Hassles of Advertising
If we were to apply the new advertising rules and concepts—as defined by industry experts featured in our Cover story—to Philippine airports, surely, no advertising company would dare sign a contract to promote Philippine airports.
To start with, advertising companies obviously prefer clients with good, sellable products. Philippine airports are the least of these. Maybe, it will be an entirely different story if we talk about the NAIA Terminal 3. I was able to enter the terminal years ago for an inspection tour and I must say that that facility made me feel like I was at the San Francisco International Airport. This is why it is such a pity that the NAIA 3 has been caught in a legal and political quagmire, with still no definite resolution in sight. Although the government has launched a grand plan to improve airport facilities in the country—which is the topic of our Agenda section story—it remains to be seen if the NAIA 3 will really, finally, begin operating this year.
Also worth promoting are the country’s business process outsourcing and seaweed production industries, both of which are featured in our Industry section. These are highly sellable domestic services and products that have earned the country global recognition. But more than the recognition, these industries bring practical benefits that the country hopes to continue to enjoy. The BPO industry is seen to bring in over US$12 billion in revenues and over one million jobs by the year 2010. The seaweed industry produced in 2005 some 1.34 million metric tons of fresh seaweed worth more than P6 billion. Our feature points out, however, that there are problematic areas in seaweed production that need to be addressed immediately if the country is to retain its standing in the global seaweed market.
In our Cover story, Campaigns and Grey’s Yolanda Ong believes that today’s consumers are harder to please because they have so much to choose from. They are highly cynical about ads’ promises and product benefits (probably because they have been cheated in the past). Because of easier access to information, they are more discriminating, and given a choice, they prefer products or services of companies that have social programs. For his part, McCann Erickson’s Nandy Villar points out that precisely because consumers have access to so much information, their attention is extremely fragmented. Advertisers have to work around these challenges in order to sell the messages they want to put across to consumers.
We would like to thank Yoly Ong for accommodating our request to pose for our cover, not in her usual business attire, and personifying how the advertising industry has redefined itself to keep pace with consumers’ changing lifestyles.
Happy reading!
NONETTE C. CLIMACO
Publisher & Editor-in-Chief |
