breaking news – mar roxas gives up presidential bid to support noynoy for president

in a news conference that just ended (6:45 pm manila time) as this is being written,  – senator mar roxas announced he is abandoning his presidentiable bid. senator roxas says he is supporting noynoy aquino’s presidential bid.

noynoy aquino has not announced if he will run for president. a news conference by noynoy aquino will be held tomorrow.

Roxas gives up presidential bid
By Maila Ager
INQUIRER.net
First Posted 18:31:00 09/01/2009

MANILA, Philippines – Senator Manuel “Mar” Roxas is no longer running for president in 2010. The Senator himself announced this at the press conference on Tuesday.

Roxas has not yet officially declared his presidential bid but some of his colleagues in the Liberal Party have publicly endorsed his candidacy.

Roxas’ decision came amid the increasing clamor for Senator Benigno “Nonoy” Aquino III to continue the legacy of his parents – the late president Corazon “Cory” Aquino and martyred senator Benigno Aquino Jr. – by running for a higher post.

Senator Aquino has yet to decide whether or not to run for president or vice president.

Present at the press conference were LP officials: Chairman Emeritus Jovito Salonga, secretary general Neric Acosta, spokesman Erin Tañada; and other party members like Congressmen Rufino Biazon and Antonio Abaya; former Civil Service Commission chief Karina David, former social welfare secretary Corazon “Dinky” Soliman, and former defense secretary Avelino Cruz.

Also seen was Roxas’ mother, Judy Araneta-Roxas.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/topstories/topstories/view/20090901-223047/Roxas-gives-up-presidential-bid

the grave harm “winnability” does to philippine elections

this is next in 2010 presidentiables.

mr. palengke goes labandera – senator mar roxas’ Tide Detergent endorsement ad part 2

first posted in WAWAM! on june 22, 2008 : http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/search/label/mar%20roxas

 —–

senator mar roxas in this tide detergent commercial did not mention the tide brand name even once. he also did not touch the product and and in fact his only interaction with tide was when he pointed to the price discount on the pack.

is it a tide detergent tv commercial? hell, yeah! is it a product endorsement tv ad by the nationally elected senator? hell, yeah!

there is no mistaking – mr. palengke appeared in the tide commercial and is endorsing the product. why else would you display such huge bags of tide, standing up with the tide logo clearly seen? i don’t think you will ever see any store in the palengke where they display tide that way and certainly not in front of the store where it contains nothing but giant tide packs. the way tide was displayed and the shelf itself is simply not done in the palengkes.

this is not tide’s brandsell advertising. in the world of p&g advertising, this is considered as a tactical value advertising. it’s meant to sell tide’s large packs and promote big purchases among consumers in the palengke.

what? wait a minute. mr. palengke in a palengke promoting big pack purchases? something is very wrong about that!

first of all, detergent purchase habits says most consumers buy small packs for lower cash outlay. also, the palengke is where most DE and some lower C socio-eco users go to for their daily needs, and most of them go to the palengkes very often because they do no have the money to buy in bulk, thus the consumer practice is small price but more frequent purchases.

and the above is where we move in to a new topic – this is not just a product endorsement ad, it is actually a political campaign ad.

promoting large priced purchases for bulk detergent products is simply alien to the palengke goers. it’s consumers who go to supermarkets who do that, but hardly is that legitimate purchasing habit for those who shop in palengkes. very few palengke goers can afford large pack purchases, in fact it is in the palengke where you can buy literally a spoonful of anything, placed in small plastic bags. you can actually buy condiments and cooking needs in small plastic bags good for one cooking. for an advertising purist, you can argue this commercial is off strategy.

the fact that the mr. palengke, senator mar roxas commercial is situated in a palengke means only one thing – it’s a political ad.

but p&g is not foolish. they will not intentionally and knowingly air an off strategy commercial. being off strategy in p&g is a mortal sin that will get you fired the next minute you say it. i am certain they have done extensive consumer research on this tv commercial – from the choice of the talent to a full blown advertising pre-airing test and i bet they found that while this commercial is meant to be tactical, it has powerful brandsell characteristics.

is it a WAWAM!? it’s not entirely a WAWAM! for tide detergent. mr. palengke has excellent credentials and a huge following. it’s also not a WAWAM! for senator mr. roxas. he is getting national tv exposure highly consistent with his positioning as the mr. palengke. and for free! the media money behind it is being paid for by p&g.

again, is it a WAWAM!?

yes, it’s a WAWAM! for the filipino people and it’s soul. we can rationalize it all we want. we can take it down to technicalities like no brand name was said, but the fact remains, like judas, several pieces of silver worth millions of pesos in talent fee was exchanged for integrity, pride, honesty and honor in a nationally elected public office.

mr. palengke goes labandera – senator mar roxas’ Tide Detergent endorsement ad part 1

first posted in WAWAM! on june 14, 2008 and june 17, 2008 : http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/search/label/mar%20roxas

———-

here is one of those tv ads – is this a product endorsement ad

 or a political ad?

this is what senator mar roxas has to say on this tide tv spot:

Sen. Manuel “Mar” Roxas II, who once pushed the detergent brand Tide, denied doing any product endorsements: “But I didn’t endorse. I didn’t say that the public should buy a product, nor did I hold any product. And I did not say that it was better than the others. It’s a public service announcement saying that all product sellers should be true to consumers.”

 source: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20080528-139254/Villar-cracks-whip-on-senators-in-ads

 

let’s get this out of the way first before a discussion on the merits of senator roxas’ tide tv commercial.

senator mar roxas

the above statement is an empty rationalization of the endorsement ad senator roxas did for tide detergent. it’s lawyer speak that’s building a wall of semantics to have some good things around it to have some things to defend something bad.

of course the tv commercial is an endorsement ad. he doesn’t have to hold the product, he doesn’t even have to say anything, it’s enough for his face to be in the commercial and that automatically makes it an endorsement tv ad of tide detergent.

aside from that, the fact that he got several million pesos as talent fee obviously makes it an endorsement ad.

will tide detergent, a leading detergent brand pay him millions to appear in that commercial for public service? who is he kidding?

tide detergent is one of the most competitive detergent brands in the market. it is manufactured by procter & gamble, the inventor of the “brand management” system and one of the savviest marketers in the world. they will NOT get mar roxas to appear in their tv commercial for reasons other than selling cases of tide detergent.

 not only did they pay senator mar roxas a handsome talent fee, they are spending hundreds of millions of pesos to air the tv commercial. there is nothing that tide detergent nor procter & gamble does that is not about selling more cases of its products.

convicted criminal Joseph Erap Estrada – next president of the philippines? next steps for erap to win the election

consumer research can win the election for erap or for his opponent

convicted criminal erap estrada's mugshot right before he entered jail

 

these are election polls and not yet the election, but it is quite difficult to understand how a convicted criminal, guilty to the charge of economic plunder can still make it to the top 3 in the election poll. one would think anyone convicted of any crime is enough for the people to withdraw their support or preference. but this is much more that just any crime, it is economic plunder which essentially means erap was involved in large scale corruption, worth hundreds of millions, stealing for his own personal benefit hundreds of millions of pesos from the government and in effect money that could have been spent for the use and benefit for the people.

how can the repondents say they will vote for a person like that?

do they not know erap is a convicted criminal? they do not believe in the conviction? they do not know that erap stole money from the government meant for the people for his own benefit? 

are the people choosing him to be president so that erap can do it again? or do the people hate arroyo so much that they are choosing arroyo’s biggest enemy?

i have to admit, such inconsistencies or perplexing questions rarely exist in marketing and advertising. preference or non-preference towards a brand or even a product attribute is much much more direct in consumer marketing than in philippine politics.

but in politics as well as  in marketing & advertising, it is these types of issues that are the most interesting, the most challenging and i would say the most rewarding. if this kinds of questions come up in consumer marketing and advertising, the obvious action is to conduct an extensive consumer research — mostly focus group discussions (FGD) in key cities in the country.

the answers to these types of questions cannot be guessed or apply any sort of intelligent guessing and much less gut feeling. getting to answers this way without the benefit of consumer research is a sure formula for disaster.

more importantly, it cannot be just any FGD. the design should be more complex and more in-depth than the usual. the design cannot rely on straigh questions and answers. and it cannot be just a one-off effort, this will need a multi-stage FGD design.

it is a most difficult FGD and will involve a much more complex FGD design, but the rewards will be astronimical. if designed right, the indsights and learnings that will be extracted from these FGDs can be the core strategy for winning the presidential election in 2010.

and that goes both for erap and his opponents who want to be well equipped if erap runs for president. it is obvious the kinds of benefits erap will gain in running these consumer research studies. it may not be too obvious for erap’s opponents, but it will give them an excellent insight into the minds of the voters and will open to them windows to defeat erap in the 2010 elections.