mar roxas' new tv ad - murang gamot, hindi nagmumura (cheap medicine, not cursing)

mar roxas has a new tv ad. the message of cheaper medicine is good and meaningful but is it the right thing to do for his brand image given his recent "putang ina" (SOB) brand image?

there are tactical and executional errors in this new tv ad. read about it here: http://2010presidentiables.wordpress.com/

senator putang ina - mar roxas' new brand image?

mar roxas, a presidentiable recently uttered words we don't hear on national tv and certainly not from a senator. but he did say it - "putang ina". it has become mar roxas' defining moment. will it stick till election time? and what should the senator do?

this is actually about branding and can fit into WAWAM! but we posted it at the 2010 presidentiables blog, the spin-off blog where we have placed everything about politics and the philippine election.

these words of mar roxas puts miriam defensor to shame. she sounds like a saint now compared to roxas. president bush had his own defining moment. but he came out well of it. mar roxas did not. what should mar roxas do?

read about it here: http://2010presidentiables.wordpress.com/

tide detergent's mr. palengke tv commercial - part 2

senator mar roxas in this tide detergent commercial did not mention the tide brand name even once. he also did not touch the product and and in fact his only interaction with tide was when he pointed to the price discount on the pack.

is it a tide detergent tv commercial? hell, yeah! is it a product endorsement tv ad by the nationally elected senator? hell, yeah!

there is no mistaking - mr. palengke appeared in the tide commercial and is endorsing the product. why else would you display such huge bags of tide, standing up with the tide logo clearly seen? i don't think you will ever see any store in the palengke where they display tide that way and certainly not in front of the store where it contains nothing but giant tide packs. the way tide was displayed and the shelf itself is simply not done in the palengkes.



this is not tide's brandsell advertising. in the world of p&g advertising, this is considered as a tactical value advertising. it's meant to sell tide's large packs and promote big purchases among consumers in the palengke.

what? wait a minute. mr. palengke in a palengke promoting big pack purchases? something is very wrong about that!

first of all, detergent purchase habits says most consumers buy small packs for lower cash outlay. also, the palengke is where most DE and some lower C socio-eco users go to for their daily needs, and most of them go to the palengkes very often because they do no have the money to buy in bulk, thus the consumer practice is small price but more frequent purchases.

and the above is where we move in to a new topic - this is not just a product endorsement ad, it is actually a political campaign ad.

promoting large priced purchases for bulk detergent products is simply alien to the palengke goers. it's consumers who go to supermarkets who do that, but hardly is that legitimate purchasing habit for those who shop in palengkes. very few palengke goers can afford large pack purchases, in fact it is in the palengke where you can buy literally a spoonful of anything, placed in small plastic bags. you can actually buy condiments and cooking needs in small plastic bags good for one cooking. for an advertising purist, you can argue this commercial is off strategy.

the fact that the mr. palengke, senator mar roxas commercial is situated in a palengke means only one thing - it's a political ad.

but p&g is not foolish. they will not intentionally and knowingly air an off strategy commercial. being off strategy in p&g is a mortal sin that will get you fired the next minute you say it. i am certain they have done extensive consumer research on this tv commercial - from the choice of the talent to a full blown advertising pre-airing test and i bet they found that while this commercial is meant to be tactical, it has powerful brandsell characteristics.

is it a WAWAM!? it's not entirely a WAWAM! for tide detergent. mr. palengke has excellent credentials and a huge following. it's also not a WAWAM! for senator mr. roxas. he is getting national tv exposure highly consistent with his positioning as the mr. palengke. and for free! the media money behind it is being paid for by p&g.

again, is it a WAWAM!?

yes, it's a WAWAM! for the filipino people and it's soul. we can rationalize it all we want. we can take it down to technicalities like no brand name was said, but the fact remains, like judas, several pieces of silver worth millions of pesos in talent fee was exchanged for integrity, pride, honesty and honor in a nationally elected public office.

mr. palengke goes labandera - is it a product endorsement ad or a political ad part 1

from a PDI news article:

"Sen. Manuel “Mar” Roxas II, who once pushed the detergent brand Tide,denied doing any product endorsements: “But I didn’t endorse. I didn’t say that
the public should buy a product, nor did I hold any product. And I did not say that it was better than the others. It’s a public service announcement saying that all product sellers should be true to consumers.”

let's get this out of the way first before a discussion on the merits of senator roxas' tide tv commercial.

the above statement is an empty rationalization of the endorsement ad senator roxas did for tide detergent. it's lawyer speak that's building a wall of semantics to have some good things around it to have some things to defend something bad.

of course the tv commercial is an endorsement ad. he doesn't have to hold the product, he doesn't even have to say anything, it's enough for his face to be in the commercial and that automatically makes it an endorsement tv ad of tide detergent.

aside from that, the fact that he got several million pesos as talent fee obviously makes it an endorsement ad.

will tide detergent, a leading detergent brand pay him millions to appear in that commercial for public service? who is he kidding? tide detergent is one of the most competitive detergent brands in the market. it is manufactured by procter & gamble, the inventor of the "brand management" system and one of the savviest marketers in the world. they will NOT get mar roxas to appear in their tv commercial for reasons other than selling cases of tide detergent. not only did they pay senator mar roxas a handsome talent fee, they are spending hundreds of millions of pesos to air the tv commercial. there is nothing that tide detergent nor procter & gamble does that is not about selling more cases of its products.

next in WAWAM! - is the senator mar roxas tide detergent commercial all worth it?

senator mar roxas tide tv spot

here is one of those tv ads - is this a product endorsement ad or a political ad?

this is what senator mar roxas has to say on this tide tv spot:

Sen. Manuel “Mar” Roxas II, who once pushed the detergent brand Tide, denied doing any product endorsements: “But I didn’t endorse. I didn’t say that the public should buy a product, nor did I hold any product. And I did not say that it was better than the others. It’s a public service announcement saying that all product sellers should be true to consumers.”

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20080528-139254/Villar-cracks-whip-on-senators-in-ads

this is next in WAWAM!