Villarroyo – the most powerful word of the 2010 election

the 2010 election will be remembered for many things some good and some bad. there will also be losers and a winner. but one word will stand out, it can be the word for the 2010 election – Villarroyo.

it is a very creative term, two names moulded into one, giving it a precise meaning to a complex concept – that villar is arroyo’s secret candidate in the 2010 election.

it did not matter that the declared candidate of arroyo is gilbert teodoro, the idea was putting a seed of doubt in the minds of voters about who the candidate is of the evil one.

arroyo has been seen as the exclusive owner of  the kiss of death for those seeking public office. she showed she had that during the last senatorial elections where almost all of  the administration candidates lost in that election while  almost all of the opposition senatorial candidates won senatorial seats.

the administration during that time was boasting of its good economic record. the malacanang press bureau was releasing a lot of economic data boasting it was under the arroyo administration that had good economic results.

the numbers were  good but real life was not for most of the people – jobs were scarce, unemployment high and hunger were also high. since that was just a senatorial election, the people took its anger towards the administration candidates by voting those who were going against them who were mostly opposition senatorial candidates. that election was a protest vote against arroyo, a referndum on her perfromance as president.

arroyo’s kiss of death is as potent then as it is now with gilbert teodoro, the newest recipient of arroyo’s kis of death. his ratings continue to suffer in the polls with just 7% in the latest reading, getting only as high 9% on previous tallies. his ratings hardly moved from the time he entered the competition.

teodoro was largely an unknown candidate to voters having no previous elected national position and just two years of a cabinet post in the arroyo administration, the defense portfolio which by its very nature is a low key cabinet position.

he came into the election as an unknown and unmarked. arroyo’s kiss of death was the only mark that was on him and that did not help at all. the teodoro campaign was obsessed with playing it down, the two of them never photographed together and the traditional raising of hands to proclaim a candidacy not done when teodoro was proclaimed standard bearer of arroyo’s political party, lakas-kampi-cmd.

the villarroyo name may not have have the same kind of power asarroyo’s kiss of death on teodoro had, but we think it certainly played a crucial role in this election. we think it had the power of concretizing the idea of the negative in just ten letters.

developments in the campaign also helped give the term villarroyo some potent life. at the time this was coined and released into the public’s mind, the headlines talked about the disintegration of the administration party, lakas-kampi-cmd, with many of its members and even its key officers abandoning the party to join the LP and the NP.

there were also reports that mike arroyo, gloria’s beloved partner was in talks with manny villar and had dropped support on teodoro. teodoro’s own party helped to put very dry wood into the smouldering  fire with it’s members, some key officers and even those working for the teodoro and manzano campaigns complaining about lack of funds to no support coming from lakas-kampi-cmd to their campaign efforts.

they did not have to tell us that as we witnessed that by ourselves. during that time, we hardly saw any tv ads for teodoro and manzano. (in fact todate, manzano has had no tv ad for himself or with him with his presidential candidate).

taking all of it together, it forms into a composite of many different things that actually fit and made sense. we saw that villar was continuing to put on air heavy advertising at that time and that true to critics, he really never went against arroyo as much for example mar roxas or even noynoy aquino.

our simple minds, picking up simple things did form a great, sensible and powerful word – villarroyo.

if you think about it – the whole story seems like a complex plot from a political drama movie. it looked like a script was written for it and got unfolded right in front of our eyes.

or is it destiny speaking here? there is no way any human could have conspired to make the last two letters of villar as the first two letters of arroyo’s last name.

villarroyo –  a perfect fit of two names, the most powerful word in the 2010 election. it will be the one word that was able to bring down billions of pesos in advertising and marketing expense and a presidential candidate who almost made it.

~~mindscape landmark~~
carlo arvisu

what is killing the manny villar presidential bid – backlash and the move to evil from good

the good and the bad have affected manny villar’s run for the presidency.

the good, his advertising and marketing campaigns that he started ahead  of everyone else, way before the official campaign period have  pushed him from nowhere to catch up and tie noynoy aquino at the polls who entered the campaign as the dominant run away front runner in this election.

villar’s rise to within a shot of winning the presidency was a nurtured one, built around savvy ads, well-planned and well-thought out strategies behind billions of campaign funds.

until the bad hit his campaign and quickly pulled his ratings to a spiralling downward trend to now tied at 2nd or 3rd behind erap estrada, the convicted criminal who is again running for president.

unfortunately, the bad was his own doing. this bad is “backlash”, things that you do intended to hurt your opponent but recoils back and returns to you and hurts you instead. the villar campaign launched a string of these moves which unfortunately were all done towards the last part of the campaign where there might not be enough time to recover from their mistakes.

this is founded on what we think is a very unfortunate strategic choice that the campaign has chosen on how to handle negative developments to the villar campaign.

the first indication of this unfortunate strategic choice was on the C-5 corruption scandal. villar chose the strategy of not confronting the issue at the stage where it began. villar chose not to attend the senate hearings and instead on his own and separate from the senate hearings went on a media campaign answering questions on the controversy that were lodged at him at the senate floor in other venues and press briefings outside of  the senate floor.

they must have thought that what is more important is  public perception in general over what is happening at the senate floor. villar is running for president, answering the questions raised at the senate are best re-shaped and handled as the messages go out to the public.

there are two problems with that strategy. first, not tackling the issue at the senate itself will mean allowing it to continue to progress at the senate floor  and reach it’s conclusion on it’s own unhampered. second, and this is the  fatal one – while they are doing their counter attacks and defence at the public opinion stage, it does not necessarily mean they are being erased in the minds of the public. they may be able to answer all the points raised in the senate but all of these are deposited in the consciousness of the public as data points. they can be deposited in their minds as neutral points as they are able to answer them but they are nevertheless there and latent.

what came next was the Villarroyo charge that mar roxas first said in a press conference. the C-5 corruption scandal plus Villarroyo we think was the beginning of the end of the villar presidential bid.

villarroyo is more than a play in names, it is we think one of the most powerful words used in the 2010 election. the word crystallized in the minds of the voters their greatest fear and greatest dislike not only in this election but in the country in general  – arroyo. (read here: Villarroyo – the most powerful word of the 2010 election)

at the start, this election has been called an election of  “good vs. evil”.  we think the villar campaign forgot that as it is really an election of “good vs evil”  until now.

the name “arroyo” has become to mean to the people everything that is wrong, bad, immoral and not right about the country and where it is going. romulo neri, one of arroyo’s eco guru was right when he said  “arroyo is evil”.

one of the most enduring  definition of “evil” is corruption. a large percentage of the people think arroyo is corrupt or has been involved in corruption. surveys also say  arroyo as seen by the people is one of the most corrupt president of the country, next to ferdinand marcos.

when mar roxas introduced villarroyo to the public mind,  something simply clicked in the minds of voters – villar is just like arroyo, evil itself.

the handling and approach taken by villar  of the C-5 corruption scandal reminded us villar may not only be the candidate that arroyo supports but he can be as corrupt as arroyo is. the charge on villar on the  C-5 controversy was that he used his position and power for personal gain, something the people have always suspected of doing all the time.

more than that, villar was not facing the issue at the senate. he did everything and anything to find an excuse not to face his accusers at the senate.

that is also an arroyo tactic. she did that during the NBN-ZTE scandal where she prevented neri from testifying at the senate on the matter by hiding under the skirt of immunity from testifying. more than that event, arroyo had used the numbers she owned in congress to prevent the congressional hearings on the impeachment cases lodged on hr for some  years.

with the villarroyo name solid in the minds of voters, villar’s ratings started to  decline.

unfortunately, the villar campaign seemed to have taken another blunder in their strategic choices from that point on. the campaign decided to get into a black propaganda binge against its opponents and their prime target was noynoy aquino who is the front runner in this election.

noynoy aquino as the target of their black propaganda is a sensible choice. he is the front runner and it makes sense to do so.  we do not completely discredit the value of black propaganda in elections because it has some use and value but it is totally wrong to do black propaganda that is not founded on the truth and one that is traceable back to the originator of the black propaganda.

the double psyche reports which were quickly proven as false and fabricated are prime examples of black propaganda gone bad and giving a backlash to the originator.

both  were traced to members of the nationalista party as originators. the two sources of the first bogus psyche report according to abs-cbn were from members of the nationalista party and the second most recent one is guido  delgado, former National Power Corporation president and villar supporter.

why in the world  delgado called  a press conference on a psyche he was not sure was real is something we cannot comprehend.  delgado called the press conference to release it to the media and asked them to verify its authenticity. it does not take rocket science to figure out that if his psyche report was proven to be bogus, it will for sure backfire on  the villar campaign, not to mention blotch his name as the idiot who released the bogus psyche report.

we assume that being a supporter, he intends to help manny villar get elected. but because of what he did, he actually hurt the villar campaign rather than help it. he did not  hurt noynoy aquino in any way, in fact aquino comes out here as victim of an injustice but he did solidify the villar campaign’s image as the doer of evil.

the bogus psyche reports, two of them, both traceable to manny villar’s political party goes back to rest on trust or in this case the withdrawal of trust on a candidate. the C-5  corruption controversy may have not been proven as true in the minds of voters, but it did put a question mark of trust in the minds of voters.

the addition of villarroyo to that for sure put in a bigger question mark of trust if not an outright suspicion of corruption on villar in the minds of voters. trust is something the filipino people have completely removed from arroyo, the country’s president.  surveys show us that arroyo’s trust ratings have always been on the negative from quarter to quarter since the poll have been started. next to corruption and performance rating, trust is one of the most major negatives of arroyo.

with the bogus psyche reports  traceable to villar (one idiot even came out in the open), trust was also removed by the people. trust was what arroyo lost in the hello garci scandal. at the start of the scandal, she kept denying all of it. but when things got pretty intense and the outcry just ready to explode, she eventually admitted she did  have the “hello, garci” talk. that alone got all of us to remove trust on arroyo. it did not matter that arroyo apologized on national tv for her hello garci sin, trust once removed is gone forever.

and that is probably one of the lessons that villar will learn from this whole episode. when the people removed its trust on him, everything and anything that he did afterwards the people will always be suspicious of. it does not help that he not only did things that made us question trusting villar, he did things that told us not to trust him.  having bogus psyche reports told us that in a most eloquent manner.

at some point, most specially in the last few weeks of the campaign, the villar campaign we think has lessened to a large degree if not completely stopped generating goodwill among the voters.  instead of goodwill, the villar campaign with it’s efforts at black propaganda generated mistrust and suspicion both from their own doing and as a result of the backlash of what they have been doing.

the juan ponce enrile and erap estrada expose on the VLL-PSE scandal is one example of  how backlash has hurt the villar campaign.

estrada embarked on the expose at this late stage of the campaign as they probably agreed with our assessment that of all the presidentiables, villar’s supporters are the most susceptible to being pirated.

read previous posts:

• erap estrada attacks Vulnerable Villar for the election win
• manny villar shows vulnerability – villar’s voter base an open path to victory for laggards
• manny villar pulled down by C-5 corruption, next to be pulled down by mother of all corruption – the arroyos

enrile on the other hand did it as a backlash from their previous fights in the senate on the C-5 corruption scandal. together with jamby madrigal, enrile was one of the key figures in the C-5 probe in the senate.  we suppose enrile just could not let it go that villar got away with it at the senate. he just felt he needed to get to villar one last time and this time it will also help estrada, his party mate.

the fact is all the negative campaign thrown at noynoy aquino has not worked at all and there is a long list of these things from almost all sorts of topics and angles.  it is a laundry list from the personal to public, from the intimate, the mundane up to the serious.  but with all of that, none has actually stuck  nor has it hurt aquino.

this should have been realized by the villar campaign a long time ago. aside from not learning this lesson, the villar campaign, and perhaps this is the biggest blunder of them all,  has forgotten that what got manny villar to rise to tieing aquino at front runner status in the polls was positive campaigning, not negative campaigning.

manny villar rose to tie aquino in the polls behind a large dose of good advertising, good strategies and good events and all of them were positive.  all these efforts put villar in a good light and all of them ignored and did  not even mention his opponents. changing that strategy to what it is now, close to the ending of the campaign, to negative campaigning and black propaganda is hurting the chances of manny villar to win the presidency.

in a “good vs evil” election, villar unfortunately moved to the side of evil from his previous side of good.

~~~mindscape landmark~~~
carlo arvisu

manny villar risks heart attack for his 86 year old mom for political gimmick

we were ready to have a heart attack of our own as we we were watching this news clip of  the “press conference” of manny villar’s mom on national tv. while  the announcer did not say so, we were waiting in horror a scene where mom manny villar will have a cardiac arrest right on tv. we saw the tears, heard her voice breaking in between sobs and we saw the pain as she talked about the problems of her son in his political run to be president. it was very close to watching a horror movie where death was certain.

why on earth did manny villar do this to her mom?

we had sympathy for mom manny villar but we did not feel any sympathy at all for manny villar the presidentiable. we only felt loathing for bringing his mom to this kind of pain and  humiliation,

lolas are beautiful people. mom manny villar is a very beautiful lola. in her face is the beauty of old age and wisdom. from her, we were expecting joy and countless words of wisdom.  but  that was not what we saw on  national tv.

what we saw on tv was her children, the sisters of manny villar and most probably manny villar himself making their mom do these awful things for political gain.  we do not think it was something mom manny villar wanted to do. she looked a lot smarter than that. we think it was her children who made her do it.  

one of manny villar’s sister even defended the action by saying noynoy aquino had also used his mom in his political campaign as if it could be compared. noynoy’s mom and dad were the first politicians before noynoy, not only that both are national heroes, one martyred, the other bringing back glory and pride to the country.  noynoy had no choice about that. they would be brought into the picture whether he liked it or not.  that is not at all the case with mom manny villar.  there is no comparison between the two.

we think at the very least, what they had mom manny villar do was in very bad taste. it did not build any goodwill for manny villar at all.  the villar sisters and manny seem to relish torturing and humiliating their mom  just to win this election.

is richard gordon from outer space?

we thought it was an interesting idea that the gordon-fernando presidential team called themselves “the transformers” at the start of the campaign. it was a name that many, specially the young know about coming behind the just released hollywood sequel hit movie with the same name.

gordon, together with his running mate fernando kept talking about the idea of the pair of them being transformational candidates and a pair that was blessed with action and political will.

or so we thought that was what they meant.

with recent developments and actions of gordon, we now think it is very possible gordon was not just referring  to the hollywood movie animation characters, it’s very possible he was referring to himself as coming from outer space, just like the transformers.

gordon seems to live in in his own world, created exclusively by him, populated exclusively by him.

he has taken the path of don quixote, going against the windmills of media, front runner villar, survey firms and tv stations.

we are in search of answer on why gordon seem to be on  a perpetual loop of spending time and energy on such small minded issues when the biggest issue facing his political career is still before him, right in his eyes – he is losing the presidential election.

gordon, to our huge disappointment, is getting no more than 2% in the polls and it’s just a few weeks to go until election time. we are disappointed as we like godron very much. we thought he has the guts and the energy to the right things for the country. we were also expecting his ratings will surge to a good double digit number, pulling away from teodoro who is in fourth and  becoming the dark horse in this election, his poll ratings simply puts him in the dark, winning over the likes of villanueva, madrigal, perlas and de los reyes.

we even scaled back that expectation. from being a dark horse to win the election, we said he will at the end get more votes than teodoro. but even that hugely scaled down expectation will not happen on earth. we don’t know if outer space holds elections, so we can’t comment on it.

where is richard gordon? we don’t know either. he seems to be out there somewhere creating, actually forcing upon us issues that are non-issues but forcing us and the media to make them issues.

he may have a point on ad spending, suing SWS and Pulse Asia and charging villar offered him a bribe to withdraw from the campaign even though it did not make sense that villar will make an offer to him when his ratings are way down,  but do these things matter to others, like the voters?

rather than waste his time and brain cells on these small mind issues, he should instead spend them on issues that will get him elected or even on the not so small matter of getting funds for his campaign, something he obviously do not have a lot of.

we think he has been doing these earth outwardly things to get media attention. he probably figures the way to get out of 2% in the polls is to get media exposure. he knows media exposure is his problem. so he drums up this tiny issues to get media to interview him.

it’s a fine objective but he has forgotten to look at what he is being transformed into by his action. these are issues with no legs. these will get him one day, two days at the most in media coverage. more importantly,  he will be building a brand image, but it will be one that is not suitable for a president. bottom line – it will not get him elected. it will be sending the wrong message, not like saying “ET, phone home.”

the transformation of richard gordon

what he is doing is reminding people he is a marginalized candidate out there in space desperately trying to crash unto earth’s atmosphere and hopefully landing in the philippine’s presidential election.

our favorite  of gordon is this abs-cbn tv partol world video where the topic gordon wanted to whine about was poor or lack of media coverage of hiss events. he was at one of the domestic airports to go to a public meeting and there was only one media person covering the event. they stopped walking for awhile and the lady reporter started to interview him.

gordon launched on the topic of lack of media support for candidates like him but at the middle of his statement, the public address system at the airport  gave out a series of announcements that was loud that it muffled gordon and he could barely be heard. gordon was visibly distracted by it. he rolls his eyes, shakes his head and CURSES the PA system announcement right in front of the tv camera.

tv patrol world included it in their report but placed the beeping sound when he cursed.

true enough, gordon is a transformer, one from being human to one from outer space. it’s nice to have your own world, but that will not get him elected president on earth, at the philippines. “gordon, phone home?”

Villarroyo vs Aquinorroyo vs TOPAK : the lessons on words

as expected, new words and meanings have been introduced into our consciousness from this election. unfortunately, not all new words have the same impact as the others.

mar roxas’ “Villarroyo” had the most punch. that word actually stayed in our minds and is now hurting villar’s bid for the presidency.  the word that went first is “C-5”, we think that has become a ghost that haunts in villar’s campaign.

we had written previously that the word C-5  may have given villar an exit door at the senate hearings with  his success of non-appearance at the senate hearings. the issue may have been forgotten at the senate but the people did not forget it.

voters seem to know that once a politician avoids discussion, when one gets it out of the table on a technicality as villar did at the senate, there must be something wrong with it. they even think it must be true.

we have had a lot of examples in our political history on this matter.

the most popular is the little brown envelope that estrada successfully prevented from being opened during his trial at the senate. the brown envelope was supposed to contain documents that would or would not prove that he is jose velarde.  estrada may have been successful in preventing the opening of the brown envelope but he failed in keeping his office at malacanang. that incident sparked an outrage among  the people and through millions of SMS text messages sent through cellphones, the people converged at EDSA once again to oust estrada, EDSA DOS.

gloria macapagal arroyo have had numerous lessons learned on the same thing. the mother of all hide the truth was the “hello garci” controversy. arroyo was the denial queen of  the century when that first came out. with ever increasing pressure and a clamor for truth, arroyo finally gave in and admitted her mistake in national tv and gave her “i am sorry” speech.

that moment was the beginning of all the troubles that arroyo suffered throughout her presidency. survey after survey since that time, her performance ratings kept falling including her “trust” ratings.

unfortunately for the country and for arroyo, that was not the first time the truth was shielded through a technicality. arroyo is the poster woman for hiding the truth as others followed. to mention just a few – the zte-nbn corruption controversy where she successfully prevented neri from testifying in the senate hearings;  the almost yearly attempt to get congress to impeach arroyo, each one thwarted by the technicality of superior numbers in congress.

when roxas coined the word “villarroyo” in a press conference, aquino’s poll ratings were softening if not on an obvious declining trend. the word stuck, people remembered and while aquino’s ratings were not increasing, villar’s rating started to go down.

to get back at aquino,  senator alan peter cayetano, a villar defender (he was at front center defending villar at the senate on the C-5 controversy) coined the word TOPAK  for aquino.  i remember the word but i don’t remember the meaning. i had to do an internet search to know what it meant –Trapos O Pportunists And Kamag-Anak Inc.

the word did not stick on aquino. they even had a full press conference announcing the new word. but it didn’t bite and nobody remembered. we know the intent – it attempts to throw all the bad things into a word – trapo, a supposed deragotory word for politicians to mean traditional politics; opportunist to mean aquino joined the presidential race only because cory  died; and kamag-anak inc to mean cory’s administration was populated by relatives who were corrupt.

all those negatives plus the meaning of the word “topak” which is the slang to mean crazy. this is a reference to the psych report that was released by 2 NP members, cayetano and villar’s political party that was proven to be bogus and fake that they gave to abs-cbn.

why did the word “topak” not stick and fell down to forgettable?

applying advertising principles – 4-in-1 words are 3 words too many. too many meanings, too many words make for a boring word. it also suffers from being forced fit. it is a word that someone forced 4 meanings into one word.  the letters and meanings don’t even exactly match.  it is was just too complicated to understand, thus it became forgettable.

the word “villarroyo” is easy to understand, it’s meaning easy to understand, it is creative and we must say poetic.

the NP has not said the word, but villar and the NP  is trying to coin the word “aquinorroyo”. they are now saying contrary to the villarroyo allegations, it is aquino who has ties with arroyo.

the first time they bounced that off, they enumerated the number of relatives aquino has working for the arroyo administration. that didn’t stick. probably was too superficial a connection and at much lesser degree than the villarroyo charge.

now, as a reaction to recent developments, villar is saying the recent defection of joey salceda, the albay governor and known eco whiz kid economic  adviser of arroyo, to LP is proof of aquinorroyo.

we don’t think that will click either. villar’s NP has been joined by many more prominent officers and members of lakas-kampi than the LP.

there are great lessons to be learned here. one of which answers the question, “What is in a word?”

———-

read other posts:

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

march 2010 SWS poll results – a big red flag is up for manny villar

mar roxas gives a new name – manny villaroyo

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.

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?

the miracle that teodoro’s campaign wants us to believe will happen

we are reacting to these statements made by the teodoro campaign officials about the chances that that teodoro can still win this election.

source: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/nation/view/20100331-261738/Dont-count-Teodoro-out-yet-says-Palace

Don’t count Teodoro out yet, says Palace
By TJ Burgonio
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 07:03:00 03/31/2010

MANILA, Philippines—Though he remains a poor fourth in the surveys, administration standard-bearer Gilbert “Gibo” Teodoro should not be counted out of the presidential race, Malacañang said Tuesday.

“There’s no reason for anyone to throw in the towel,” Gary Olivar, deputy presidential spokesperson, told reporters. “People, when they start campaigning, they should be serious about it.”

it is the late stages of the campaign and for teodoro to continue to get only single digits ratings in the poll does say it is time to throw in the towel.

changes in voter attitudes do not happen fast – it takes time for the messages to reach the voters and it takes time for the voters to act on them.

even on that one, there is no assurance that the voters will react  favourably to your message. the other candidates are doing their own efforts which probably already has reached the intended voters.

for those in the laggards group like teodoro, the task is not just to get his message to reach voters, but more than that, it is to convert them to his side.

conversion is one of the most difficult tasks in marketing. conversion is much harder than persuasion.

Olivar advised the public to wait for the results of the next survey, which he said would cover the March 26 kick-off of the local campaign and factor in the political machinery of the administration coalition.

“We have the word of administration party spokespersons and leaders that we will start to see the effects of their grassroots strength after the local campaign started on March 26,” he said.

this is a very tall promise.

the only way teodoro will turn the tide in his favor is he has done something massive, something different and something really smart in the last few weeks since that last poll was taken. we did not see teodoro doing anything earth shaking during the time.

the local “political machinery” is a myth the ruling party keeps saying whenever they are losing in the polls. to them it is really no more than a made up silver bullet.

political machinery did not deliver and in fact was non-existent in the last senatorial election where almost all the opposition candidates won seats and almost all the admin candidates lost.

the reason for the loss? gloria macapagal arroyo. and that reason continue to be present now and in particular with teodoro who has been given the kiss of death.

Party secretary general Francis Manglapus said the surveys would not reflect the true sentiments of voters until 10 days before the end of the campaign period, when the electorate had made a firm choice.

“This thing is far from over,” he said by phone.

Manglapus, who said he doubted the “science” behind surveys, agreed that the surveys had failed to take into account such factors as “command vote” and “regional strength.”

surveys capture voter sentiments at the moment of the survey. have several survey points and you can connect them to form a trend. the trend for teodoro is not a good thing.

“command vote” and “regional strenght” are cute new words to say “political machinery” which as we have said previously is a myth.

it is strange that the impact of political machinery is being portrayed here like a switch or a faucet where it’s effects are felt only when it is switched on.

these local officials who are supposed to form the political machinery has always been in their locality from the very beginning. why has their impact not been picked up by the polls? it appears they have not been doing anything and will only start on the official start of the local campaign.

if the impact of the local machinery is not being felt now, it will not be felt 2 months from now during the election.

“We just started to send out our message last Friday,” he said, referring to the start of the local campaign. “We’re just starting to crank the machinery.”

if this is true, then this party is in trouble for it’s mismanagement and poor strategizing in this election. they knew from the very beginning that teodoro was an underdog in this election. knowing that, the smart manager should have started this much earlier.

Manglapus, however, conceded that the delayed move to air advertisements on television and radio contributed to Teodoro’s poor ratings. He disclosed that the party would step up the airing of these ads and the road shows.

the problem with teodoro’s adveritsing is not just being late in airing them. first of all, we disagree – they were not late at all. they were aired at  about the same time as the other front runner aquino.

the problem with teodoro’s ads is that they were bad commercials and that they do not have enough money to air them. ad people will tell you, however, that even if teodoro had the same amount of money villar ad, it will not help at all since the ads are weak.

“The election is 40 days away, and the local campaign has just started. Now the real movement and growth of our campaign by leaps and bounds will be seen,” he said.

this is fine IF teodoro do not have competition. teodoro’s campaign is not in a vaccum. he competes with other presidentiables. so it will not happen.

the teodoro campaign needs a large dose of reality.

march 2010 SWS poll results – a big red flag is up for manny villar

with just a few weeks left in this campaign, manny villar’s rating in the most recent SWS poll should be taken as a huge ref flag being raised on the villar bid for the presidency. this is the first time that we are seeing villar’s rating take a dip. it has been consistently going up over the months.

coming at this late stage is particularly worrying as it leaves very little time for the campaign to first find out what is causing it and equally important to do something about it.

villar has tied aquino as front runner only after many months of campaign activities and millions of advertising peso way ahead of the official start of the election campaign. this front runner status did not come easy for villar. now having such a short time to recover is cause for worry.

we think it is the C-5 controversy that is causing this weakness in villar’s poll rating. it is finally catching up on him. it does not help that aquino, his co-leader started airing tv ads that were single minded on corruption.  those ads of aquino created a very clear contrast between the two campaigns.

the road to recovery for villar lie exclusively on this – finding out what is causing the deterioration in the poll ratings. not getting that right will make his efforts worthless. they need to do something very different in the next few weeks left in this campaign. doing more of the same will not help villar, it will even be counter productive.

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

richard gordon – “who needs celeb endrosers?.” he does!

brave words from richard gordon – he says “I don’t need endorsers.”  actually, he does need endorsers for his political campaign as he is trailing badly in the polls. he had a going-in problem, he started very late compared to the other presidentiables. he also sounded very tentative before the start of the campaign which disallowed him to build some momentum in his campaign.

don’t get us wrong – we like richard gordon. we think he is a viable option to the leaders in this campaign. but for him to say these things we think is really double speak or making excuses for his own inability to have endorsers in this campaign.  

gordon is a master of media and the brand image. he knows how it works and he knows how to make it work. he did that when he was the department of tourism. he was a huge success with his WOW Philippines campaign.  gordon is one of the more creative and media savvy national leaders. the only other person who can match him is senator juan flavier with his well loved  “DOH It” campaign.

this election is particularly a media bruising campaign with the heavy and early advertising campaign that villar launched a few decades ago. aquino may not have the same amount of mega ad dollars to spend but he shot up to dominant front runner on the strength of crazy brand image.

with the two leading contenders in this election on top due to strong advertising and stronger brand images, gordon who is languishing in the polls will need more than himself and brave but empty words to win in this election.

mass consumer advertising in this country puts celeb endorsement as the formula for successes. i would say close to 80% of the ads we see on tv uses celebrity endorsements from all types of brand and services. the need for celeb endorsements is no different for presidentiables.

this statement of gordon got him some media play but if he actually sticks to his statement, an election win is questionable for gordon.