OgilvyOne Manila - PR 101, lesson #1 getting press conferences to work for you : part 3

memo to OgilvyOne manila:

for your information:

this was the statement in that press release that made me laugh and doubted its content: "Digital marketing has moved from being "niche and new" to being "mass and mainstream."

this was a newspaper article published in the philippines by the philippine daily inquirer coming from a press conference held in manila. that was essentially what was in the headline and is in the first paragraph of the article.

there was no way i was going to believe that. my eyes popped!

85% of the philippine population belong to the DE socio-eco class, 50%+ live below the poverty line and digital marketing has moved from being niche and new to mass and mainstream? who are we kidding here?

this is a market where "tingi" reigns supreme! the philippine market practically invented this new sku called "tingi" where we can buy a single stick of cigarette or practically one spoonful of cooking oil and one spoonful of soy sauce from the palengke. the philippine market has practically taught the rest of the world what one-use packaging and sku mean!

how in the world did digital marketing jump to mass and mainstream? what miracle was hurled at the philippines? somebody gave the pinoy masa, 85% of the population , computers and made the internet available in all homes? when did that happen?

of course "digital marketing" is not just computers and the internet, but that's the core of what digital marketing is all about. cell phone or specifically SMS, is the only widely used digital form in the philippines and can be argued as masa, all the others are still at their infancy. and the reason is simple - most of the population have very little income to afford anything other than today's food and transportation expenses.

so, OgilvyOne manila wants to leverage or make something out of the visit of the president of the asia pacific to manila. what could they have done?

first, do not make the asia pacific president talk about topics that are not relevant and meaningful to the philippine market.

not even topics that will not happen in the next ten years.

make the asia pacific president talk about something relevant and meaningful to the philippine market. things like:

• how small digital markets evolved to being large digital markets
• the asian psyche and how well it fits into the digital world
• the pinoy passion of SMS and how that can be transformed into the true digital world
• case studies of how digital marketing helped brands succeed
• new technology and thinking that OgilvyOne has that can be used in the philippines

that's just a few and i suppose you get my drift.

if those are boring and not worthy of a press conference, perhaps you should have not called a press conference at all.

yours truly,

WAWAM!