Filipino pride sparkled like the sunlit seashore at “Galing Pilipinas: Championing Philippine Creativity at MAD STARS,” at the SIGNIEL Busan in South Korea. As part of the entire Galing Pilipinas initiative organized by adobo Magazine which celebrated the Philippines as the festival’s first-ever Country of Focus in its 19-year history, a conference featuring marketing and creative heavyweights: BBDO Guerrero’s David Guerrero, Jayme Headquarters’ Merlee Jayme, and Unilever’s Dennis Perez.
These speakers highlighted the excellence of homegrown Filipino talent, projecting the unsung cleverness and unmatched resourcefulness of our people— from the high mountains and deep oceans of the Philippines to the far corners of the world. The first speaker was Unilever Philippines Beauty & Wellbeing Head of Marketing Dennis Perez and his presentation, “Culture-Led Marketing: Creating Meaningful Worlds,” dissected the importance of immersing in culture for authenticity.
Culture-led marketing does create meaningful worlds
Beginning with the Filipino folklore, Malakas at Maganda, which features two characters coming out of a split bamboo tree and is also known as the origin story of Filipinos, Dennis Perez posed the idea of how culture is deeper than what we see on the surface, and how understanding that can yield brands that people would genuinely want to know, participate in, and belong to.
He shared that he once heard a speaker say that culture is now the most overused buzzword in marketing.
“Maybe that’s true if all we do is raid culture for creative ideas or inspiration. But we all know culture is far deeper than that,” he continued.
“Culture allows people to connect. It allows people to find meaning and purpose. Instead of reading culture merely to stay on trend, we should look at culture as a way to create brand worlds that are meaningful to the people we want to speak to.”
He went on to itemize the three pillars that uphold culture-led marketing: cultural positioning, social-first marketing, and culture intelligence.
He explained that cultural positioning is “understanding who we are as a brand, how that brand shows up in culture, and most importantly, why people should care.”
Second, he defined social-first marketing by what it is not.
“It’s not an influencer marketing strategy. It is not about moving your entire media budget from television to digital. It is not about being platform-first. And it is definitely not trendjacking. Social-first marketing is about seeing your brand through culture and bringing that to life through content and experiences the culture actually shares. When you are able to do that, that’s what we call world-building,” he added.
Last was cultural intelligence, which he described as “knowing how culture is evolving and also living it.”
Dennis closed his presentation by returning to his starting point, the story of Malakas at Maganda: “I personally believe our job as marketers and creatives is to do just that: pick up those little pieces of bamboo and split them open to let culture out.”
Organized by adobo Magazine in partnership with Mad Stars, Galing Pilipinas was made possible through the support of its partners: Department of Foreign Affairs, Republic of the Philippines, Philippine Consulate General in Busan, Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions, DTI – Design Center of the Philippines, Philippine Airlines, Oishi , Papemelroti, Lucky Me!, GUZTO Banana Chips, Lemon Square, GSM Premium Gin, M25, LoudBox Studios, and Think Tank Manila.
READ MORE:
David Guerrero’s seven-step lesson to do more — and still be ultimately creative — with less
Why Filipino ideas travel, according to Pinay creative maven Merlee Jayme
Galing Pilipinas opens in Busan, putting Filipino creativity on the MAD STARS stage
