mabuhay marketing

The effectiveness of a marketing campaign is not evidenced by how in-your-face and conspicuous it is, but by its ability to elicit an emotional response from its intended audience. Memory and longevity is always rooted on emotional response, and employing an approach that affords this cross-pollination between audience and the intent of the message makes for a more successful advertising strategy.

The most effective marketing campaigns are those that are honest, direct and approachable. They are self-evident and easily recognized, the message has clarity, and is not muddled by aggrandizing and distracting profundities. In fact, some campaigns are so crass and tongue-in-cheek that although its initial cognition renders it kitschy, its action on the audience is lasting and definitive.

Tourism is a double-edged sword. It has to both appeal to the local market; thus relating to their sense of nationalistic pride and ownership, as well as the foreign visitors, an aspirational sense of discovery of various conceptions of exotica and escapism. Risking tokenism, tourism is always a question of balance against alienating the locals, and misrepresenting reality.

The newest campaign of the Department of Tourism threads this line ever so cautiously, and has been called a number of calumnious names including knock-off, rip-off, uninspired, mediocre and outright lame. But one has to consider that although it has been lambasted copiously, there is a sublime genius in this seemingly simple slogan. Other than the fact that it's inception is too self-evident and simplistic, it is rather cogent, trenchant, and focused on the pathos. The myriad of permutations and interpretations it has garnered both online and in the media is a clear indication of its ability to elicit an emotional response.

What's innovative of this campaign is its positioning. Its innately ambiguous placement of the ubiquitous word “fun” capitalizes on a trait that is ingrained, emboldened and inculcated in Filipino culture – creativity. By being naturally suggestive, it allows the target market a rather reflective and introspective rendition of what to them is fun, and what for them makes Philippines as such. It reins in the strength and reach of the online community, social media and our expansive imagination, and this ensures that the campaign spreads across the boundaries of culture, denomination and belief. We are imaginative, and brilliantly so, and this loose and laidback slogan captures that quite remarkably by letting us showcase, and explicitly demonstrate this.

The previous “Wow Philippines” tourism campaign was good, effective even, but it was too detached and the locals could not identify with it. The name of the country could easily be replaced with any of numerous. Without a sense of ownership to it, nor the pathos to make it memorable and with recall, no rapport between the public and the campaign could be induced. The succeeding, and failed, “Pilipinas Kay Ganda” campaign was the polar opposite, being too colloquial and endemic to engage the foreign tourism market.

The “It's more fun in the Philippines”campaign may be still be in its infancy for us to generate an educated assessment of it, but even in its puerile state, one can foresee that it is in the cusp of success. Its flexibility for interpretation, openness to a large market demographic for both local and foreign tourism, and the straightforwardness it imbues, affords a paradigm shift of what tourism should be. Rather than focus on the specific and tangible, its interest and recall springboards from an emotional response, a direct correlation with fact that us Filipinos are fun-loving, warm and hospitable people, and that our country offers a brand of fun for everyone, not just the tangible and pedestrian, nor the curio of destinations.

We are what makes our country fun. Because we always find the silver lining even in the most desolate of situations. We make do with with the cards that we're dealt, taking down the house despite the lack of aces. Because we are our own aces. Singular, proud, and innovative. Third world as it may be, we are never in poverty of positivism.