DOT open to changes in its slogan but...

(Vice President Jejomar Binay, along with Tourism secretary Albert, far left, and Tourism Undersecretary Vicente Romano III toast the newly-unveiled marketing slogan of the agency, "Pilipinas Kay Ganda!", Monday evening at the Oceana, San Miguel by the Bay, Mall of Asia. The slogan has come under fire from tourism stakeholders, travel bloggers, politicians, and tweeters, dubbing it as too showbiz, or uninspired. The P1-million rebranding effort was undertaken by Campaigns & Grey, an advertising firm, and took four months to conceive.)

THE recently launched “Pilipinas Kay Ganda!” marketing slogan by the Department of Tourism (DOT) can still be changed—if there is a better alternative, that is.

Smarting from the negative feedback hurled by travel bloggers, tweeters and Facebook members, Tourism Secretary Alberto Lim again pointed out that the branding is “not final. PKG [Pilipinas Kay Ganda] will undergo focus-group discussions and other market tests before we spend money on its execution.”

In a text message to the BusinessMirror, he added: “If there are better ideas out there, we are open to them. But if there are only criticisms but no well-considered alternatives, then we hope there will be support for the superior idea of ‘Pilipinas Kay Ganda!’”

During a morning radio show on dzMM, Lim admitted, “masakit ang batikos [the criticisms hurt].”

The PKG branding was launched on Monday night by the DOT, showing it to an audience mostly composed of travel-industry members, hoteliers and the media.

The branding effort, according to the DOT, cost “less than a million pesos,” and was undertaken by advertising giant Campaigns & Grey.

Lim also said besides the rebranding, the DOT’s new marketing effort would include ad placements on cable TV, print ads in foreign countries, more familiarization tours for foreign travel agents, to name a few.

“And more will be done. I am dismayed that the markets we would like to attract do not really know the Philippines. We really need to expose the good things happening in our country to other countries, most especially our tourism markets.”

He also sniped at local media for not publishing human-interest stories more often.

“Advertising is expensive and we are not competitive, budget-support wise. I believe we need to allocate more of our marketing budget for public relations, i.e.,human-interest stories on the ordinary but heroic Filipinos or unusual but not violent events in the Philippines, of which there are many. But why will the foreign press publish such stories if our own press does not?”

President Aquino last week also blamed the local media for publishing only negative news about the Philippines.

(Kaboom! Fireworks to celebrate the Pilipinas Kay Ganda marketing slogan.)

The Philippines’ image abroad has suffered a setback due to the botched hostage rescue of Hong Kong tourists on August 23, as well as successive travel advisories by developed countries.

Meanwhile, one hotelier who was at Monday’s launch said there was only “polite applause” after the unveiling of the new slogan.

“It wasn’t very good,” she said. “I think they should’ve consulted tourism stakeholders first like travel agencies, hoteliers, etc., before they showed it to us. Why are we using Filipino when you have to translate it pa? Other countries use the English language.”

She added that many of those in the audience felt PKG fell short of the old slogan “WOW Philippines,” which was conceptualized during the term of Richard Gordon as DOT chief.

“If they didn’t have a lot of budget, as DOT always claims, they should’ve just reworked ‘WOW Philippines’, which I think is still a very, very good campaign. It takes time for branding to click. And if you look at other countries, some of their slogans have been used for years. Sana, they could’ve just used whatever little funds they have for ad placements in CNN or other cable-TV channels.”

The hotelier said after the new slogan was unveiled, there was no message from the DOT that suggestions from the industry would be welcome.

A general manager of a five-star hotel also said: “Everyone was stunned, shocked and so disappointed. Some did not say a word to be diplomatic, but were visibly disappointed. A big disaster!”

Food blogger Anton Diaz (www.ourawesomeplanet.com) noted that the new Philippines branding failed to mention “our awesome Filipino food…and this is something that is really key in promoting the Philippines.”

After the unveiling of the new slogan, a group called Pretty Young Things “performed a sexy number for the representatives of the international community. It was not appropriate and it gave a totally wrong mental image about the campaign,” Diaz added.

In his IvanAboutTown Facebook page, travel blogger Ivan Henares pointed out that the “multiawarded Malaysia Truly Asia campaign” was launched in 1999, and continues to be used by the country despite five changes in tourism heads.

“Amazing Thailand”, was launched in 1997, and “despite political instability and several changes in government, it remains as Thailand’s tourism brand.”

“So I, thus, can’t understand why the current execs of the Department of Tourism want to get rid of a brand [WOW Philippines] our country has worked so hard to build and invested so much money on. If it ain’t broke, why fix it?”

Henares has offered the DOT his help “pro-bono” to put more original content on the DOT’s interim web site, according to Tourism Undersecretary Vicente Romano III, for planning and promotions.

“I accepted his offer,” Romano said.

(Only the three gentlemen from the government seem to be actually celebrating the new slogan. The audience looks stunned, or in other words, di ma-ispelling ang mukha.)

On Tuesday, the web site (www.beautifulphilippines.com) was shut down by the agency due to complaints of poorly written content, and the URL address being similar to a porn site’s URL.

The web site was created by BCD Pinpoint, founded by one J. Richard “Dickie” Soriano, and which has received a number of awards for its direct-marketing projects. According to BCD’s web site, its clients include Lufthansa, San Miguel Foods, Ateneo de Manila, to name a few.

Considering all the comments and suggestions about the new Philippines marketing slogan, Romano said in a text message: “We will receive their inputs [meaning the suggested slogans] and process them with many other suggestions. We will leave the processing to the branding professionals. That’s what agencies do.”

He added: “Please keep in mind that the main customer would be foreigners whom we want to attract.”

A marketing head of a hotel who was also at Monday night’s launch said, “if they were not ready, they shouldn’t have launched it. Now they’re saying it’s not yet final.”

She added: “If Secretary Lim had asked our [tourism stakeholders] help, we would have gladly sat down with him.”

She stressed that there are many hoteliers and travel agency heads willing to help the DOT.

(Originally published in the BusinessMirror, Nov. 18, 2010. Photos courtesy DOT)

What a waste!

ON Nov, 25, 1996, the Subic Bay freeport in Zambales, Philippines, played host to the 4th Apec Leaders Summit. It was a crowning achievement of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority, then headed by administrator Richard Gordon, who showed off how the Philippines was able to transform a former U.S. military naval base, into a commercially viable center for business and tourism.

The Philippine government wasted no expense in renovating a conference site called Summit Hall where the 18 heads of state including U.S. President Bill Clinton, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed, Brunei Sultan Bolkiah, Indonesian Prime Minister Suharto, Australian Prime Minister John Howard, among others, would be able to meet and thresh out issues to further push cooperation among their countries. About 21 luxury villas costing $1 million each, where the leaders would be able to retire after their meetings were done for the day, were built as well.

(18 heads of state including U.S. President Bill Clinton, far right, wave to photographers for the usual group photo to mark the leaders' summit of the Association of Pacific Economic Cooperation - Apec - forum. Photo from the Apec web site.)

(Australian Prime Minister John Howard and Phil. President Fidel V. Ramos compare their barongs. Photo from the Sydney Morning Herald archives)

About $12 million was reportedly spent to renovate the Summit Hall and nearby Crown Peak Garden Hotel. Both are located in the Upper Mau area of the freeport.

I was on vacation in Subic for the weekend and was surprised to see this:

(This is the Apec Summit Hall now - rundown and decrepit.)

(The sign says "Subic Summit 1996" with the logo of Apec in the middle. It's a shame that the SBMA failed to maintain the Summit Hall. It would've been a good venue for conferences and important meetings. Another waste of resources.)

(Don't ask us any questions, we'll tell you no lies, these two stone carvings seem to be saying. These figures are the only remaining vestiges of the splendor that was once was the Apec Summit Hall.)

I don't remember any head of state actually staying in the Villas built for them, which has since been renamed into Triboa Bay Estates, and were being sold to private individuals at a cost of P50 million each. (One of those villas were said to have been donated to a head of state (wink!) after the Summit was over.) Apparently there have been no takers for most of the villas that the last listings from real estate brokers put the villas at P30 million.

I recently read a report by Home Guaranty Corp., a government-owned corporation which has apparently taken over Triboa Estates/Apec Villas, stating that the 3rd bidding for the repair/rehab four of the villas were declared as failures in 2007 and as such were up for negotiated procurement. Tsk, tsk.