dramatic drops for UNA & dramatic increases for Team PNoy in february SWS sentatoriables survey

the latest february 2013 SWS survey, on the 2013 senatoriables is characterized by dramatic drops and dramatic increases in rankings and/or ratings by some senatoriables. the dramatic drops are  all on UNA senatoriables while the dramatic increases were  on Team PNoy senatoriables.

this survey results are grim and bad news for many UNA senatoriables and for the whole party and great news for  Team PNoy and  specific senatoriables.

this is how bad it is for the UNA senatoriables :

• 9 out of the top 12 senatoriables belong to the admin PNoy coalition with the UNA opposition getting only 3
• 3 UNA senatoriables dropped out of the top 12 while 2 from  Team PNoy barged into the top 12
• 6 out 12 Team PNoy senatoriables gained in rank (aquino, poe, villar, madrigal, trillanes and angara), 6 stayed the same (cayetano, escudero, hontiveros, legarda, magsaysay r, pimentel)
• 6 out of 9 UNA senatoriables declined in rank (honasan, ejercito, enrile, gordon, maceda, zubiri), only 2 gained (binay, magsaysay)  while 1 stayed the same (cojuangco)

• 5 in 12 of the Team PNoy senatoriables gained in ratings (aquino, madrigal, poe, trillanes, villar), 4 stayed (angara, escudero, hontiveros, pimentel) while only 3 lost cayetano, legarda, magsaysay r). these three losses were minimal with 2 losing only 1 percentage point while the 3rd lost 2 percentage points
• on the other hand, 7 out of 9 senatoriables of UNA lost ratings (cojuangco, ejercito, enrile, gordon, honasan, maceda, zubiri), 1 the same (magsaysay m)  and only 1 gained (binay).
• most of the dramatic loses in rankings and/or ratings were suffered by the UNA senatoriables – jv ejercito, migz zubiri, jack enrile, gringo honasan and ernie maceda
• consequently, most of the dramatic gains in ranking and ratings were gained by Team PNoy senatoriables – grace poe, bam aquino, jamby madrigal and cynthia villar
• no changes occurred for UNA bottom dweller mitos magsaysay, tingting cojuangco and ernie maceda

what can explain the dramatic loses by the UNA senatoriables?

we think its a brand positioning blunder by UNA. we read it first from statements from mitos magsaysay where she said UNA wanted “aquino to succeed” and that their role is to give “constructive criticism”. (read here: malacanang delivers THE BOMB on senatoriable mitos magsaysay)

a few days after that, jv ejercito basically said the same thing, plus the UNA spokesman. some of them even said UNA was not necessarily an opposition party. instead of saying they are an opposition party, they were saying things like they will be “fiscalizers”. why then would voters favor UNA when the president himself has his own set of senatoriables?

these were very confusing statements by the UNA senatoriables and the UNA party. people must have wondered  if UNA was not the opposition party, what are they then? that can mean they are part of the administration. if they are part of the administration, why do they have competing senatoriables to that of the admin party?

this was a very basic and fundamental blunder by UNA. instead of differentiating  themselves against Team PNoy, they were actually making themselves similar to their opponents. two of the key elements of brand building is uniqueness and differentiation versus competition. instead of achieving those, they were actually making themselves similar. the result is UNA’s brand positioning became invisible in the eyes of the voters. being invisible allows the voters to only see Team PNoy.

Team PNoy released their TV ads soon after. statements by jv ejercito and the UNA party in reaction to the TV ad did not help the party either and made it worst for them.

Ejercito explained where UNA stands when it comes to the Aquino administration. They support his platform of good governance but they want to keep the Senate as an independent institution to keep the administration in check.

“We admit that the President is very popular. We have supported the President on his thrust for good governance. But sometimes when you are too popular, you do not know anymore the pulse of the people,” he said.

http://www.rappler.com/nation/21139-jv-ejercito-to-team-pnoy-why-the-impostor-tag

ejercito’s words explain the problem UNA created for  themselves. he did say the party supports aquino in his platform of good governance. aquino was elected by a landslide vote and continue to be the country’s most popular president on the basis of a good governance election promise and actions during his term. ejercito simply acknowledged aquino is doing well which we think to many voters would mean they should favor the senators aquino is supporting.

UNA was not defining themselves in the mind of the voters. what they were doing instead was propping up even more an already popular president and this president has his own list of senatoriables.

in marketing and advertising, you never talk about your competition, you talk about yourself and how good you are and what you can do that competition cannot. if you talk about competition, you do so only to show their weakness or failure. in this case UNA was not even mentioning any failure or weakness of aquino or Team PNoy. ejercito even praised the achievements and strengths of aquino.

UNA’s blunder is not just very bad brand positioning, we think its really a detrimental strategic blunder. we are guessing that they did research and found out that noynoy aquino is a very popular president and that noynoy aquino is the strongest endorser in philippine politics bar none.

UNA was unable to figure what they can do to counter this high popularity of noynoy aquino. we think their biggest error is thinking that since aquino is very popular, they should not go against him. and that thinking is very much like giving up on the election even before it started.

 this kind of results in the surveys with the kind of competition and smarts or lack of smarts by UNA is not surprising. Team PNoy must be very pleased with the way UNA is handling their campaign.

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source of SWS survey :    http://www.bworldonline.com/content.php?section=&title=Team-PNoy-takes-the-lead-in-latest-SWS-BW-poll&id=66397#

Team PNoy takes the lead in latest SWS-BW poll

2013 Senatoriables Poll now open – vote here

welcome to The Presidentiables Blog 2013 Senatoriables Poll!

the list only has the major senatoriables running for the 2013 election. the list is short of the 30+ official candidates for senators. the pictures of the senatoriables with different sizes and shapes were hardly chosen as they were picked up from whatever our friend Google Image gave us.

this is an unscientific poll given that no random sampling has been done and there was no vetting of respondents. anyone with an internet connection can cast their vote in this poll. obviously only those with an internet connection are the respondents in this poll which is hardly reflective of the actual voting population.

but candidates and supporters can use the results for bragging rights.

they can also use the poll results as a gauge of the size of the support candidates are getting out of netizens. respondents who vote here are social media users and they can be harnessed to promote the candidacy of senatoriables. as it has been shown in the most recent months, Philippine netizens who are in social media is a very potent force who can influence national life and behavior or attitudes of national leaders. a candidate who gets higher votes than others here can say they have bigger netizen support. the question then is how can this candidate harness the netizen support for more support in the internet and how to make this spill over to traditional media and real world voting by election time.

make your vote count! you will be given only 12 votes in this list. come back here from time to time and find out who is being chosen by readers of this blog.

thank you all and good luck, senatoriables.

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please read comments for updates in this poll.

VOTE HERE

notes :

• the software will allow you to vote for a maximum of only 12 candidates.
• after you cast your vote, you can click “view results” if you are not taken to the results portion
• poll opened on february 16, 2013
• poll will close on day before election day
• follow us on twitter -> @wawam

note that the pictures here are arranged in alphabetical order based on their first name. that is nearly scientific.

alan peter cayetano

antonio trillanes

bam aquino

chiz escudero

cynthia villar

dick gordon

eddie villanueva

ernie maceda

grace poe

gringo honasan

jack enrile

jamby madrigal

jc de los reyes

jv ejercito

koko pimentel

loren legarda

migz zubiri

mitos magsaysay

nancy binay

ramon magsaysay

risa hontiveros

sonny angara

teddy casino

tingting cojuangco

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if you have a twitter account, please use these hash tags:

malacanang delivers THE BOMB on senatoriable mitos magsaysay

Palace to Mitos: Thanks, but no thanks

By Willard Cheng, ABS-CBN News

mitos magsaysay (picture by PDI)

 

MANILA – Malacañang doubts that United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) senatorial candidate Mitos Magsaysay wants President Aquino to “succeed,” disputing her statement that UNA senatorial candidates give constructive criticisms to help the administration “to be the best that it could be.”

“Thank you Rep. Mitos but the President and his Cabinet do not need a US Army slogan to excel. The President has been doing good governance for the past three years, much admired by both the local and international communities, notwithstanding your ‘friendly’ help,” presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said in a text message.

Deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte described Magsaysay’s statement as a “turnaround” from the critical statements that Magsaysay has issued about President Aquino.

Valte pointed out the Magsaysay has called Aquino several names.

Magsaysay once described Aquino as “the most amateur, stubborn, laid back, lazy, immature, and least knowledgeable president we ever had.”

“That is certainly a turnaround from the two-and-a-half years worth of statements that Representative Magsaysay has been issuing against the President. Very early on, she had already let loose of several names about the President… With friends like that, who needs enemies?” Valte said.

“She’s not in the slate of the President. That speaks volumes for itself,” Valte added.

Lacierda earlier said that UNA senatorial candidates are confusing the public by wanting to be associated with President Aquino to increase their chances of winning but have been very critical of the administration.

source : http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/02/01/13/palace-mitos-thanks-no-thanks

mitos magsaysay since noynoy aquino became president had nothing but criticism and disdain on aquino on every any topic, with or without an issue. for some reason, mitos is always interviewed by media and for some reason she has given some comment, or the other on anything aquino does. and more than always, she would give a negative comment.

this reaction on malacanang to mitos is understandable and certainly deserving of mitos magsaysay.

nitos is on the 21-22nd spot in the latest SWS senatoriables, a long way off from making it to the top 12.