MANILA, PHILIPPINES–On the evening of June 4, as prestigious honors were given out to the region’s most creative and effective brands with purpose at the 2019 Asia Pacific Tambuli Awards, another top award was handed over to one of the Philippines’ top marketeers in the industry today.
The “Chief Marketing Communications Officer of the Year” award was introduced by Paolo Mercado, Senior Vice President for Marketing, Communication & Innovation at Nestlé Philippines, and the 2018 recipient of the sought-after title. He stated that the distinctive title is given to someone who “…has demonstrated leadership in achieving marketing communication excellence and profitability for the organization while at the same time promoting values through marketing communication programs for the benefit of communities and society.”
With a criteria as substantial as this, it goes without saying that whoever receives such an honor must be a man of a certain caliber — one that was duly met by Jollibee Global CMO, Francis Flores.
@francjs, @Jollibee Global CMO is named @APACTambuli‘s 2019 Chief Marketing Communication Officer of the Year! #apactambuliawards2019 pic.twitter.com/fkKZ0KJ64G
— adobo magazine (@adobomagazine) June 4, 2019
In his acceptance speech during the awards night, Flores shared the journey he undertook to become the marketeer he is today. From job rejections to going back and forth HR offices to finalize his position, Flores’ focus on his dream never swayed. He was determined to fulfill his purpose at the time: to succeed in marketing and give his family the most comfortable life they could have.
He started his marketing journey in Unilever as a Sales & Marketing Trainee where he invested years of his life to learn and master the trade. It was in this post that he was trained to believe in the importance of defining and communicating a brand’s purpose because “consumers don’t just fall in love with the brand’s products, but also what [the] brand stands for” –a lesson he learned from Noel Lorenzana, the Unilever Marketing Director at the time.
A few years later he realized another purpose he had to fulfill. “I wanted to be a marketeer who will help Filipino brands become global brands that we Filipinos could be proud of”, Flores added during his speech.
This, then, opened his career to working for one of the Philippine’s biggest multinational fast food chains and a household staple for all Filipinos: Jollibee.
Now it has been 12 years since he first started creating campaigns for the brand and transformed its marketing communication efforts to be the viral phenomenon showcasing stories of the Filipino people that it is today. It was under his leadership that the highly successful “Kwentong Jollibee” series was launched which has won the brand multiple local and international awards like the Kidlat Awards, the APAC Effie Awards, and the Tangrams, to name a few.
