Credibility with the main market

Marketing
Written by Marjorie Teresa Perez / Admix
Monday, 28 September 2009 18:43

The concept of brands acting as cultural creators—doing more than just participating in or representing the culture but actually helping create it—began when Bill Bernbach from DDB proposed the idea that products should be culturally authentic. To achieve this goal, brands had first to disengage from a company’s economic agenda. DDB’s solution was to give products an iconic brand persona.

Its campaign for Volkswagen’s Beetle is a great example. Instead of speaking to people in the paternal, condescending voice that much of the era’s advertising used, DDB created the voice of an honest friend by poking fun at the Beetle in classic ads such as “Think Small.”

The power of the streets and the credibility gained from capturing it have changed the way brands are communicated. Brands now try to emulate the personalities of those found in cultural epicenters. As brands strive for authenticity, a new “real” style of advertising has developed, as illustrated in the marketing-communications campaigns by DDB Group Philippines to clients, which include Smart, PLDT, McDonald’s, Pepsi, J&J, Swift, Unilab and Banco de Oro.

Gil Chua, local group president and CEO, has a dynamic principle: “Better ideas, Better results.” Find the simple story in the product, and present it in an articulate and intelligent, persuasive way. This means that your marketing must now reach all the way back to the innermost levels of your business.

The new era is not just the Web; it is people talking to each other and sharing information. For marketers, this represents a sea change—changing their relationship with customers from monologue to dialogue to conversation, “and the goal for us is to become part of that conversation.”

Guerrillas were springing up all over the agency’s office. They function independently, turning a school of fish within a medium of a high-intensity, creative workplace. Supporting Chua are Roy Santiago as senior vice president and chief operating officer of DDB Philippines; Susan Dimacali as the group’s chief marketing officer and president and CEO for Tribal DDB, Touch DDB and DDB Media; Judd Balayan as group CFO; and Merlee Jayme as chief creative officer of DM9-JS.
The third-largest in the industry, DDB Group Philippines is comprised of 190 talents from independent agencies with specializations in various communication disciplines: DDB Philippines, Tribal DDB, DDB Media, Touch DDB, DM9-Syfu, Adverb PR and Lava Communications. DDB Group Philippines is one among DDB Worldwide’s 200 offices serving 90 markets globally, under the holding company OMNICOM. Its vision: to become the most admired and respected marketing-communications group in the Philippines on the basis of talent resource, creative service and business results.
Known for being a maverick in the industry, Chua pioneered the concept of “media agency of record” in the Philippines in 1989, when his team won and handled media planning and planning for the relaunch of Cosmos Bottling Co. (Sarsi, Pop Cola, Cheers), although the company was a client of another agency. Under Chua’s leadership, DDB’s business in the market grew exponentially, with strategic expansions from advertising to new services in related disciplines. He is also known for his ability to build the kind of unshakeable client relationships that his counterparts only dream of.
The agency’s advertising campaigns for Smart bagged three awards during the Tambuli Awards 2009. These awards reaffirm the company’s commitment to practicing accountable marketing communications that upholds the ideals of excellence, nobility of purpose and social responsibility. Smart Buddy’s “Me na Me” advertisement, which stresses the empowerment of subscribers towards self-expression, and Smart Uzzap’s “Bring Me Along” ad, which illustrates the value of communication to friends and loved ones through innovative services, each won a bronze in the Best Established Service Brand category. The Smart Bro Prepaid advertisement, which underscores the value of providing broadband for everyone through high-speed, affordable and portable broadband connection, also picked up a bronze in the Best Innovative and Integrated Media category.
For Smart, the Tambuli recognition is more than enough impetus for the company to continue bringing excellent and responsive wireless services to Filipinos, while delivering messages that build values not only for itself and the market, but for Philippine society, as well. Espousing values has always been a corporate practice in Smart and other companies run by PLDT and Smart chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan, who has always believed that success is founded on strong values.
From there, DDB’s marketing and PR campaigns took to the streets, both literally and virtually. Smart Sandbox, Grand Boomerang Best Integrated Campaign during the recent IMMAP Boomerang Awards, spread the message to get people closer to the Sandbox web site throughout the digital universe almost instantly.
“Ultimately, this mobile category for Smart had 100,000 sign-ups in just six months with 4 million visits, and the results keep getting better and better,” enthused Dimacali.
The era of digital connectivity is moving beyond the concept of selling things over and over and toward building communities that flock toward Smart, multiplying quickly and making the brand part of the rhythm of our lives.
The first event of its kind in the country’s wireless-broadband industry, the recent B Free Day, which was in store for students of member-schools of the UAAP and NCAA, was a mega-university blowout of Smart Bro as the collegiate sports season reaches its peak during the final playoffs in the coming weekends.
“When we conceptualized this event, we wanted the youth to associate Smart Bro with things they most enjoy that start with the letter ‘B’ in order to connect it with the word ‘Bro.’ And so the games and activities outside included such ‘B’ things as balloon darts, where you pop different-colored balloons using darts to reveal your prize; the ball toss where you try to make your ball land on especially marked dots to win; the ‘bait the Bro freebies’ where, using a small crane, you try to pick up Smart Bro bear and bunnies inside a glass box; the bailout that’s similar to your typical school-fair jail booth; back massages; plus burgers, beverages and freebies from other sponsors,” said Smart marketing group head Annie Naval.
Three more Smart campaigns that are soon to be launched are on the pipeline, noted Santiago. He not only has a great creative track record handling accounts such as SMB (“Iba ang may pinagsamahan”) and Smart’s “Simply Amazing,” but he is also passionate about music and architectural design.
“We have always been tightly integrated with our clients, and a closer relationship with the digital world as well,” said Santiago, who has 25 years in advertising tucked under his belt and four years as marketing director for United Distillers.
DDB thinks beyond traditional marketing notions like brand persistence and market share. It all starts with widening their vision from the consumer level to the community level, and how they interact with people at this level. McDonald’s “Burger Burger” promotion collaborated with its customers in an even more personal way. McDonald’s ultimate cheeseburger campaign became the popular tagline “Pa-cheeseburger ka naman”—48-percent eyeballs higher on YouTube.
What has changed is that our audience is now in digitally linked masses, not just small cocoons in their living rooms, pointed out executive director Teeny Gonzales. Gonzales handled the McDo “Burger Burger” campaign and McDo “First Love” TVC.
McDonald’s “Burger Burger” earned a silver in the Tambuli Awards as the most effective teen-brand-oriented campaign and finalist for best in market-performance leadership and community service. International awards, likewise, paved the way for this campaign as finalist in the AME Advertising Marketing Effectiveness and bronze (in the outdoor category) for McDonald’s “Clock” in Spikes Asia.
The DDB Group constantly devotes time and talent to support social causes, notably women’s rights and youth empowerment. Among these are the now world-renowned award-winning advocacy campaigns for Gabriela and Ako Mismo.
“The idea was to start a movement. Ako Mismo drives social awareness. The campaign had 87,000 comments in just a week with more than 15,000 media values and 18,000 digital values earned. Numbers kept on growing,” said executive creative director Teeny Gonzales.
Recently honored at the Agency of the Year Awards, which aims to recognize the practice of advertising in the country and identify the benchmarks of excellence among 4As member-agencies, DDB’s stay at the top is buoyed by these elements: delivering business through creativity, aggressive think tanks, propeople philosophy, and that extra push.
“[What is important is that] the opportunity is there because we have a great body of work that we can showcase our clients. But even with those awards, we still don’t forget our client’s business [because] it is a priority,” Chua stressed.
In other words, the higher purpose of marketing and advertising is to understand human nature, and then engage and attract it. Today, in an increasingly interconnected world, these words are truer than ever before.
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In photo: (Standing) DDB Philippines Group president and CEO Gil Chua, executive creative director Teeny Gonzales, Touch DDB managing director Dimples Cruz, SVP and COO Roy Santiago, and (seated) chief marketing officer and president and CEO for Tribal DDB, Touch DDB and DDB Media Susan Dimacali.