Help make city attractive to investors

HELP improve the image of Mandaue City to attract more investors.

This was Mayor Jonas Cortes’ challenge to marketing students who attended this year’s 3rd Student Marketing Convention at the J Center Mall.

“My challenge is for you to change the world, one idea at a time. The place is here and the time is now,” said Cortes in his speech delivered by Lawyer Pat Acabodillo.

Cortes, now on his second term as Mayor of Mandaue City, said that in the past, people held a negative perception of the city despite it being a highly industrialized city.

He said it would soon be the role of branding and communication experts, which these marketing students would soon become, to help in branding the community

positively.

“Mandaue City is an industrial hub in Cebu, we are a highly-industrialized city yet people’s perception was negative. In order to get investors both foreign and local, this perception has to change,” he said.

VOLUNTEERISM

Cortes was referring to the erstwhile misapprehension that Mandaue City was not a business-friendly city.

He addressed this issue by letting everybody help in changing this negative perception by encouraging volunteerism among the Mandauehanons.

He cited the I Am Mandaue movement, which was launched last April with the purpose of encouraging Mandauehanons to take part and contribute in building a city of character that would take pride in its culture and heritage.

Aside from that, the city government has recently implemented different infrastructure improvement projects like roads and state-of-the-art traffic lights as a step to “show to the world that we are a globally competitive city.”

Cortes said that to achieve all these, information made available through effective communication is vital.

INFORMED CITIZENS

Vice President Jejomar Binay in his speech delivered for him by Shiela Salvador Uy, said that communication and branding is very important not only to the private sector like the businessmen but also to the government.

“Keeping the citizens informed spells the difference in achieving a truly participative roadmap towards nation building,” he said.

The 3rd Student Marketing Convention is an annual two-day event organized by the University of San Carlos in partnership with the Association of Marketing Educators (AME).

This year’s theme is “Globalized Marketing: MARCOM, a Magnet for Success in Business,” which aims to educate students of all major educational institutions in Cebu and neighboring provinces about the latest trends in marketing communication.