Why can’t school be this much fun all the time? Nearly three thousand students thronged to the SMX last Saturday to an afternoon of fun and learning, the advertising way. The Philippine Junior Marketing Association (PJMA) held “Mad World” its national advertising conference, and it was an eye-opener. In fact, it was a junior advertising congress in the making.
Dwarfed by enormity of the venue, but nevertheless standing tall in the PJMA’s dream, association president Krizia Martha Carriaga welcomed the enthusiastic crowd of her peers. “I am humbled by the students before me, as we fulfill the dream to be able to hold a national advertising congress,” Carriaga remarked.
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Mylene Abiva-Sazon, Philippine Marketing Association president (left), and Krizia Martha Carriaga, PJMA president
PJMA’s “Mad World”, perhaps is an apt description to the speed of innovation overwhelming the industry. However, the “mad” simply does not justice to the organization and logistics that went behind the mounting of a national student convention. The PJMA did well to tap into the talents, pick the brain, so to speak, of veteran industry people. Enter JWT.
Instead of a lecture, JWT Manila CEO, Jos Ortega simply showed a succession of classic ads, award-winners, and naturally, JWT ads. Totally enthralled, the student delegates were treated to TBWACreative Juice’s Cannes award-winning Smooth E mini-series, as well as JWT classics for Ford, Huggies and Kit Kat.
JWT’s global campaign for Stride, a chewing gum known for its long-lasting flavor, was shown using a version from Spain. The advert shows a father spitting out his gum and offers it to his son who is about to depart for college. As the son pops the blob into his mouth, the universal “uggghh” reaction showed just how cross-cultural advertising is.
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Jos Ortega, JWT Manila CEO (center) and Krizia Martha Carriaga, PJMA president (right)
Despite this, however, advertising has gone beyond the traditional. “Advertising is not the advertising as we know it anymore,” Ortega prompts his audience.
Clever fellows, JWT’s Jojo Leonardo, Senior Planner, and Joe Dy, Creative Director requested the audience to turn down their mobiles, quit texting, and concentrate fully on their presentation, in effect demonstrating how difficult it is for advertising to command the needed attention for it product.
Consider this as marketers: In 2009, the advertising industry out-spent video, TV, music and the movie industry put together. Yet, at any given moment people would rather spend more on entertainment.
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Jojo Leonardo, JWT senior planner
“Ad competition is no longer ad vs ad. It is now, ad vs. Glee, vs. Mafia Wars. It is ad vs. text, vs. chat. And ad vs. sleep. In short, it is ad vs. real life. Life has become more interesting that ads are no longer interesting. Ads don’t just compete with attention, but compete for time. More time on your brands,” says Leonardo.
After identifying the remote control, the DVR and TiVo, as well as ad-blocking software, as great anti-advertising devices, the creative duo further demonstrated effective advertising. “Stop interrupting what people are interested in, instead, become what people are interested in. More than selling the product, advertising is buying people’s time,” they said.
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Joe Dy, JWT creative director
Ideal scenario is that people will drop what they are doing to watch what is said about the product. The JWT ad men suggested four techniques to steal those precious seconds from the consumer.
1. Break out of the clutter. Find new ways of communicating the message. [Review ads of Cadbury, “Gorilla” and Dove, “Evolution”]
2. Reinvent the media. [Burger King, “Whopper Sacrifice” and JWT Manila’s Nokia radio commercial, “Get your own phone”
3. Anything in life can be advertising. Choose your own medium. [JWT Tokyo’s Kit Kat “Mail”]
4. Don’t make advertising, make real life. [Droga5’s Ecko “stillfree.com” and De Beers’ “Unbreakable Kiss”
Leonardo had one last piece of advise: “Spend time in real life.”
With delegate from over 30 colleges and universities from across Luzon, the PJMA was a massive success. A fact that proves heartwarming to the JWT creatives.
“We’ve always wanted to give back. These venues are an avenue for us to inspire, to get (students) into advertising and do better than us,” reveals Leonardo. And Dy agrees, “This is the biggest collection of junior marketing association students. We hope we gave them something to take back to their school, to their association, and to know how we’d like to see advertising evolve.”
Of the industry they nurture, Leonardo is optimistic. “We’re not saying, ‘go out and be award-winning’, (just) to do better for the industry. I’m pretty sure it’s going to happen,” he nodded approvingly.
adobo magazine. The Word on Advertising.
