Wellmade Inc.'s Speed Babad piolo pascual "musical" tv spot is, well, not well made

we see this tv spot of speed babad (soak) often on tv. they got the media money, but how we wish they took some of it to make a good TVC ad?

this is one more of those no-brains celebrity endorser tv ad where they think all it takes to make a good ad is to simply shove a celebrity's face into the ad and it will generate business for the brand. with so many of these types of celebrity endorser ads in philippine advertising, the conclusion is that the whole industry has lost it's sense of purpose and has forgotten what makes celebrity endorser ads work versus other types of ad formats.

this one has piolo pascual, the country's celebrity matinee idol. yes, that is the first question you ask yourself - what has piolo pascual, a male, got to do with washing clothes. we are not even talking about the washing machine type, we are talking of hand-washing. probably anywhere from 99.0% to 99.99% of clothes washing in this country are done by females.

obviously, this ad has just violated one of the most important principles of celebrity endorser ads by putting a celebrity endorser who do not hold any sort of authority and even experience on the product the ad is selling. the reason they put piolo in that ad has nothing to do with enhancing the brand image or product efficacy, but rather he is in that commercial because he is famous among women. it's using a celebrity endorser for the sake of using one.

this ad fails a second time, please view the ad.

the location of the ad is on a river by the mountains. what???

we see piolo on a raft going to where the women where and throughout the commercial we see mountains and trees on the background. this is not comedy, but the location of the ad made me laugh.

are we to believe piolo travelled miles upon miles on that river on a raft to reach the women? and are women who wash clothes on the river really look like that and dress that way? not only that, they had swimming pool lounge chairs and orange juice with ice up in the river of a mountainous area.

it makes sense that they situate the brand in clothes washing by the river. based on research, a certain percentage of clothes washed in the rural areas are actually done by the river using the water from the river. so from a marketing stand point, that can make sense.

but that legitimate marketing thinking is all thrown out down the river by using piolo pascual and those women looking like that in this commercial. the women all looked liked commercial models or celebrities themselves, something like maybe less than 0.5% of actual women who do hand washing by the river look like.

they also can't expect us to believe that women who look like that, dress like that and most likely belong to the AB socio-eco class actually do hand washing of their clothes (they have washing machines); and that they do it themselves (they have maids to do the machine washing of clothes), and that they do it by the river in the mountains (they rarely go there, to pass through it on their way to their vacation house in baguio)???

this ad has lost all semblance of believability and credibility.

that has been totally lost that i did not want to bother to listen to the copy in the ad. but i had to.

it positions speed babad as the better alternative to hand-washing, to do soaking instead to allow the women to relax and get out of the losyang (frump). they use a common term, "power whitener" as reason why. we are sure that has been used by other detergents in the past, perhaps in the 60s and 70s. (hahaha)

they also use a very common product freight - a magnifying glass showing "dirt" being removed from the microscopic meshes of the cloth. again a device that has been most likely used in the 60s and 70s.

what do we have here? let me count the ways on why we think this is a WAWAM!

• the use of a celebrity endorser who does not contribute to the sale
• the use of women talents who do not at all look like the actual target users, who most unlikely do not hand wash clothes and certainly not do so by the river in the mountains
• the use of a non-original reason why, circa 60s and 70s
• the use of a non-original product demo, circa 60s and 70s

we don't know how and where this ad connects with its target consumers. what a waste of advertising money!

buying philippine stocks online, citiseconline's print ads - lost twin found, but unknown still!

citiseconline, one of the country's online stock market brokers has come up with a second ad to the one that was previously discussed here in WAWAM!

it's a pool-out from the first one, with the same layout, design and under the same strategy, and that includes the same weakness as the first one.

first, the good news: this new ad was released side by side with the first one. the ad placement of the ads were brilliant! both ads appeared in the philippine daily inquirer, august 19 issue.

the first ad was printed on page B4, that's the left side of the double spread and the 2nd ad was placed on exactly the same level on page B5, the right side of the double spread. that was simply excellent media page placement! the media agency deserves a bottle of champagne for such a superb placement.

that placement made the ads look much bigger than what they actually are and were more effective. the ad placements enhanced the creative design of the ads.

the 2nd citiseconline print ad (double click ad to view larger image)

now, the bad news: the 2nd ad, above, was an exact pool-out of the first print ad (below), and that includes the error of the first ad - weak reason why.

in this ad, they featured a female employee, april lee-tan a CFA and citiseconline's head of research. that's a good contrast and pairing to the first one which had a male, juanis barredo, head of investor education.

the first ad failed because it featured a face in the ad who is not known to the intended target audience. barredo conducts seminars for citiseconline clients on technical analysis of stocks, so if you are not a citiseclonline client and even if you are but if you have not attended the seminar, you would have no idea who barredo is and most specially you would not know how good he and what he does.

the role of barredo in the first ad (print ad, below) is to lend credibility or to provide a strong reason why people or a strong permission to believe on why citiseconline's product is a great one. safeguard soap uses PAMET to bolsters their superior skin germ protection claim. other products use doctors, nurses, professionals or authority figures to help convince the target audience the product can deliver it's promise. you believe the claim because as in the case of safeguard soap, you know that PAMET is the authority on germs. the thinking is that it is easier and more convincing if PAMET says a certain product is good in killing germs.

in the citiseconline print ad, nobody knows what kind of authority or credentials barredo has, rendering barredo's inclusion in the print ad as a no-bearing component. it is not contributing anything to the sale.

that same weakness was put into the second ad. just like barredo, the target audience do not really know who lee-tan is. both barredo and lee-tan are being used as "experts" or "authority figures" that nobody recognize now even know about.

the 1st citiseconline print ad (double click to view larger image)

but i can appreciate what they are trying to do with these twin ads. barredo, the Head Of Investor Education is being used as the "teacher" for investors, with the headline "learn how to build wealth -- the easy way!". lee-tan, the Head Of Research, on the other hand is being used as the "expert", with the headline "with expert advice, we make investing simple." ( but that assumes new investors, who are the target audience, know what a research person does in a stock broker company.)

the thinking or intent seem to be somewhat there, but they are not being delivered in it's full power because of a very weak "reason why". this kind of ad and strategy needs one. citiseconline's first print ad may have found its twin, but they are unfortunately still unknown and ineffective.

read all WAWAM! posts on citiseconline here : http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/search/label/citiseconline

buying philippine stocks online - making up your mind on what stocks to buy is the hardest thing to do, even in print ads

anyone who is into stock trading will tell you that one of the hardest if not the hardest thing to do when you invest in stocks is - making a decision on what stocks to buy. you can have all the facts, all the data and the analysis at hand but making up your mind what to buy is a tough one.

and that i think is one of the things they grappled with on that citiseconline print ad. they had a difficult time making up their mind on what they want to do in the ad.

the most fundamental confusion and this has affected the whole ad in a very major way is - is it a "program" or a "investment product" like a mutual fund?


this is not an executional issue, it is a strategic one. and it's possible it goes deeper than an advertising strategic issue but all the way to the root, that of a product strategy issue.

the question citiseconline need to answer is -- what is the product they want to advertise? is it a learning program or is it an investment product? there are very major differences in the way you will advertise something that is a product versus one that is a program.

unless that is clarified clearly, the confusion will always be there.

this confusion shows in the ad - both are talked about in the ad. the headline, footer and the name of the product talks of a program. the body copy and subhead talks about an investment product. that confusion effectively weakened the ad. lack of focus wastes space and does not make for any strong sale on anything.

this confusion has affected another element in the ad - the lack of a strong reason why. this is the second weakness of the ad.

the use of barredo is the "reason why" but it is meaningless to most of the target audience because most of the audience are non-citiseconline clients and therefore do not know who barredo is. barredo is known only to citiseconline clients and in fact even among citiseconline clients, only a few know who he is.

depending on the chosen strategy, they can use as reason why one of the two: (a) why they have a proven way to minimize risks and maximize earnings or (b) how their system teaches clients to become smart and therefor profitable investors.

i do not know exactly what the product they want to advertise, but to me, its obvious the whole ad needs a major rethink. they need to start from square 1 - the product.

as an investor myself, new investment products is a very good thing for the market. there are many people who want to invest into the stock market but do not do so because they find it too daunting and complicated. whatever it is that citiseconline is selling will be good for investors and the market. hopefully it will expand the philippine stock market's user base. and thats good for all investors and the philippine stock market.

now, if only they can fix that ad......

pure essentials : what went wrong

here is what went wrong in the pure essentials relaunch ad campaign - i wonder if they realize it, but based on the print ads, intentionally or unintentionally, they are operating on two very different strategies.

it's possible they only have one strategy but they are probably unaware that they are coming out with ads that are written very differently from each other. another possibility is that the strategy was so poorly written, too complicated and didn't have focus that there are two ways to interpret it. there is even no attempt to achieve some kind of focus on sameness or put enough common denominators in the two print ads.

the mother strategy is about attacking skin dryness for the family. their support or reason why has two components - the celebrity mother who is concerned about her children's skin and the medical professional who is concerned about harsh ingredients in soaps.

the first print ad, a teaser ad that featured the doctor was single-minded on being anti-safeguard and product-centric. while the second, which features maricel laxa as the celebrity endorser-mother who is concerned about her children's skin.

both is supposed to tackle dry skin (it's in the headline) which makes it appear it's a focused strategy, but it really isn't. that can be seen at the end result, the two print ad's contents and brand personality come out very differently.

there is an obvious confusion in these ads. i wonder if it's being caused by a poorly written copy strategy or a very poor interpretation of the copy strategy by the ad agency. one more thing, the advertorial format of the ads is not helping them. an advertorial format allows you to write many paragraphs, theoretically, you can put everything and anything into the ad. and that is exactly what the creatives did. if this was a typical intro or brandsell print ad, you certainly cannot put everything into the ad. the space limitation forces the creatives to be selective and give focus to their writing. don't get me wrong, focus and being on strategy can be achieved even in an advertorial, it's just in this case, weak understanding of the strategy and sloppy writing did them in. i get the feeling the creative director did not clear this ad.

pure essential's anti-safeguard soap war is a dud. and a WAWAM!