SUBIC BAY FREEPORT — By doing good, the advertising industry could thrive in the future, a top advertising executive in South Africa told delegates to the 21st Philippine Advertising Congress (PAC) here Thursday.

Mike Schalit, chief creative officer of Network BBDO South Africa, said the advertising industry should “turn away from cute, clever advertising designed to win awards but don’t do any good in the world.”

“What about the real problems of the world? Like homelessness. What can we do about that?” he asked.

Officials of the Adboard, Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority, and Olongapo and Baguio cities formally opened the 21st PAC on Wednesday night through the Spectrum Trade Exhibit at the Subic Bay Exhibition and Convention Center.

Later, Margot Torres, 21st PAC chair, led the launch of “Brand Aid” and its pioneer project, Ahon, to benefit typhoon victims.

Sustainable development

In his keynote address, Fernando Zobel de Ayala, president of the Ayala Group of Companies, talked about the importance of sustainable development in the country.

Alexandra Prieto-Romualdez, president and chief executive officer of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, welcomed the more than 3,000 PAC delegates during the opening night cocktails that the Inquirer sponsored.

In his talk, Schalit said the advertising industry was “at the early stages of the biggest business movement in the history of the world and … [it] is playing a large role.”

“The question we have to ask ourselves as marketers is, ‘Can creativity change the world for the better?’” he said.

Schalit said the appropriate response was an “emphatic yes” through what he called “goodvertising.”

“Not just charity, it is sustainable,” he said.

South African experience

Schalit cited his firm’s experience in South Africa, where it had to deal with power blackouts because of the dearth of energy supply.

“When this client, Nedbank, came to us, we told them that instead of aiming to move people, we told them [they] should just make change happen,” he said.

The result, he said, was solar-powered billboards that generate not just revenues, but electricity that supplies a school with all the power that it needs.

As a follow up, women artists were also encouraged by a campaign to create plastic bags which were then used to create another series of “green” billboards for the bank.

“We can turn things around. Let’s turn things around. With campaigns like these, developing countries can lead the way,” he said.

Another, albeit unintended result of that campaign, Schalit said was winning the Grand Prix at Cannes.

“It wasn’t made for [the] awards, but it won a Grand Prix in Cannes. We didn’t do it for that reason,” he said.

“The industry is evolving … The biggest award is in your heart—when you see the difference that you make in other people’s lives. Keep thinking,” he said.

Schalit said brands could be more powerful by being generous. “It is the way forward,” he said.

‘Brand Aid’

Schalit said he had seen a sample of this approach, of “goodvertising,” in the Philippines in the form of “Brand Aid.”

“It’s quite humbling what you are doing here in the Philippines. Well done. That’s amazing,” he said. “I wish more countries would be like yours.”

Charmaine Canillas, chair of the Philippine Advertising Board, said Project Ahon (literally, get out of the water; also means lifting oneself)—one of the initiatives under the Brand Aid campaign—was designed to “relieve the suffering of our countrymen who were hit most by the storms.”

She described the tragic events brought about by strong typhoons that hit the country in September and October as “so moving.”

“We saw our weakness and we also saw our strength. Our industry saw it fit to do all that we can for our countrymen and so we had to push on,” Canillas said.

She said that sponsors and media companies supporting the 21st PAC would donate the cost and space of ads to fund the construction of houses for typhoon victims.

“We will donate those funds to the Philippine National Red Cross (PNRC) and they will be the ones to decide to whom these houses will be given and where it will be located,” she said.

Canillas, however, said the proceeds for the Araw Awards, the highlight of the PAC where the best ad campaigns are cited, will go to the PNRC Baguio City chapter.

Digital opportunities

She said over P3 million worth of ticket sales generated from over 3,000 delegates is “guaranteed to go to Baguio,” the original venue of the PAC and one of the typhoon-hit areas in the Cordillera Administrative Region.

Digital media experts who talked about social networking and digital technology before the PAC delegates agreed that opportunities were being generated for companies and people savvy enough to cope with innovations in the digital landscape.

A fast-paced development in technology has created vibrant online communities, but it has also paved the way for people to connect and push common causes in the “real world,” they said.

Dirk Eschenbacher, executive director of the Tribal DDB Asia Pacific, said “a great digital campaign of four years ago had been overtaken by the new stuff. There are profound changes ahead, and you in the Philippines are in the heart of this development.”
Digital marketing in the last five years has seen a “massive amount” of development, he said. “The explosion of digital technology and web platforms make it easier to connect in the digital and real world.”

Fascinating, challenging

Eschenbacher said this was both “fascinating and challenging” to marketers faced with the problem of reaching a huge market.

People online, he said, could be basically categorized into six segments—creators, critics, collectors, joiners, spectators and “inactives” of social content.

“Now, when you create a campaign there should be something for everyone and make them able to build connections with each other. Consumers only download in the past, now they are encouraged to upload. It goes from me to we, encouraging interactivity and building connections online and eventually the real world,” Eschenbacher said.

‘Ako Mismo’ campaign

He cited the “Ako Mismo” campaign, which encouraged Filipinos to make a difference using online and social media as main platforms.

“Real world” events that were organized to achieve the ends of the campaign were coordinated using social media and mobile technology, he said.

The campaign generated at least three million page-views and over 20 million Google searches, and raised P7 million for charities, Eschenbacher said.

Claudio Pinkus, executive chair of Multiply, said his company was built on the “foundation of creating advertising opportunities out of the community that we have created online.”

Low penetration in Asia

“We have only reached a small percentage of that. This is a multibillion-dollar industry,” he said.

Ian Stewart, head of Friendster Asia, cited the still low penetration of these technologies in Asia. “There [is] only 16 percent of Asia’s total population online,” he said.

But even so, Stewart said that “small percentage” already amounted to at least 660 million people online in Asia, “the majority of which use social networking sites to communicate and interact with each other.”

He said the Philippines was different from other western countries because Filipinos went “from Friendster to Multiply to Facebook—jumping from one social networking site and making it dominant for awhile.”