Monday, June 27, 2011
I envy other countries for having advertisements that are creative. In the Philippines, I feel that advertising agencies and advertisers are perhaps a little to conservative. I cannot blame them. Consumers in the Philippines are not used to different advertising executions. We are traditional in one way or another. Our exposure on advertisements are mostly on TV.
But every once in awhile, you see very creative executions that really catches your attention.
I think a similar billboard ad was made in EDSA Guadalupe
Last Thursday, while "Falcon" was ravaging the Metro Manila with monsoon rains, Coca-Cola Philippines launched the first ever plant billboard in the country, in cooperation with the World Wildlife Fund, in its commitment to protect the Philippine watersheds.
The 60 x 60 ft. plant billboard, located along Northbound EDSA-Forbes, utilizes a thriving species of Fukien tea plant, which absorbs air pollutants. According to botanist Anthony Gao, each plant can absorb up to 13 pounds of carbon dioxide in a year, on the average. “This billboard helps alleviate air pollution within its proximate areas as it can absorb a total of 46,800 pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, on estimate.” Gao says.
This is a refreshing scene in the advertising industry. It's a mixture of corporate responsibility and advertising, and not just any form of creative execution but also a useful installation in the metro to contribute in the country's fight against the smog in Metro Manila.
Enchong Dee, Guillermo Aponte of Coca-Cola Philippines, and WWF Philippines, CEO and Vice Chairman
It just makes me wonder, what will happen after the lease of the ad space is over? It's beautiful, it's environmental-friendly (even environmentally helpful) but how do we sustain brilliant ideas such as these? I do hope they have these tea plants will be placed somewhere after the ad run.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
In Malcolm Gladwell’s book What the Dog Saw, he writes about the story of the pitchman who can sell anything. Going through the text, we come to realize that his knack for selling comes not just from his charisma but in his innate understanding of what the people need. Eventually, he experimented with products he saw, paving the way to Ronco (the brand name of these kitchen tools). Not being a product engineer or any degree close to it, he combined different tools to create a number of kitchen tools that we may be familiar today; the Chop-O-Matic, Veg-O-Matic, Dial-O-Matic, and the Showtime Rotisserie.
This innovation is the same as the iPod. The similarity between Steve Jobs and the people behind Ronco is that they are able to identify the needs of the people and tap into this need. Instead of just listening to what the people want, they provide something that the people will want when they see it. They do not just sit down in their desks mulling over their expertise, but they bring their expertise out of the box and ask around other experts and bring these ideas together to improve their products or provide solutions.
When they were introduced in the market in the 1990s, it was selling phenomenally. Each home and housewife wants one. No, the tools aren’t new. They do the same function as a kitchen knife or an ordinary roaster. But what sets them apart is that it has style. It was innovative in a way that it presents a new way (arguably easier way perhaps, if not stylish) of moving in the kitchen; chop without touching the onions, make perfect egg slices at the slide of the hand, and make perfect-looking roasted chicken at your table top while your friends chat over tea and biscuits. It was changing the American kitchen lifestyle.
This innovation is the same as the iPod. The similarity between Steve Jobs and the people behind Ronco is that they are able to identify the needs of the people and tap into this need. Instead of just listening to what the people want, they provide something that the people will want when they see it. They do not just sit down in their desks mulling over their expertise, but they bring their expertise out of the box and ask around other experts and bring these ideas together to improve their products or provide solutions.
Collaboration is the primary notion to create an innovative product. A physician can only do so much in providing solutions to an amputee. He needs not just his medical expertise but also the expertise of mechanical engineers, microbiologists, sports therapists, and other fields to provide a holistic solution, perhaps a long lasting solution to a problem.
The Medici Effect is a name for a phenomenon (a revolution perhaps) that is present since the dawn of academics, where civilizations are taking notice and recording knowledge. In Egypt, astronomers are also astrologists, mathematicians, geologists, and even architects. The Great Pyramids of Giza (and other monumental structures of civilizations) are made through the collaboration of multi-skilled individuals, pre-dating the structure of education for engineers or architects or other disciplines that we know today. In Greece, musicians are also philosophers, mathematicians, doctors, scientists, and politicians. They used to be called scholars; a part of their society, normal people that we can maybe compare to modern day teachers and scientists. But now, we call them geniuses.
You are Leo, yes? Today, the sun is in your favor. So stand there until you melt.
As history shows us, people become absorbed into segmenting fields of expertise. In my personal opinion, perhaps in trying to surpass these geniuses, people started digging deep into one area of study, sacrificing the broader view to a more in-depth (bordering to tunnel-perception) understanding of a field. This has a lot of repercussions because experts are becoming less creative in providing solutions to problems because of this certain inkling to discipline.
The greatest inventions in history are brought about from marrying two different fields. To illustrate this point clearly, we can look at the components of the inventions. The first long-lasting light bulb for example, was made from carbonized bamboo enclosed in a glass vacuum. It may seem a disconnect but if we translate this to a collaboration of fields, we can say that a biologist or an environmental scientist could have suggested to Thomas Edison that carbonized natural products can be a good filament that metals. Two different fields, one innovative product.
Not the kind of marrying I have in mind.
As a marketing professional, I cannot stress how important it is to collaborate, not just with marketing professionals but with people in the field. The most successful creative agencies are collaborating with people from different fields to develop innovative ad campaigns. David Ogilvy, founder of one of the leading creative agencies in the world, narrates in his book Ogilvy on Advertising, consistenly mentions his experiences; listening and working with different people of different expertise to bring about ad campaigns that are not just creative but innovative as well.
**No copyright infringement intended in the use of the images. Images are collected from the internet. All rights reserved to the original owners of the images. Used under Creative Commons License.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Video made an introduction to my life as early as 3 years old. I can see pictures of me watching television when I was young. As I grew up, I remember going to the video rental shop (betamax, baby) with my mom to rent movies that we could watch. During those short trips, I was able to glance the evolution of video in households: betamax, VHS, Laser Disks, to the dawn of VCD that brought the closure of our quaint video rental shop with that pac-man logo.
Egyptologist, archeologist, scientist, I wanted to be a whole bunch of different careers. But what's common since I was a small boy is that I wanted to be on TV or in movies, a broadcaster or maybe an actor. I joined the 5 and Up club when I was about 10 years old. They had this video documentary workshop for kids, which I signed up. That was my first brush with actually creating a video. And that experience was unforgettable. It was the first I handled a camera, peered through its glass view finder to see the person in front of it lenses. I have the ability to quickly learn, and I learned how to shoot and prepare storyboards quickly with the help of our team facilitator. We brainstormed on possible persons of interests. It was exhilarating.
Fast forward to college, I was able to make several shorts. It was different that my childhood experience where I was guided and was steered in the right direction. In college, the art form that I am making has to have a vision, a manifestation of the emotions or message I want to convey; it's a reflection of who I am. But the basics of what I learned as a youngster is still there: hard work, dedication, thinking of others, and looking at society at different perspective, knowing the value of what I do, and its importance to show my audience the truth amidst all the constructs.
I passionate in doing videos, or any visual art. I feel that it is a way that I can be transcendent of culture and language, where everyone can understand no matter what race or religion. Whenever I get the chance, I would like to make beautiful shorts again.
Egyptologist, archeologist, scientist, I wanted to be a whole bunch of different careers. But what's common since I was a small boy is that I wanted to be on TV or in movies, a broadcaster or maybe an actor. I joined the 5 and Up club when I was about 10 years old. They had this video documentary workshop for kids, which I signed up. That was my first brush with actually creating a video. And that experience was unforgettable. It was the first I handled a camera, peered through its glass view finder to see the person in front of it lenses. I have the ability to quickly learn, and I learned how to shoot and prepare storyboards quickly with the help of our team facilitator. We brainstormed on possible persons of interests. It was exhilarating.
Fast forward to college, I was able to make several shorts. It was different that my childhood experience where I was guided and was steered in the right direction. In college, the art form that I am making has to have a vision, a manifestation of the emotions or message I want to convey; it's a reflection of who I am. But the basics of what I learned as a youngster is still there: hard work, dedication, thinking of others, and looking at society at different perspective, knowing the value of what I do, and its importance to show my audience the truth amidst all the constructs.
I passionate in doing videos, or any visual art. I feel that it is a way that I can be transcendent of culture and language, where everyone can understand no matter what race or religion. Whenever I get the chance, I would like to make beautiful shorts again.
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