manny villar’s “itik” tv spot : dirty hand or clean hand?

this is a continuation of the advertising strategy they have adapted for manny villar – big man for the small man.

we all know villar is one of the richest among the senators and in his recent ads, the ofw ads and this ad positions him as someone big helping the small man.

the first ads showed villar rescuing distressed or abused ofws to return home to manila and this one, a small businessman who needed help to restart his business. all of them were small people in need of help.

the ofw ads were very clear in intent and strategy, this itik ad  is not as clear as those.

this tv ad injects values – entrepreneurship, hard work and perseverance which every person, specially the small or those few in resources need to have to be able to succeed. that accounted for probably 60% of the ad. 

you had the feeling that villar’s  matulungin brand positioning was almost forgotten as it just came after the middle end of the ad. it was not visualized, just verbalized, where the woman announcer said villar gave the itik (duck) farmer re-start-up capital to rehabilitate his small business. that is where the matulungin positioning was communicated.

we do not think this point was made clear as we were mesmerized at the start of the ad on the talk on values and you would have missed the message that villar as being matulungin or providing the capital  if you were not listening intently.

there is a thought process jump from the values talk to villar’s matulungin positioning and that did not help in communicating the message clearly.

this is much unlike the ofw ads where the message was very clear on villar’s role in rescuing the ofws. the ads put the ofws and villar at the airport, communicating he brought them home. 

the ofw ads were single minded, this wasn’t.

but not all is lost on this ad. the target audience will still pick up the idea of big man helping the small man, it will not just be as crystal clear as it was in the ofw ads.

the commercial ends with villar and the itik farmer, mr. de la cruz, standing side by side and the farmer says “paglaki sa hirap, todo tulong sa mahirap” .

it’s a nice collection of words, poetic even but that line can be  confusing. it is unclear who the farmer was referring to. within the context of the storyline in the ad, the line comes from out of nowhere. the line and the thought just suddenly appeared in the ad. it was not at all properly set-up in the ad.

the line being said in the end is supposed to be the ad’s tagline but it was not really a good summary of what just happened.

unless you knew villar’s previous tv ads which ran in the last senatorial election, you won’t know what the line means. villar’s previous ad portrayed him as a rags to riches man. the itik farmer was actually referring to villar who was once poor, now rich and is now helping the poor.

this ad is a real people testimonial. the farmer at the start of the ad was identified in the supers as “Pacifico de la Cruz from Plaridel, Bulacan”. that is a good thing as real people lend credibility and reality to  ads.

but did they have to choose a man who has the family name “de la cruz”? it’s just too close to “juan de la cruz”, the fictional name we use to refer to the ordinary filipino. having that family name makes you wonder – is this man for real or fictional? 

some directorial trivia on this ad – we suppose in an effort to portray the big man villar being able to relate with the small man, we see villar stepping into the mud of the itik farm through a quick close up of the farmer’s shoes/legs and what looked like villar’s shoes/legs.

the shot pulls out to show who owns the two pairs of muddied shoes, the farmer and villar, then together they walk on the muddied farm,  then villar goes down to grab an itik.

now, here’s what i am sure was an “aha” moment for the director – as villar stands up from holding the itik, the director makes it a point to show villar wiping his supposedly muddied or dirty hand on his shirt.

nice touch? hmmm…..

that’s supposed to show that this big man (rich man) villar not showing any qualms about getting his hands dirty and in the process getting his clothes dirty, too. being rich, we assume he was wearing an expensive shirt, but he had no problems getting it dirty. a big man for the small man.

it could have been a nice touch, really, but there is a problem on continuity.

that hand wiping mud on the shirt continued to the end with villar still wearing the same shirt, but voila! the shirt he was wearing on which he wiped his dirty hand on was miraculously clean!

makes you wonder –  if his shirt at the end of the ad was clean, what the hell was he wiping his hand on his shirt for? and if he wiped his dirty hand on his shirt, why didn’t his shirt at the end of the ad show dirt on it? hmmm…… did villar have his shirt washed right on the farm before the end shot was made?

hmmm……