Like Chickenjoy & other ‘ad-manac’

The new tourism secretary, true to his advertising expertise, has a way with words. His communication skills shone through with his initial meeting with the Malacañang press.

Newly appointed Tourism Secretary Ramon Reyes Jimenez Jr. said:

“Job No. 1 is to galvanize the DoT staff into an honest-to-goodness selling unit. Because that is really our job, we are actually tindero (salesmen).

“When you think about it, it’s not really what we think about our own campaign. It’s what the world would think about it.

“We are one of the top 10 most beautiful countries in the world. There is no reason we won’t succeed.

“As in any industry or any group, you’ve got to get people to look at something larger than themselves. We’ve got to get them to look at the potential and the opportunities.

“So, job No. 1 is to get the product itself to believe in itself. Once we get the Filipino people excited about tourism, then they will in fact attract the world. Like I said, it is an area of excellence for us; we just have to put our minds to it.

“Like you, we live a life of deadlines. I’m very big on deadlines. You tell me you deliver on Friday, I will expect you to deliver on Friday. That work ethic will probably carry through wherever I go. I cannot afford to… like they say, the doctor’s mistakes are in the cemetery, but my mistakes in advertising are on Channel 2 every night. So, I have to be on time and I have to be right all the time.

“The best marketing communication campaigns anywhere in the world are really hinged on the simplicity of a proposition. It is not all about infrastructure. It is really about a single-mindedness of image.

“If it is about infrastructure, then you would imagine that in North America the most visited place next to the United States would be Canada because the infrastructure would be the same, right? That’s not true. Next to the US, the biggest draw is Mexico because the image of Mexico, even now in your minds, is very, very clear. You can see the tacos and the hats and the ponchos, etc., even if all I said was Mexico. That has not happened for our country yet, and that’s what we have to create.

“I have my own notions about how beautiful my country is and all the wonderful things I can say about it, but that’s not what marketing is all about. I have to look at the resources that are available; what we can promise the world starting tomorrow.

“My job is to persuade everyone to dream about what we can have tomorrow.”