why will gilbert teodoro lose this election?

a lot has been written in this blog on why gilbert teodoro will lose this election. across the time frame of the campaign period factors that will make teodoro lose the election has been identified in this blog.

this will provide the key points:

• arroyo’s kiss of death on teodoro we think is the biggest factor for teodoro’s loss. everyone knew and that included teodoro himself , his political party lakas-kampi-cmd and arroyo herself knew that. we saw arroyo’s kiss of death in action during the last senatorial election where most of the admin senatorial candidates lost and almost all the opposition candidates won. the sentiments and scenario that was operating then is still present in this election and in fact even more intense than before – based on polls, the people failed arroyo on her performance as president,  trust rating have been negative and people see arroyo as most corrupt next to ferdinand marcos. romulo neri called arroyo “evil”, the people agrees with that sentiment. they all knew arroyo is a problem so much so that arroyo has distanced herself from teodoro, hardly saying anything about teodoro, did not campaign for him and did not even have a picture taken with teodoro.
• teodoro is an unknown. before his proclamation as standard bearer of the admin party, people hardly knew teodoro. he was a congressman in his hometown for some time but he had no national constituency to speak of. all he had was two years of chief of the defense portfolio which was not at all enough for him to gain national prominence or even some  name identification.
• although he had spent a lot of money on his ads, at some point second highest spender, that did not help him as we think his ads were ill-conceived, was fatally flawed on the ad strategy and the execution faulty.  teodoro spent most of his advertising money on his “resume tv ads” which was too basic and had no power to persuade.
• we think the teodoro campaign knew teodoro had no national standing that is why they launched those ads. that was fine but they stayed on it too long. all the ads did was create brand awareness while they should have moved to a more persuasive and meaty ads.
• teodoro’s “ego trip” tv ads, telling the voters he has “galing at talino” were not at all persuasive to the voters. people wanted to know what he will do for the country, not his resume, harvard education and being pilot included. these things simply did not ring a bell among the voters.
• the executions of his ads were also flawed as they appeared to be too elitist while  most of the voters come from the poor. would the poor who comprise most of the voters be able to relate to teodoro for being a pilot? will they be able to appreciate he knows how to fly a plane? we did not think so.  the teodoro campaign was thinking and doing these ads for themselves, not for the voters. we suspect the ads were feel good ads but feel good for themselves and not the voters or target audience.
• the teodoro campaign and that includes teodoro himself were perpetually in denial in this campaign from start to finish. we think they knew things were not going right in their campaign even from the very start but they did not seem to want to accept the problems and even much less did not want to do something about it. all they did was they kept telling themselves everything was doing well, nothing was wrong and nothing can go wrong even though they knew what was actually happening was the exact opposite. sadly, we think this is the exact same attitude and problem of the arroyo and her administration for themselves and specially in the way they governed the country.
• teodoro even failed in showing his “galing at talino” during the onody and pepeng floods and the maguindanao massacre. the ondoy and pepeng floods was a dream come true for any presidential candidate. teodoro was handed in a large silver platter the opportunity to perform and demonstrate to the people he had what it takes to be president. he among everyone else had the best opportunity to make something out of it – he was the admin, a cabinet secretary and the DND to which he was chief was actually in charge of disaster coordination’s. he failed in hos duties, his mandate and as a candidate. had he performed well during the floods, he would have won the election by a landslide.
• teodoro’s campaign never really took off.  the campaign had failings from the very beginning and almost in every step of the way as the it progressed. we will remember teodoro’s  campaign on the basis of the failings of the campaign that occurred from time to time rather than success points.   
• lakas-kampi-cmd, teodoro’s political party is a failed political party.  we do not think lakas-kampi-cmd was any help to teodoro. we are not even sure if the party wanted to help him at all.  we think the rumor that the party lost interest on teodoro was not a rumor but the truth.

looking at teodoro’s results and what he had done during the campaign and if you were an alien looking in, you would have not guessed that teodoro belonged to the dominant political party in the country.

teodoro lost this election from day 1.  

~~~~ mindscape landmark ~~~~
carlo arvisu

gloria macapagal arroyo is gilbert teodoro’s deadliest opponent

gloria macapagal arroyo's performance rating reaches a new historic low

dramatic drops across all areas and across all demographics

these are very distressing numbers not only for president arroyo but also for gilbert teodoro, the standard bearer of arroyo’s political party lakas-kampi-cmd.

in the past weeks, the talk of arroyo abandoning teodoro in favor of  manny villar or villarroyo is material for headlines and the front pages of newspapers and tv newscasts.  the other headline and front page content is the disintegration of lakas-kampi-cmd with key officers abandoning the party, candidates complaining and members moving out of the party to join the NP or the LP.

to fix the first one, arroyo sent out to the press her word ordering her  troops, her party mates to support teodoro, not only to vote for him but to campaign for him.  this was the first time after a very long time that arroyo ever spoke of  teodoro in this manner.  arroyo has never come out actually stating her support for teodoro.  even during the proclamation of teodoro as the standard bearer of  lakas-kampi, arroyo did not raise the hands of teodoro as is the tradition in philippine politics. she did not even give a speech during the event.

that was the last time we saw arroyo and teodoro in the same room. she even resigned as party chair and gave it to teodoro. all these were meant to distance herself from teodoro acting on the realization that arroyo’s endorsement is a kiss of death on teodoro’s chances of winning the election.

for some reason, arroyo and lakas-kampi broke away from that strategy when arroyo gave marching orders for her party mates to campaign for teodoro. that had the effect of reminding people that arroyo supports teodoro in this campaign.

with these performance ratings of arroyo hitting a new historical low, this outing of arroyo in support of teodoro is a very grave and fatal tactical error. teodoro was just whole heatedly endorsed by the most unpopular national leader of the country. her words, because of her unpopularity will not be good for teodoro, it will harm him even more.

teodoro is already being pushed down in the polls because of the association of teodoro with arroyo. arroyo coming out more directly about it id like pouring alcohol over a open wound.

with arroyo as party mate, teodoro does not need opponents in this election. in fact we think had arroyo endorsed or expressed her support for tedoro’s rivals, she would have a better chance of helping teodoro get elected as president in may 2010.

gilbert teodoro airs an epic fail tv ad, a push against surveys and himself. Teodoro has ADS? Sindrome!

this is supposed to be part of the arsenal to what an analyst calls to be teodoro’s “Battle Of  The Bulge”, a last ditch, huge effort to turn the tide of failure that seem to be the campaign’s destiny.

that is a good objective. but what we do not find good is this tv ad which seem to be not going for anyone or any principle in particular, it is going against surveys.

contrary to pronouncements by teodoro himself that he does not care about surveys, this ad confirms he does care for surveys. he cares for it so much that he feels compelled to put up an ad that goes against it. the way this execution was laid out, you would think teodoro is going against an opponent named “survey”.

well, he is not. he is however suffering in the surveys. his best rating is 7% and his latest ratings at the SWS is 6%. he has been perennially stuck at 4th. that is definitely not a good thing as it shows he in unable to convince and convert voters to his side.

i thought teodoro will climb to a respectable double digit rating by now, but that seems to be expecting too much considering it is just a few weeks till election time.

this ad is a high risk ad for teodoro. this ad actually calls attention to his poor showing in the surveys. ads, specially political ads, are supposed to highlight the good things a candidate has. this one begins the ad with calling attention to a failure of the teodoro campaign – his very poor showings in the surveys.

we do not know exactly how much of the voters are familiar with the survey results but for those who are not, this ad will push them to find what the surveys are saying about teodoro. and when they do, they will see that teodoro is a loser in the surveys. the net effect then of this ad is that more people will now pay attention to survey results and every time the voters see the results, they will see teodoro doing very poorly at them.

i don’t think there is a single tv ad for any mass consumer product where it begins it’s tv commercial telling it’s target market the brand has a very small market share  or that research shows the brand is not being proffered by many consumers or only a few consumers prefer the brand.

the equivalent message of political surveys to mass consumer brands is that a poor showing in political surveys mean the candidate is not preferred by many voters. that kind of message is hardly any positive motivation to convert non-users or non-preferers to your side.

in fact that kind of message may even demoralize or turn off his current supporters. there are not many people who will want to continue to support a loser.

we understand the intent of including surveys at the beginning of the ad. this ad is meant to show that teodoro is gaining support from a growing number of voters. they want a bandwagon effect.

that is a valid advertising idea. but did they have to use teodoro’s poor showing in surveys to set up the message of growing support for teodoro? did they have to use a negative message at the start of the ad to communicate a positive message?

no, they did not have to. there are many other ways of setting up the commercial.  in fact there a lot more positive ways of doing so.  the negative start of the ad with the message of teodoro’s poor showing in the surveys has the effect of teodoro shooting himself in the foot.

the ad also suffers from other fatal errors, to us the most major of which is the obsession of people saying his name over and over again. teodoro’s problem goes beyond name recognition. getting the people to say his name many times over in the ad is not doing anything to help him get elected.

they should have asked the on-cam talent to tell the audience why they are voting for teodoro rather than just saying his name. they had a few of those but we don’t understand why of all attributes they want people to remember about teodoro, it needs to be “batang-bata” or “maka-Diyos”.

while those are positive attributes, they do not give any meaningful  addition or address problems of the teodoro campaign. rather than give these worthless attributes, they could have chosen attributes that are consistent with his platform or those that debunk negative attribute people have of him. in other words, they should have used attributes or messages that will help him get elected.

this is a definite WAWAM! and yes, teodoro has ADS? Sindrome.

2010 election: aquino landslide win, teodoro hail mary pass, villar collapse and estrada to win the election?

the villarroyo development puts many new things into the table now. there used to be only 1 item on the table – a close election between villar and aquino and estrada as the dark horse.

with the new developments on the arroyo’s secret candidate in villar on top of the teodoro being their candidate, we now see new things on the table:

• villar collapse – we have seen what arroyo’s kiss of death did to gilbert teodoro – super glued to fourth place from survey to survey, unable to get up to even a double digit rating in the polls. if the villarroyo charge sticks, we can see a transfer of arroyo’s kiss of death on villar. that is IF the kiss of death is transferable to others.
• teodoro on a hail mary pass – we are totally confounded by teodoro. he did not see any of this coming? now he is left out in the open all by himself. in this whole thing, teodoro is the most abused by his mentors. teodoro decided to leave NPC to join lakas-kampi-cmd to fulfil his presidential ambitions. his party did not welcome him with open arms. they didn’t want him to be their standard bearer. from the very beginning they were vocal on that. this rejection by his own party was also shown in the fact that none of the big time lakas candidates wanted to be his vice presidential mate.  fast forward to a few weeks ago we hear his campaign complaining on lack of funding from the party. a few days ago he quits as chair of his party apparently because he got to know that arroyo supports villar. all of these, teodoro did not see coming? really? well, he will now be pushed to most probably do a hail mary pass – completely remove himself from the grip of the arroyos and start attacking the them. that we think can get him back into the election.
• estrada a clear possibility –  these developments is good news for estrada. recent SWS poll show estrada gained from villar when villar got hit by the C-5 corruption issue. a collapse by villar can mean, if the recent developments in the polls continue to hold, estrada gaining in the polls which can make him a true contender in this election. however, there is so much irony here — villar collapsing on a corruption issue for erap to gain who is a  convicted criminal of a crime of plunder, a corruption verdict of the highest order for public officials.
• aquino poised for a landslide win – only aquino gets the good news on this one. aquino has been on a single minded positioning of anti-corruption. by sheer luck, the recent developments gives the election to aquino on a silver platter, setting him up for a possible landslide win in the election.  with his closest rival, villar to be enshrined with being supported by the mother of all corruption, the arroyos, this leaves aquino untainted, clean and without blemish. it can be a wake up call for voters, specially for villar supporters.

if there is anything to be learned in this whole episode, it is this – it’s a fluid election. unfortunately and i say this with a tinge of shame and embarrassment  the election being fluid is not being caused by a debate of changing national issues but by the stuff of telenovela twists and turns. very pinoy. hay naku….

manny villar pulled down by C-5 corruption, next to be pulled down by mother of all corruption – the arroyos

mar roxas in a speech said it first – Manny Villarroyo. it was a clever and interesting name and it caught us that we put than in our memory banks. but it was something not easy to accept and less easy to say it is true.

recent developments, though reading like a very complicated spy vs spy novel seem to point there may be truth in roxas’ witty musing of Villarroyo. PDI news says mike arroyo, the better (worst?) half of gloria macapagal arroyo is supporting manny villar and not gilbert teodoro.

it is a shocking development but it is something a certain puno could have cooked up. is it true? well, we will know in the coming days. there will be double to triple layers of denials in the coming days for sure from all camps concerned. but some truth will come out, just how clear it will be will need to be seen.

the key question is this – will villar be hit by arroyo’s kiss of death the same way that teodoro got hit by it? is there enough time to get that to hit villar?

villar based on the latest SWS poll is already being hit by the corruption axe, C-5 where there is really no closure, the whole thing left hanging in the air. it is bad enough that vilar is getting pulled down by a corruption charge, his next stop will be the mother of all corruption – being the erstwhile secret candidate of the arroyos.

for this to come at this late stage of the campaign is bad news for villar. there might be no time left to remove arroyo’s kiss of death on him. the villarroyo charge will get worst before it gets better and will take some momentum of build up. this momentum can last till election time. if that happens, the villar campaign can see itself taking the stature of estrada’s campaign. that will leave aquino the dominant front runner, a landslide win is now possible.

that will depend on a few factors – who has the best strategy on how to make use of this new development.

villar’s camp will be on the defensive for sure. teodoro if it gets over the shock and demoralization will also be on the defensive. and finally the aquino campaign can go on an offensive. and let us not forget, what will the estrada camp do with it?

the possibilities have been multiplied and that includes a resurgence of  estrada’s fortunes. how much will villar get hit by all this? if he gets hit bad and estrada finds the right formula, we can see estrada emerging as a true contender in this election.

the word “untained” will be key to the aquino campaign. how to make use of it and how to use the word “tainted” on the other candidates will be the determining factor.

we have always had problems with the aquino campaign’s very weak strategic thinking skills as demonstrated in the unfolding developments of the past. we wonder if this has been solved by the campaign.

excellent strategic thinking skills is a pre-requisite in good times, it is equally a pre-requisite in spreading bad times for competitors.

who has what it takes to get this thing done?

gilbert teodoro’s “battle of the bulge” tv ad – “sulong”

this is next at The 2010 Presidentiables Blog.

gilbert teodoro set to do last minute push for a win, here is why it will fail

gilbert teodoro, the standard bearer of the admin/(supposed) dominant political party LAKAS-KAMPI-CMD know that he is losing this election campaign. he has not moved up in any significant way in the polls, being stuck at a very far fourth in the rankings and getting at best 7% while the front runners are at a staggering 36% for aquino and 34% for villar. it is bad enough that the two front runners are way ahead of everybody, on top of teodoro is estrada who is in the range of 15% , showing strength at that level and even gaining slightly.

the question that teodoro’s campaign needs to answer is this – for him to win, where will he get the votes from? the weakest of the three front runners, erap estrada is not exactly weak. among the presidentiables, estrada is the candidate that has the most experience and time as an elected government official not to mention he was actually elected president once before. teodoro compared to erap looks puny.  if teodoro can’t get pat estrada, how does he expect to get past villar and aquino, the two most popular presidentiables in this campaign?

it is interesting that an article appeared at the PDI yesterday where the teodoro campaign seem to be preparing for what the writer calls a “battle of the bulge” – a last minute, well last few weeks campaign to get teodoro elected. in marketing, it is called a marketing blitz. in a political campaign it’s most likely called a “failed election bid”.

we will be using that article as a pick up point for this post.

The ruling coalition, which enjoys a headlock on 70 percent of local government positions, is pinning its hopes on superior resources and widespread party machinery to swing the tide of battle.

Banking on these advantages, it plans to assert its superiority with carefully synchronized offensives timed at the start of the campaign for local positions on March 26.

this is what party officials call the “political machinery”. it’s supposed to be potent that only the admin/ruling party has a monopoly on. all the party officials, including teodoro are saying that is what will make him win this election. they conveniently forget that in the last senatorial elections, they said the same thing about the potency of THE machinery. the results – almost all the admin/ruling party senatorial best lost in that election while almost all the opposition senatorial bets won the election.

the results of that election was so bad for the admin/ruling party that pichay who spent the most in advertising during that time did not get elected while trillanes who was in jail, unable to campaign and practically had zero advertising money won the election.

the opposition won that election mainly on the basis of the people exercising a protest vote where they elected the opponents of arroyo’s candidates. arroyo at that time was very unpopular and the people have had enough of her so much so that they even said they do not want her candidates to win.

after the election, LAKAS party officials admitted the machinery did not deliver. apparently the local candidates and officials of LAKAS abandoned the admin senatorial candidates when they felt the people were going against them.

the situation then compared to now is about the same – arroyo is unpopular and in fact probably even more unpopular than before. everyone knows teodoro is arroyo’s candidate and based on surveys, voters said they will not elect the candidate that arroyo is endorsing.

we think it’s foolish to rely on the “machinery” to get teodoro elected. the machinery is a myth.

The opening salvo of this make-or-break offensive will be new TV commercials targeting the youth on Monday.

Teodoro’s spokesperson, former Press Secretary Mike Toledo, said the commercials would be aired with frequencies rivaling those of the front-runners, Senators Benigno S. Aquino III of the Liberal Party and Manuel Villar of the Nacionalista Party. Between them, they have spent close to P2 billion, dominating the airwaves, according to the media firm AGB Nielsen.

Teodoro’s ads will zero in on the target segment that the coalition hopes will swing the tide of battle to his side, the youth ranging in age from 18 to 39, who constitute 52 percent of the 50 million voters registered, according to Toledo.

Teodoro has been doing well in mock elections in schools recently. Campaign strategists have selected this key segment to focus on, Toledo says.

political campaigns seem to have a love affair with the youth vote. all of them seem to think that is the key to their success. villar, aquino and villanueva aired tv  ads targeting them. but if you look at the movements of villar’s ratings, it is not the ad that targeted the youth that earned him a lot of points, it’s the other ads that he aired.

aquino with his rap tv ad meant for the youth got mixed  reviews with people liking it and others throwing up hearing aquino do a rap in the tv ad. they abruptly pulled off that ad. villanueva aired one too but that did not help him either.

teodoro did not seem to learn the lessons the other presidentiables learned – they will air an ad targeting the “youth” on monday.  we now think this obsession with youth ad is probably the fault of the admen hired by the campaigns for their ad needs. all of them seem to be saying the same mantra.

maybe teodoro will find the secret weapon in ads for the youth and can get him to win the election. it is good in theory, forgetting for the moment the failures of the other presidentiables, but we think teodoro’s thinking is fatally  flawed.

the critical failure in the ad that will be aired on monday for the youth is the demographics definition – “age from 18 to 39“. the age range is too wide and probably covers at least two distinct groups or even three. the psyche, needs and  attitudes of the 18 year old, a first time voter is very different from a 25 year old who probably has a young family already to someone who is 30 years old who has a not so young family. for sure a 37 to 39 year old is extremely different from an 18 year old, to a 23 year old and a 30 year old.

it is hard for us to understand and we think it is not possible to have an ad meant for the “youth” that will be effective in convincing this wide and un-alike age grouping of 18 to 35 years old.

the admen who sold the idea to the teodoro campaign spoke badly in thinking that an age range as wide as that is a proper segmentation of the target audience. we do not think you will find any adman who will agree to that kind of segmentation.

target audience definition is the very first critical step in developing an effective tv ad. get the definition wrong, or even weak and the ad fails. it will confuse the creative team as it gives them too wide a range with very dissimilar traits and characteristics.

we await this new ad of teodoro. it is supposed to be a miracle tv ad for him. given the potential flaw of the thinking, it will either be a miracle ad or a miracle dud.  we will probably see a WAWAM! on monday.

read PDI article here: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20100322-260115/Lakas-Kampi-coalition-plans-decisive-Battle-of-the-Bulge

~~~mindscape landmark~~~
carlo arvisu

the curious case of gilbert teodoro cutting ad spending

at the start of official campaign period, gilbert teodoro cut his ad spending to almost zero to only P60T while previous period, he spent a total of P407M, second highest spending to villar’s top spending. (read here : presidentiables spend P2B on advertising. top spenders – villar 1st, teodoro 2nd and aquino 3rd)

we do not understand this move.

teodoro’s poll ratings have been stagnant within the 5% to 7% range since last year. it has not shown any improvement and has kept him at a far 4th with now villar moving up to tie aquino at top place and estrada moving up as well.

with ratings like these, the thing to do is change the ads and increase spending behind it. teodoro has done the exact opposite. he has been going through the provincial rounds but that cannnot compensate for mass media advertising. cutting down on ad spending in this scenario will only see teodoro’s ratings remain the same low 4th to further decline.

makes us wonder:

• is teodoro  not in this campaign to win this  election?
• true to previous “complaints” and pronouncements by himself and edu manzano – their political party lakas-kampi-cmmd has ran out of funds? at the start of the campaign??
• they adapting a miracle strategy where they will do a blitz at the end of the campaign?

need to call oliver stone…..

Teodoro cuts spending on political ads, but not Villar
by Lira Dalangin-Fernandez

INQUIRER.net
First Posted 15:07:00 03/04/2010

MANILA, Philippines – (UPDATE) Presidential candidate and Senator Manuel Villar continues to be the biggest spender of political advertisements at the start of the campaign period last month, already spending some P120 million, according to an advocacy group, citing figures from a media research firm.

In data by AGB Nielsen Media Research from February 9, the start of the official campaign period, until March 2, Villar remained number one among the top five candidates in the presidential race, shelling out P120, 411,093 for 195 minutes of airtime, according to Libertas in its forum Pera’t Pulitika (Money and Politics) Thursday.

Former president Joseph Estrada is second with P88 million for 128.50 minutes, followed by Senator Benigno Aquino III with P87 million for 180 minutes. Senator Richard Gordon is at fourth with P67.3 million for 144 minutes, and in fifth place is administration standard bearer Gilbert Teodoro with P60,480 for 1.5 minutes of airtime, the research firm was quoted as saying.

Among the five candidates, it was Teodoro who considerably cut down on his spending on political ads based on data also from AGB Nielsen, which ranked him second behind Villar, spending P407 million during the pre-campaign months from Nov. 1, 2009 to Jan. 31, 2010. Villar spent P1 billion during the same period.

teodoro set to lose election – teodoro’s own LAKAS-KAMPI-CMD party. giving up on teodoro too soon?

there is something happening within the LAKAS-KAMPI-CMD political party to which gilbert teodoro belongs to –  we are reading noise in the newspapers about several officials of the party openly talking to the press about their discontent and worries on the candidacy of gilbert teodoro. they all seem to be in agreement that teodoro is doing very poorly in this election, that there are things he is doing that is not helping his candidacy and the unsaid words that teodoro is set to lose the 2010 presidential election.

first was senator zubiri’s pronouncement that the opposition is poised to win the 2010 election because teodoro’s campaign never really took off.  he also said this:

“People want change. That is the effect of nine years (in power). That is understandable,” he said in Filipino.

that sounds very much like saying the people are very much tired of president arroyo’s administration and the people can’t wait for her to step down for the new president to take over. it also means teodoro is very much associated with arroyo that the people see the prospect of teodoro being president as just a continuation of arroyo’s presidency.

then there is the statement from another LAKAS-KAMPI-CMD party official who said the party is set to hold an emergency executive committee  meeting in march if teodoro’s ratings fail to improve.

that says the executive committee recognize that teodoro’s campaign is suffering now, unable to get itself out of the bottom in the polls. they are worried of a downward spiral and the emergency meeting is meant to arrest this decline.

just recently, another officer of teodoro’s party has talked to the press also saying teodoro’s advertising campaign, the airplane campaign has failed and is to blame for teodoro’s inability to bring his ratings up from the grave. this officer is LAKAS-KAMPI-CMD vice president prospero pichay.

we find that amusing. pichay ran for senator in the last senatorial election and based on media data, he was the top spender in advertising during that election. as we all know now, pichay lost that election.

we find it ironic that this man who spent the most ad money in the last election but failed to win is making such a comment on teodoro’s tv advertising. it is obvious that not being elected despite being the highest spender in that election means pichay lost the election due to bad advertising. did pichay use his advertising smarts that he ddisplayed in the last election to asssess teodoro’s ad campaign?

the common denominators among these three lakas officials are – teodoro is losing the election and his efforts are not helping him if not wrong.

we are shocked that these supposed officials of the party are even talking to the press about their misgivings and teodoro’s failures as a presidential candidate.  for the sake of teodoro, will they not be better off not talking to the press about these things, keep them hush-hush, hold the meeting and change things.  the key there is not talk to the press.

telling these things to the press can be very demoralizing for teodoro’s few supporters to read. we are ssaying they are few based on the poll results where he got at best 5%. teodoro’s supporters already know their candidate is doing poorly in the polls but to read it in the newspapers as said by party officials is a real killer.

we also wonder if the cracks are showing within the ruling party. this is not the first time it has happened. this already happened from the very beginning of the party’s so called process in selecting their standard bearer.

during that time we heard a lot of officers and members of the party openly criticizing party officials for taking a long time to name their standard bearer. there were also loud talks on who they want the party to select as standard bearer and teodoro’s name was not being mentioned during that time.

with all of these happening to gilbert teodoro’s party, we ask the question – with friends and partymates like these, who needs friends and political opponents?

gilbert teodoro interview on ondoy & pepeng floods shows teodoro’s incompetence and mismanagement of NDCC and government response to the floods

with thanks to dodon who posted this video here: https://2010presidentiables.wordpress.com/2010/02/13/presidentiables-as-of-mid-november-2008/gilbert-teodoro-2/#comment-6798

highlights:

• interviewer says the NDCC and the government has gone under criticism on its handling during and after the storms. teodoro answers they have done well given the resources the government had.
• asked about the 12 rubber boats, 8 ambulances and 2 helicopters which were nowhere near enough
• teodoro admits they are not enough but says its a question of who should provide them. he shifts the blame now on the local government, the national government, and which agency and no blame on the NDCC
• teodoro says it is only the armed forces of the philippines that was directly under him
• in separate news, we read that teodoro’s staff had recommended for the purchase of more rubber boats but teodoro delayed the purchase for budget and procurement process reasons. if the NDCC was not responsible for the purchase of rubber boats, why did his staff recommend that they buy them and why did he delay the purchase? teodoro has been caught in a lie.
• interviewer says – “you are blaming other government agencies” and says as a senior government official, he is passing the blame to others
• the country get 19 to 20 storms, why is this government not prepared for such disasters?
• you are skirting the issue. you have been getting storms for a hundred years, why are you not prepared for them?
• teodoro answers – systems cost money. in other words teodoro is saying they know there will be damage and will cost lives but since we do not have money, the people just need to bear and grin it.
• what then is the role of NDCC which teodoro headed? isn’t its mandate to prepare the people for disasters? since we are unprepared, it means the NDCC has failed in its mandate.
• the current set up has not worked. teodoro agrees to that, so the NDCC has failed in its mandate

this is part 1:

negative campaign tv ads : gilbert teodoro did it first & what ferdinand marcos & john mccain have in common with gilbert teodoro

the last time negative advertising was aired in the philippines by politicians was when cory aquino ran against ferdinand marcos in the 80’s, the pre-event to the The People Power EDSA Revolution.

marcos aired ads that depicted cory  as just a “housewife”, saying she does not know anything about running a country. cory of course in truth was just a housewife when she ran against marcos in the election. she did not hold any elective position or any government position before that time. what marcos forgot and the people never did was that cory was the widow of ninoy aquino who was assassinated at the tarmac when he returned home from exile in the US.

a most powerful man in marcos cheating just a housewife in cory in the elections was just too much for the people to take. the people kicked the dictator out of the country and installed the housewife in malacanang.

that negative ad, a first in philippine politics back-fired.

this 2010 election has a kind of negative advertising. this ad was aired by gilbert teodoro.

(read full write up here: gilbert teodoro’s “galing at talino” tv ads – anti-noynoy, anti-humility, generic promises)

in these ads, the announcer voice-over says “dapat lider na hindi lang puso ang alay kung hindi galing at talino“, an obvious reference to noynoy aquino., the expected front runner during the time the ad was first aired.

it is mild and indirect but we do not think anyone missed the reference to aquino. the ad points out aquino’s inadequacy to be president and attempts to discredit the strength of aquino in this campaign.  having  just “puso” was positioned here as not enough or inferior and compared to teodoro’s strength which were enumerated in this ad. the whole ad except for that single line talked about the  credentials of teodoro. it positions teodoro as superior to aquino.

this ad of teodoro is the only political ad in this whole presidential campaign that makes a reference to an opposing candidate and a negative tv ad.

we can’t say for sure that this negative ad of teodoro backfired for him but we do know his ratings at the polls have put him at best 5% while aquino remained the front runner in this election.

we disagree with the way this ad has been done. the attempt at discrediting aquino was too mild and of no consequence in this ad. it’s an ad that is neither here nor there. we think if they really wanted to draw the attention to teodoro’s superiority over noynoy or noynoy’s inferiority to teodoro, they should have gone all the way. doing it in this piecemeal almost forgotten way will not do anything for teodoro but only eat precious seconds. they could have removed that line and the ad would have worked as well. they could have used the freed seconds to add more good qualities of teodoro like having a hot wife or that he drives a BMW 7-series.

in the US negative TV ads are more direct and biting and has no qualms in mentioning the other candidate by name. in fact these ads talk about the opposing candidate and at the end puts to question the other candidate’s credentials or capabilities.

these ads are against barack obama aired by john mccain meant to stop the momentum that obama was enjoying at that time.  negative tv ads are usually aired when an opposing candidate is very much leading in the polls and needs to be stopped. it’s very much like a hail mary pass where close to the election, the candidate airs negative tv ads hoping it will spark a rally  among his supporters and recruit new ones.

results of negative ads are mixed in the US. some worked and brought down candidates and some didn’t. political strategists have always said it is very risky but for a candidate who is not doing well, it is surely very tempting to do. this mccain negative ad against obama obviously did not work.

interestingly enough, these anti-obama negative ads aired by mccain are very much applicable here in the philippines against noynoy aquino or at least that is the negative campaign the presidentiables are saying during debates and press interviews.

are we going to see negative ads soon?

The celebrity backers of Barack Obama say
they are not like Paris and Britney.
[ Los Angeles Times – July 31, 2008 ] :

TO HOLLYWOOD it smacked of desperation.

That’s why the reaction to a new John McCain ad attempting to portray Barack Obama as a kind of mindless celebrity — likening him to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears — drew collective yawns and shrugs of irritation from politically active members of the entertainment industry.

Just for a start, industry types say the ad is wrong: In the Hollywood lexicon, Obama is not a celebrity. He’s a rock star. (Note to McCain strategists: That’s the difference between Jessica Simpson and Bono.)

Then there’s the small inconvenience that Paris’ parents, Rick and Kathleen Hilton, are supporters of McCain’s Republican presidential bid. According to federal campaign records, they gave the maximum $4,600.

No word on their plans for the general election, but this much is certain: Their daughter has never paid to attend an Obama campaign fundraiser. (It’s unclear whether she’s even met the senator, or whether she’s even registered to vote. The same goes for Spears.)

McCain’s latest attempt at discrediting his handsome, photogenic young rival particularly galls stars and executives with a memory, because only eight years ago, McCain was a fixture in Hollywood fundraising circles when he tried to raise money from the very people his ad now ridicules.

presidentiables ad themes: villar-poverty, aquino-corruption, estrada-nostalgia and teodoro-ego trip

as we go to the last few months of the campaign, we see the presidentiables reshaping their campaign themes. in advertising this is called brand positioning. the major candidates have changed their brand positioning that they started with since last year. what we have now may very well be for most of them the positioning that they will have till the end of the campaign period.

manny villar: anti-poverty

manny villar: “all out war on poverty”. villar  has re-shaped his campaign into a theme of anti-poverty. this he actually declared this is what his campaign will take, an all out war on poverty as he put it around the December 27 time.  (read here: manny villar’s “all out war on poverty” platform and manny villar’s “magtatapos ng kahirapan” tv ad – a bold shift in advertising strategy, 5 stars!)

poverty is a key issue not only in philippine politics but more importantly in real life. a significant portion of the philippine population belong to the poor or the DE socio-eco classes. a significantly high proportion of the population are daily wage earners, many don’t even have regular jobs. a large number of families belong to below the poverty line.

aside from the grim statistics and reality, many politicians have won elections on an anti-poverty campaign. in fact most of the politicians do but the most notable winner using this platform is erap estrada.

noynoy aquino – anti-corruption.   in the last few weeks and perhaps as a reaction to his poll ratings softening allowing many villar

noynoy aquino : anti-corruption

to be on a statistical tie, the aquino campaign has focused on “anti-corruption.

corruption just like poverty is a key issue in philippine politics and real life. we see corruption in our daily lives with most of us being victims of it. they may be small for ordinary citizens but we have read in the papers big time corruption scandals.

president gloria macapagal arroyo based on surveys is known as one of the most corrupt presidents of the country since ferdinand marcos. corruption or the suspicion of it, because they are all unresolved will probably be the enduring legacy of arroyo. being under arroyo for 9 years, this is certainly a key issue for the people.

international agencies and think tanks have put corruption at a staggering rate of 25% to 50% in government contracts. that means most of the government contracts are inflated by that rate as that is the rate corrupt officials get out of government projects.

erap estrada – nostalgia and return to power. estrada is asking voters to bring him back to malacanang on the basis of returning him back to office, according to him to allow him to complete his unfinished business which was cut short by a EDSA DOS.

erap estrada : nostalgia

frankly, we do not understand this positioning of estrada. it is one of the weakest among the presidentiables. there is a gross failure in that positioning as this speaks only to estrada supporters which by the time, estrada’s glory days long gone must have shrunk to a small slice.

many of the current voters may not have known what the estrada presidency was during his time. worse, many of them probably know only the bad things, his conviction of plunder more specifically.

appealing to nostalgia means alienating every one else who were not supporters of estrada. they are a minority and getting a minority of votes will not get him elected, a majority will.

this is a WAWAM!

gilbert teodoro – credentials and ego-trip.  we think teodoro’s campaign has suffered the most among all the presidentiables. it has taken a whipping from the get go and continue to make disastrous blunders from the very beginning. quite frankly, we do not think the teodoro campaign has done anything right since it started.

and this positioning of teodoro – an endless propping up of his credentials, even though we are not asking  for it is no more than just an

gilbert teodoro: ego trip

ego trip. we find it strange that an ad for a politician is adapting a positioning of an ego-trip.

teodoro wants us to elect him for his “galing at talino”. teodoro is the only presidentiable who is asking us to vote him based on his personal qualities. all other presidentiables are asking us to vote them for what they will do for the country or what they will solve, teodoro is asking us to vote him for his ego.

his ads endlessly talk about his qualifications, his latest tv ad bragging that he is an accomplished pilot. (read here : gilbert teodoro’s new tv ad “lipad” does not fly, gilbert teodoro’s “galing at talino” tv ads – anti-noynoy, anti-humility, generic promises and gilbert teodoro’s “posible” tv ad – a change of strategy to save his campaign)

this ego-trip obsession  is obvious in teodoro’s tv ads – he enjoys spelling his name in his ads. before the election campaign, when he was still DND chief,  teodoro aired a disaster preparation ad that had his messages spelling out his last name T-E-O-D-O-R-O. (read here:  gilbert teodoro’s tv ad – promises made, promises broken)

we are not surprised to note that his selling line, “Galing At Talino” also spells out his initials. that is incontrovertible proof that teodoro is on an ego-trip positioning.

will an ego-trip positioning appeal to voters? apparently not as we see teodoro’s poll ratings remain at disastrous levels, 4% to 5% at this late stage of the election campaign.

this is a WAWAM!

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up next at The 2010 Presidentiables Blog are the positioning of the laggard presidentiables.