8 ad agencies vie for PHL brand campign

EIGHT of the country’s top advertising agencies have been shortlisted for the P5.6-million tourism slogan project of the Department of Tourism (DOT).

A list obtained by the BusinessMirror showed the eight are: Dentsu Philippines Inc., J. Romero & Associates Inc., Lowe Inc., BBDO Guerrero Proximity Philippines Inc., DDB Philippines Inc., WPP/J. Walter Thompson, Young & Rubicam Philippines Inc. and ASPAC Advertising Inc.

It was also learned that the winning bidder’s contract has been extended to one year from the original contract duration of only two months.

Acting Tourism Secretary Ramon Jimenez Jr. has said the new tourism slogan would be announced before Christmas.

A DOT source said 16 agencies submitted eligibility documents to bid for the “Philippine Branding Campaign focusing on Tourism” project. Of the 16, 13 were declared eligible.

The advertising firms were scored on the basis of “company experience and track record, as major factors,” before being shortlisted, another DOT source said. The highest score was garnered by Dentsu at 57 (out of 100 possible points), with the lowest recorded by WPP/J. Walter, Y&R, and ASPAC at 46 points each.

BBDO Guerrero, which was responsible for the DOT’s long-running and hugely successful “Wow Philippines/More than the usual” slogan launched in 2007, was ranked No. 4 with 48 points.


(BBDO Guerrero's Wow Philippines/More than usual 30-sec. TV for Europe via YouTube)

As per DOT’s Bid Bulletin No. 2, submission of the agencies’ final bids will be on November 3 at 1 p.m. The bids will be opened on the same day at 2 p.m. Presentation of pitches by the qualified bidders will be on November 21 as per the new terms of reference of the project.

But it could take a year before any actual ad campaign rolls out, featuring the new slogan for the local and foreign tourists.

DOT Spokesman and Assistant Secretary Benito Bengzon Jr. told the BusinessMirror the extension of the contract was done to “essentially get a longer commitment from the ad agency after developing the concept. After coming up with the concept, the ad agency will serve as the consultant for the DOT to assist in the implementation of the concept. Two months would have been too short a time for that commitment.”

In a separate interview, Tourism Assistant Secretary Domingo Ramon C. Enerio III, who oversees the bidding for the brand campaign said via text message, the winning bidder “can act as consultant [specifically] to the production and media applications of the branding.”

He said the DOT will also “conduct market tests on the winning brand so that the proponent bidder can assist in tweaking the brand to make it better for specific target markets/audiences.”

Part of the winning bidder’s “deliverables” as also stated in Bid Bulletin No. 1, is the submission of a “cost estimate of producing the creative materials proposed for the branding campaign, as well as of applying said campaign in various international and domestic media and platforms.” But it doesn’t mean that the winning bidder will produce the ad campaign itself.

Enerio disclosed there would be another bidding for the supplier of the advertising materials such as television commercials, brochures, posters, and other collateral materials.

In advertising campaigns made for private companies, an ad agency usually has the leeway to choose its own suppliers for the production of the ads and collateral materials.

The PH branding campaign project is the DOT’s third try at creating a new tourism slogan for the country.

(The failed Pilipinas Kay Ganda slogan under former DOT Secretary Alberto Lim.)

Under Jimenez’s predecessor, Alberto Lim, the DOT was pilloried for crafting the “Pilipinas Kay Ganda” slogan, which was in Filipino and therefore criticized for being unsuitable for international tourists. The DOT also received flak for allowing its advertising agency to allegedly copy Poland’s logo for the PKG slogan. This led to the resignation of a key official of the agency.

In April, Lim again bidded out a P13-million branding campaign which garnered the participation of seven bidders. However, one of the bidders, Y&R was reportedly disqualified for technical reasons, while five – Dentsu, McCann, J. Romero, JWT, and Lowe, withdrew their participation in the bid, according to industry sources. This left only BBDO as the qualified bidder.

With this result, the DOT, this time under Jimenez, decided to declare the earlier bid as a failure, and has rebid the project, with a lower budget and less deliverables. (See “DOT rebids brand campaign, BusinessMirror, Oct. 3, 2011.)

(This is the complete version of my piece that was originally published on the front page of the BusinessMirror, Oct. 18, 2011.)

P13-M tourism branding effort under way

Tourism Secretary Ramon Jimenez Jr., (center), is flanked by Tourism Planning and Information Management Director Rolando Canizal (left) and Assistant Secretary Benito Bengzon Jr. of International Tourism Promotions, in his first press conference as tourism czar at the Department of Tourism building in Manila on Sept. 12, 2011. (Photo by Roy Domingo)

SEVEN of the top advertising agencies in the Philippines are working on the new tourism branding campaign for the country, according to newly appointed Tourism Secretary Ramon Jimenez Jr.

Jimenez revealed this as he batted for the “transformation” of the Filipinos into “enthusiastic selling units” for the Philippines. He said he believed strongly in the “commercial viability” of the country.

In his first press briefing on Monday, the DOT chief said the new tourism slogan will be done before Christmas.

“It’s important to point out that we’re taking this very seriously. It’s going very well. We’re in the middle of the process. This is not yet the end of the process. This exercise involves six to seven of the largest creative advertising, marketing communication teams in the country,” he said.

According to sources within the Department of Tourism, Jimenez’s branding project is a continuation of what former Tourism Secretary Alberto Lim started in July 2011.

According to the Terms of Reference (TOR) of the “Philippine Branding Campaign focusing on tourism” obtained by the BusinessMirror, the budget for the slogan is P13.44 million (inclusive of value-added tax), with the target audience being “domestic residents and international visitors from the major markets of the Philippines for tourism, investments, services, and trade.”

The deadline, as per the TOR, is “two months from receipt of the Notice to Proceed,” or, as DOT sources said, the “third week of December 2011.”

The same sources said the bidding process was temporarily suspended because of the change in the administration of the agency. “We wanted to allow Secretary Jimenez to review the process first before proceeding,” a ranking tourism official familiar with the project explained.

Jimenez and DOT officials, however, declined to identify the seven prequalified bidders, except to say that “it’s a who’s who of everyone in the advertising industry.”

The TOR specifies that the winning bidder should be able to produce the tourism country brand as a multimedia campaign “with applications on investments, services and trade, to include concepts” for television, radio, print, online pages, web site, social networks, blogs, posters, billboards, transport and road shows or events.

The TOR added that the creative materials for the branding exercise will include: campaign logo and theme line, visual identity guide manual, one five-minute audio-visual production (AVP) produced in high-definition; two 30-second AVPs convertible to 15-second TV commercials; two brochures; two print ad materials; and five posters.

Jimenez said he had been “very busy in the past few days doing more or less simple work for what will eventually become a complex undertaking, that is, to excite and invite people to push for tourism as a major source of income or activity for our people in the next 20 years.”

Asked if he saw any problem in Filipinos traveling to other countries abroad, instead of within the Philippines, Jimenez said, “A domestic or international tourism campaign for the Philippines doesn’t have anything to do with our desire to travel ourselves. I think it’s healthy that Filipinos like to travel, then they understand what they travel is all about. It is best people to talk about travel with those who travel themselves. Our job at the department is to convince our fellow Filipinos to see their country as much as they see other countries abroad, even more so. Tourism is not mandado; you have to be excited to go, so our job is to excite people [to see their country].”

Jimenez spoke of transforming Filipinos into “enthusiastic selling units, the way successful touristic countries are everywhere in the world.”

They can help, he said, by posting beautiful photos of local tourist destinations they have visited. “Imagine if you have 22 million Filipinos on Facebook doing this, this would be great coverage,” he said.

He added that the department would be using a lot of social-networking tools to help sell the country to travelers here and abroad.

“We are a nation that is unsure about the viability of our product...the transformation has to be from top to bottom and to believe that we are in fact, commercially viable, that we are in fact among the greatest tourist attractions in the world, or one of the fascinating undiscovered places on the earth. Ang kulang na lang is the transformation of the people,” he said.

The DOT had received a lot of flak for launching its “Pilipinas Kay Ganda” slogan in 2010, without being tested for its acceptability among target markets. The failed exercise led to the resignation of one of its undersecretaries.

(My piece was originally published in the front page of the BusinessMirror, Sept. 13, 2011.)

More than the usual

THE recent fiasco involving the Dept. of Tourism's 'Pilipinas Kay Ganda' branding/slogan has made many people in the tourism industry yearn for the good old days of sleek and elegant DOT TV ads.

I especially remember this one because it was shown on CNN and BBC although it was just for a short period. I suppose this was because of the lack of a budget for sustained promotions. But it was gorgeous, it made the point about the Philippines, and it was fun. If I'm not mistaken, this also won a tourism ad award in Europe.

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)