jejomar binay’s “ganito kami sa makati” tv ad – a promise of paradise to the nation

we know what election campaigns is all about – it is about candidates making promises to the constituents. some promise a basketball court in the next vacant lot, some promise help to ofws, or cheap medicine prices and some, like binay promise the world, no, not the world but paradise.

in this ad, paradise has a name, it’s  called Makati City. binay we all know is the mayor of makati. in this ad, binay enumerates the pieces of  paradise makati residents enjoy in the city from the sublime (health care for the old, free education up to college) to the cute little endearing touches of “free birthday cakes”. (we know that love is best communicated in the smallest of things, like a free birthday cake.)

the ad is a cut to cut of poor people talking to the camera saying “walang tutulong” (nobody helps) on things like medical needs, eductation and health care for seniors. these snippets have the supers “sa bayan natin” then cuts to glorious shots of what the people of makati enjoy in their city paradise. these glorious shots have the supers “sa makati” in them. the dissolves from scene to scene are ushered by a dramatic up and under of inspirational music as background.

STOP right there! pass the tissue and wipe those tears and let’s think about this for the moment.  

this ad wants us to believe that the paradise that binay built in makati can be done to the whole country. these are universal health care for 90 million, universal free education up to college for 60 million, free healthcare for 30 million seniors, including 90 million birthday cakes. yummy!

he ad did not explain how the country can afford such things, it just promises them. 90 million birthday cakes alone at P150.00 each for example will cost the government P13B a year. what about delivery cost? and flavor and icing preferences? 

that’s just on the free birthday cake, one slice of the whole cake that binay  promised if he is elected president. 

oh, wait a minute – nothing in the ad said he was running for president in the 2010 presidential election.  we know he is a presidentiable, he has declared it himself, so we do not need to read or hear it in the ad that this is an ad that promises paradise if he becomes president. besides, cities or even companies don’t usually come out with anniversary ads on the 39th year of its founding. 39 is an odd number for it, numbers with zeroes in them are the usual anniversary ads like 10th, 20th, 30th, or 4oth for heaven’s sake. (but if the ads are released on the 40th anniversary of makati city, the presidential elections would have been over.)

this ad will resonate. promising slices of paradise to the poor is a good strategy. the key issue in the philippines, for anything is “it’s poverty, stupid”, to apply bill clinton’s “it’s the economy, stupid” mantra that won him him the election against the older bush. the poor account for a large majority of the population and appealing to them will rake in millions of votes. that’s how erap did it, fpj and all other presidential candidates, but said in many different versions.

will binay win? the message is correct. but binay is wrong. 

voters will need to get over the barrier of a small town city mayor to national government official. well, ok makati is one of the most popular cities in the country, but in philippine politics, that does not automatically carry power. there may be too much of a jump from small city to big country.

is there love for makati mayor binay on his promise of paradise?

to view the ad : clicke here http://tinyurl.com/c769x9 or scroll down.

june 2009 – for presidentiables, be there or die!

we have posted it here before – it is our belief that the absolute deadline for presidentiables to launch their campaign for the presidency is on june, 2009. any candidate serious about running for the presidential elections in 2010 need to be on the radar screens of voters by that month. getting in later than that will make it more difficult to become a factor during the elections.

messages, including candidates need time to build up over time. cutting it too close to the election period will mean more funds to make a difference and a stance that involves turning the tide against the candidate or turning it in his/her favor. that usually is much more difficult and contains too many risks versus doing a slow burn and build up.

we see the presidentiables coming out now. for those who aren’t out yet, june is the last month to do so.

jejomar binay tv ad – will turn the whole philippines into a paradise called makati city

ping lacson’s tv ad: 1 smart + 1 smart = huh?

ping lacson surprised us with his ad campaign – it’s a thinking ad campaign. our image of ping lacson does not match what we see in the ads, we didn’t think ping lacson is the type who likes to think a lot.

the ad has two smart components in it. while the ad shows he thinks a lot, we think the ad has a problem on mathematics. the ad failed in addition, pretty basic really as 1 smart + 1 smart did not add up to anything.

first,  the tag line of “patas na laban para sa lahat”. one of the key problems of the country is that opportunities for growth are not available to all, only the rich and the powerful has better access to it. it’s not only is that the availability of

empowering components but also the dispensation of punishment. the strong and the rich gets the slap on the hand while the weak and the poor gets the whole book exploding on their faces. inequality of rewards and punishment are all over.

that is one part that makes lacson’s ad campaign smart. the message is a very real and relevant one.

it’s just that it’s something that most of the audience may not easily understand and know.

the ad at the end tries to simplify it by getting lacson to do the hand motions that mimic the logo of the concept. he puts one hand up then moves the other hand to level with the other.

 it is real but we do not think people readily identify it as an issue and we think it is a very complicated concept for people to understand.

the ad is supposed to explain it. taglines of ads are supposed to capture the proposition or main message of the whole ad, but in this case we do not think it did nor did it even try to attempt to capture it. 

the ad is clearly disjointed – the tagline at the end and the rest of the commercial. the rest of the commercial talks about corruption in government, specifically those the arroyo government and arroyo family members are alleged to be involved in.

that is a smart move. corruption in the arroyo government has populated most of the newspaper headlines in the country for many months, from one corruption allegation to the next. this is so prevalent that corruption is government can very well be arroyo’s legacy.

putting this message across is smart as it is recent, real and it resonates. but that message does not automatically and easily match with his tagline of equal opportunities. well actually it does, but it takes a lot more explanation and run on logic to get to the story that corruption in government affects the people in way where not everyone is given the same opportunity for growth and progress. 

there are logic gaps in there and the ad did not bother to explain them or explain they connect. first the ad talks about corruption, jumps to foreign investment then to  OFW jobs.  we wonder why having two smart things in one ad did not result to a great ad.   

the case for anger management therapy for mar roxas

we think the mar roxas brand image may have taken a nasty one – to that of an angry and nasty man and we have the pictures to prove that. is it this “angry and nasty man” brand character that has forced roxas to air his latest tv ad, “padyakitos”. one of the intent of this ad to drive up mar roxas’ cuteness and soften his image. we think that has failed in more ways but these pictures are the symptoms on why he needed anger management therapy:

senator mar roxas becomes senator putang ina

“i-am-not-sorry” on “putang ina” at the senate

ad shows roxas with anger lines on his forehead and clenched fists

we have written in this blog about the last picture where we thought the brand character that came out from this ad is one of an angry and combative man, not at all endearing and most specially fatally wrong given the “putang ina” incident. this ad was the first released after that incident.

watch the ad again and you will see that from start to finish, mar roxas had anger lines on his forehead. the clenched fist at the end added to the angry and combative brand character.

read and view here: https://2010presidentiables.wordpress.com/2009/01/23/mar-roxas-murang-gamot-not-pagmumura-sa-rally/

mar roxas takes anger management therapy, shows it in his latetst ad, “payakitos” tv ad but pedals to advertising mediocrity

the title of the commercial is “padyakitos” referring to the very young, i would say tween age boy who is is on the padyak, the manual run tricycle. the title of the ad will not be seen by viewers but the title itself defines the path to advertising mediocrity this ad has pedaled mar roxas into.

it’s a title that is trying to be cute. we don’t know if “padyakitos” is a real term used by real pinoys, but choosing this title over the message of the ad tells you the ad is trying too hard to look cute and endearing.

this ad fails in many ways and we think we know the key reasons why this ad has led mar roxas to come up with an ad that we think will not enhance his image but will give him a new definition to his brand image – mediocrity.

we think mar roxas has been led to this kind of ad for right reasons but its execution was flawed. they concocted this ad to address the following key “crisis points”:

• the need to “soften” mar roxas’ brand image. they probably think mar roxas’ image has taken an “ass hole” image coming from his “senator putang ina” (read posts on this one  here in 2011 presidentiables) incident and the unabashed display of uncontrolled anger in many occassions. they probably wanted to show in this ad that mar roxas is cute, likeable and yes he has been through anger management therapy.
• this one is one of the mortal sins admen and clients seem to commit all the time – they fell madly in love with previous ads that worked. roxas’ success into senatorial rock star status was his “mr. palengke” tv ad . they fell in love with that ad and they were obsessed with duplicating that success so they chose to graduate roxas from the palengke to the tricycle. this ad is still in the palengke area, but  moved from inside the palengke to the outside, now riding a padyak. roxas wanted to replace the “mr. palengke” to “mr. padyak”.
• oh, and yes, roxas has defined the advertising strategy for his campaign and they wanted to make sure that is also delivered.

the above are all good and legitimate advertising needs that they need to fix. 2010 presidentiables.wordpress  in the posts here in fact has warned senator roxas that his “senator putang ina” image will need to be fixed, but the execution of that need we think is faulty.

in fact the biggest error of this padyakitos tv ad is it is too executional and not strategic at all. not only is the ad too executional, their execution of that intent has made it into a hodge-podge of confusing elements, ginawang chop-suey yung ad.

we think the ad suffered a dramatic failure when the ad was not strategic at all, too executional and the executions were very poorly done. that is a recipe for advertising mediocrity and a sure hit WAWAM!

more on this on the next post.

read about “senator mar putang ina roxas” here: https://2010presidentiables.wordpress.com/?s=putang+ina

“padyakitos” tv ad – mar roxas pedals to advertising mediocrity

this is the lastest tv ad for mar roxas. we see mar roxas in the likely scenario of riding a padyak tricycle for no reason, then carrying on a conversation with young children.

mar roxas just pedaled himself to mediocrity. that is next here in 2011 presidentiables.

april 2009 memo to senator mar roxas: need to know weakness

senator roxas,

we think it is best that you go through the two surveys that were recently released first by pulse asia, then by SWS. first conducted was the pulse asia survey, fieldwork on february 2-15, then the SWS survey February 22-23, 2009.

i think there is concern in the results that need looking into.

first, note that the surveys were done by two different polling companies and they had different respondent samples. the conditions and methods may be different and a direct comparison is not exactly appropriate.

however, we think the differences in results are very significant that we think it deserves some seri0us thought.

the results we think are very disappointing, specially on the earlier polling. given your advertising efforts and high profile media exposure, your ratings should have been much higher.

the poll results from the SWS showed a surge from previous SWS poll and that is a good thing, but your ranking in the polls are still very weak. 

the big disparity between the poll results is also bothersome for us. we think combining that with the low ratings and low ranking despite good media exposure and good media advertising seem to say voters have a weak perception and low preference of you. that is the extreme or you are a polarizing candidate. that means some people like you and at the same time some people don’t.  while that is true for all candidates, it should not be to the degree that poll results that are being shown are too different.

we think there is an uncovered weakness in your candidacy and there is uncovered marketing and advertising opportunity for you. you need to find out what these are. and soon.

-end of memo-

 

 

 

read post,  latest SWS survey: https://2010presidentiables.wordpress.com/2009/03/30/680/

read post, latest pulse asia survey: https://2010presidentiables.wordpress.com/2009/03/13/february-2009-presidentiables-survey-memo-to-presidentiables-time-to-ask-the-tough-questions-what-made-me-fall-off-my-chair/