit”, Domingo asks for “Kalderetang Baka” and Rico J, prefers “Crispy Pata”. Flash Elorde becomes the final arbiter and referee by making everyone settle for, you guessed it, a dishful of roasted peanuts.

“ULIANIN” (Union, Creative Partners)

Creative Guild’s Print Ad of the Year in 1997, created by last year’s Creative Guild of the Philippines’ Lifetime Achievement honoree Mario Monteagudo. Perhaps, one the most memorable Filipino print ads that came out in the 80s and still as witty as it is today. Penned by one of the country’s talented advertising men.

“IMPATSO” (Motillium, TBWA/Santiago, Mangada & Puno)

Parody on US President Barack Obama’s visit to Malacanang, excellent casting for both Obama and former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. In a state dinner tendered by the latter for the historic meeting, Obama suffers indigestion.

Howlingly funny, outstanding script, and inspired direction, how can anyone forget this?

FITA (My San Biscuits, Lowe Worldwide)

So irresistibly delicious you just can’t part with it. Seated on a bench at the park, a young man is about to take his last two pieces of Fita. From his left, a girl beats him to it and grabs it. He is left with the last piece but an old lady comes near him and wants it.

He is adamant but breaks it into two. Old lady turns into a beautiful fairy and rewards him with a wish. He answers, “sports car.” He gets it, an actual sports cut in half, loudly dropping from the sky.

WHO'LL PROTECT THE AD INDUSTRY FROM IDEA COPYCATS?

by Roger Pe

The advertising industry continues to change.

While some businesses were handed in shining silver platters before, that is wishful thinking today. You have to be invited and get accredited to get a client.

One observer says the industry is cannibalizing itself. “You’ll cringe under your seat if you find out what’s happening in the shadows,” he says. He is right, even the agency pantry girl is not clueless anymore.

“If we don’t protect the industry, no one will,” says Arnold Liong, Chairman and CEO of Draft FCB, one of the country’s stable ad agencies.

Draft FCB’s stability hinges largely because of the longevity of clients in its roster, and with Liong at the helm, you can be sure that it is going to be as solid as a rock.

Liong is one of the few remnants of ad agency protectors still actively involved in running the show even if many of his underlings have rose to become agency presidents, managing directors, shifted careers, semi-retired or thrown the towel completely.

He is still in his fighting element in the advertising ring, and to this day, hasn’t lost the punch championing equality and fair treatment of ad agencies in today’s scenario.

He’s one who’ll fight tooth-and-nail against copyright infringement, very vocal about patent bullies and is ready to deal with it to the very end.

“How I’d wish we have many Liong’s in the industry,” says a creative director whose personal and agency work have been ripped off, tweaked and used by idea vultures.

In an industry that has seen many so-called ad pitches that resulted in nothing and some unethical elements ended up mere idea fishing, Liong is heaven-sent.

“After a few weeks or months, you can be sure your ideas will reincarnate, filched and recycled by pirates,” Liong says without batting an eyelash.

Liong is wary about an industry that cannot go after idea copycats. “I’ve always told my ad agency people to protect our ideas, creativity and integrity,” he says.

“I wish we have a stronger body that’ll protect the very same industry we’ve built for many long years,“ Liong says with a firm tone.

Under international law, copyright protection is automatic. “We copyright our materials and make our stand known that we take copyright infringements seriously,” he adds.

Liong’s agency is also careful about running after new business pitches. Knowing where he’s coming from, you’ll understand. For Liong, growing the business from existing clients are sometimes much smarter to build than running after clients that have a track record of short-term relationships with agency partners.

“We don’t pitch,” Liong makes sense as he gives his advice: “You don’t decide on which agency to engage by merely looking at a pitch material. You judge an agency by the length of time it has handled a business. That’s the way to deal with it,” he points out.

There’s truth to what he is saying. Some ad agencies win accounts and lose them after a couple of years or even less. Not DraftFCB, for which Liong has managed for almost twelve years now.

The agency has a scintillating record of clients that have stuck with it for 10, 12 and over 15 years, in today’s environment where clients come and go.

What makes Liong’s DraftFCB tick? The agency has its own litmus test – The 6.5 Seconds That Matter”, a process that sticks together creativity and accountability to produce ideas that deliver a return, all within a short time frame.

“We don’t waste time but mind our business well and build clients’ business the way they envisioned it. We cement our relationships on solid grounds,” he tells Business Friday.

Those are his and his agency’s only formula, apart from believing in: “There’s strength in unity.”

Liong hates politics and believes one can tame the competition because “you stand to gain more by not isolating them,” he says.

He cites “costdiving” which undermines ad industry rates. He rues about the practice that is now prevailing and that may soon become a horrifying malaise.

“Why bring it down when you can demand? Why bring the cost so low when it will ultimately compromise standards and backfire on you?”

DRAFT FCB, THE NETWORK

Not many advertising people know Draft FCB’s story dates back centuries ago. It opened as Lord & Thomas ad agency in Chicago in1873, and later became Foote, Cone, & Belding in 1942.

Just like McCannWorldwide, Draft FCB belongs to the Interpublic Group of companies, one of the largest ad agency networks in the world. In the Philippines, the agency partnered with Basic Advertising in mid-80s.

It became Draft FCB in 2006, and is also crowding the world’s big guns in Cannes, Clio, One Show, Echoes, El Ojo, Effies, and Caples.

Draft FCB New Zealand, Indonesia, Mexico, Ireland, Malaysia, Johannesburg and Kuwait have won Agency of the Year honors as listed by Advertising Age.

Draftfcb Healthcare was "Agency of the Year" by Medical Advertising News in 2006 and 2009 and by Medical Marketing & Media in 2007 and 2011.

“We had our humongous growth from 2000 to 2006 and we are excited and ready for another transition: e-commerce retail, digital publishing, and media syndication,” says Liong.

While some ad agencies pay lip service to being digital-savvy and flaunt it without walking the talk, Liong’s business acumen is showing: the last four mentioned above are fast taking in shape within the walls of DraftFCB, pushing the agency to the next level.

He is a certified tennis buff and plays so well the sport has taken him to the French, Australian and US Open tournaments as a fan of hardcore tennis. He targets Wimbledon next.

“Just like in tennis, good footwork is key to business building,” he says. “It’s a game of cash flow and staying relevant to consumers if you want to get an advantage and make budgets ploughed back to you,” he says.

Liong is not your typical laidback CEO. He is aggressive and describes himself as street-smart, even in the way he dresses up. “I don’t dress up for people, they dress up for me,” he wittingly says.

The bright boy from San Beda who took up an advertising masters degree at University of Illinois always aspired to be an advertising man.

He already had a 5-year plan when he was in high school, calling it forward planning. He took up marketing because it was the fastest way to get into advertising.

He was a media person at JWT before he cut a fruitful career as one of Ace Compton’s (predecessor of Ace-Saatchi & Saatchi) most promising account executives.

Together with the iconic Emily Abrera, head of McCann-Erickson’s creative department then, he was part of the A-Team that re-engineered the agency.

In McCann, Liong and Abrera pitched for Johnson and Johnson’s Baby Powder. Abrera gamely sang the lyrics of the song during the presentation, and they won back the business.

They would also win the biggest brand pitch during that time: San Migue Pale Pilsen, their victory created an industry-wide tremor pushing the agency to the top of the billing rankings.

The Liong and Abrera tandem was formidable, unsinkable to say the very least. “During the heady days of the 80s to mid 90s, McCann was the template.

Every agency wanted to be like McCann,” says an ad agency president.

Liong moved to McCann Hongkong and then as GM of Prakit FCB Bangkok for three and a half years. He then rejuvenated Video Post as the number one production house in the country when he came back to the Philippines.

He then put up Scene Stealers, a tv production house with director Raul Jorolan in mid 90s, eventually becoming president of CPHG (Commercial Production Houses Group) which saw him protecting the interest of minimum wage earners.

Moving forward at Draft FCB, FCB Digital and Weber Shandwick, the agency PR and Events arm, Liong doesn’t want to be a tycoon with zillions of money.

“I am contented with what I have. Just to be able to enjoy my lifestyle and deliver good business results are enough for me,” he says.

“Our priority at Draft FCB is to sell our client’s products and do creative work that are relevant to consumers,” he reiterates.

“We don’t reinvent the wagon that the wagon eventually don’t run,” Liong says enlighteningly. Very well said.

THE POSTER THAT REPELS MOSQUITOES

by Roger Pe

More than 30 years ago, a non-government organization made an out-of-home campaign against drug addiction, showing a black-and-white photo of a cow smoking pot.

The visual idea was attention getting, the headline, matter-of-factly saying: “Grass is groovy for cows.” People still recall it.

Fast-forward to 2012. The government’s public information materials are noticeably getting better. The Department of Health’s anti-dengue awareness program is one such, outstanding.

It’s because it’s getting a huge help from an ad agency, which is not fond of doing the usual.

Inquirer Business Sunday interviews Chiqui Lara, Young & Rubicam Philippines’ tough gun and she proudly tells the story:

“We stamp our creative mantra in everything we do. When we got the brief for DOH’s anti-dengue campaign, we refused to do the predictable, otherwise we’ll be defeating our purpose” she says.

Dengue fever is fast becoming the deadliest mosquito-borne viral illness in the world and causing thousands of deaths in the Philippines every year.

Lara and her team could’ve taken the path to least resistance but no, they faced a tougher challenge: how to make an ordinary poster extraordinary.

At the end of the day, the team leapt many steps farther from what other agencies have reached before.

“We printed each copy with citronella, a substance that repels dengue-causing mosquitoes. So when people brought them home, they kept their families safe from mosquitoes,” she exclaims.

Brilliant idea. But how was the poster without citronella?

The piece was nothing but engaging. Though text-heavy, it was beautifully produced and art directed, something you’d read as it was appealing as it was charming in Filipino language.

The images of mosquitoes used as design elements by the agency drew people’s curiosity. It was not the usual sloppy fare people saw everyday.

“Young & Rubicam Manila created the world’s first poster that drives away dengue-causing mosquitoes,” Lara punctuates. Naturally, it didn’t escape Spikes Asia judges’ attention, and, bang, it was honored with a gong last September.

Lara credits her creative team under the Executive Creative Director Badong Abesamis, an award-winning guy himself way back from his McCann, Leo Burnett and TBWA-SMP days.

Y&R is the same agency network, which for the last 55 years has been doing Colgate advertising worldwide.

The agency network is one of the world’s top 10 biggest with headquarters in New York under the WPP (Wire and Plastic Products) holdings company to which JWT and Ogilvy also belong. It still operates in the original building where John Orr Young and Raymond Rubicam founded it in 1923.

While some people may find Y&R’s bread-and-butter advertising for Colgate too hardsell and mere adaptations of global campaigns, it has come up with its own locally, countless times similarly adapted by other Asian countries.

The agency is fast creating a formidable creative reputation, like its sister agencies in Asia-Pacific (notably Australia and resurgent Indonesia, two of Y&R’s winningest countries over the last two years).

“Y&R Philippines is pushing towards the creative epicenter, says Lara. “We are showing more of our creative teeth and we would like to win more awards for our clients,” she says.

The agency was a finalist in One Show’s Interactive Awards this year - for the app it created and developed internally for Nokia – another breakthrough idea that will be rousingly welcomed by Filipino taxi-riding public.

The app allows mobile users to double-check the fare displayed on the meter and works in real time. “It ensures passengers that the fare is accurate and they can report unscrupulous taxi drivers and operators to the authorities,” Lara says.

Lara is proud of the fact that in May, the agency had significant triumphs in “Kidlat Awards”, the Oscars of Creative Guild of the Philippines held in Boracay annually.

The agency won 1 Gold, 1 Silver and 4 Bronze awards, a remarkable return considering that even the best Philippine ad agencies can come home all-tanned but award empty.

This year, Y&R was named one of the Philippines’ top 5 creative agencies in the usually crowded Philippine 4A’s “Agency of the Year” Awards competition.

To figure in the Magic 5, each agency’s body of work is tightly scrutinized by the industry’s top ECDs and CCOs. It also was a finalist in the Best in Market Performance category.

Across all other brands that the agency handles, Lara’s agency emerges within the lead pack, perhaps due to the fact that it refuses to do the usual boring stuff.

Maynilad for instance won 2 prestigious awards of excellence at the 10th Philippine Quill Awards last year. The feat: Setting a Guinness World Record (mounting the largest pipe drum ensemble at the SMX Convention Center using water pipes to play a rhythm in unison). The same event that Y&R conceptualized and executed won at The 47th Anvil Awards.

Getting to know one of the country’s most successful CEOs is a revelation. The Ateneo de Manila and New York University alumna is a great fan of design with a philanthtropic heart.

Along with friends, she’s put up the “Silya” Project of Gawad Kalinga’s GKnomics to unleash the potential of less fortunate design students to help them carry their own artistic pursuits.

Lara’s management style? “I like to teach, not theories, but real life market experiences,” she says.

“She is people-focused and sincerely passionate about helping underlings develop a bright career in advertising management,” confides a successful account director who has worked under her for many years.

Lara started out at Unisearch, Unilever’s research arm for a year then joined JWT University (the industry’s first advertising school) afterwhich she was taken in as account executive.

She handled Hotel Intercontinental Hotel, Richardson-Vicks (before it was bought by P&G) Olay among others and was mentored by some of the best people in advertising.

When Ninoy Aquino was shot and the country’s economy turn from bad to worse, Lara went back to advertising from New York. At SSCB Lintas (predecessor of Lowe Worldwide), she handled the entire SM account when clients then didn’t have multiple ad agencies. Her career eventually bloomed becoming a Management Supervisor.

She spent eight and half beautiful years at the then Basic FCB when the agency was at its heyday. Lara handled Colgate-Palmolive Philippines and was responsible for Lea Salonga’s Palmolive Soap and Shampoo’s “Hiyang” and Alice Dixson’s “I Can Feel It” campaigns.

Soon enough, she was the woman of the hour and became head of a large business unit.

In 1995, she became Jimenez DMB&B (D’Arcy, Masius, Benton and Bowles) GM for five years. She returned to Basic Advertising, as Vice Chairman in 2000.

When Young & Rubicam reorganized and acquired most of Colgate-Palmolive’s business from Basic FCB, Lara was installed and mandated by the region as President and CEO of Y&R Philippines for her sterling record.

She is proud that the agency pioneered in digital activation with call-centers located right inside the agency, connecting with dealers directly to manage Ford, Mazda, Century Tuna and Filinvest customers.

More than 30 years of gungho leadership, Lara is still the same. She finds hanging out with creative people irresistible and continuously builds a strong bond with them.

“I love to share meals, hang out, make bread together, chat, wine and R with them,” she says smilingly. That perhaps explains her staying power and eternal youthfulness.