Recognized by Forbes as the 34th richest person in Southeast Asia in 2005, renowned business tycoon John Gokongwei instilled the importance of taking risks, braving the odds and gracing great challenges amid the fiercest competition among more than 3,000 delegates at the 20th Philippine Advertising Congress.

Gokongwei, chairman of JG Holdings Summit, one of the largest conglomerates in the Philippines, extracted crucial moments from his life experiences and revealed how his struggles turned into golden opportunities for his own entrepreneurial revolution.

In his speech, Gokongwei narrated how he managed to turn things around for his family who lavished on wealth and luxury in Cebu until the death of his father. To adjust to their riches-to-rags fate after World War II, Gokongwei resorted to selling rice, cloth and scrap metal in public markets, barely surviving with his P20-a-day earnings. But there was no stopping the young John who kept on thinking that “if I can support my family at age 15, I can do anything.” It was then that his “play-to-win” mentality started to envelope his system and paved the way for his popular success.

“I’ve always believed that if other people have done it, so can I,” Gokongwei says. “Sixty-six years of self-determination did it for me.”

His successful dominance in the Philippine market with revolutionary companies like Cebu Pacific, Sun Cellular and Universal Robina Corp. also put forth his unwavering thirst to challenge the “monopoly of the giants.” Armed with his innovative products and ideas, Gokongwei still dared traverse the not-so-new yet already conquered territories dominated by the “old-time bigwigs in the corporate word” and broke barriers in leaps and bounds.

“It’s not that we don’t fear the giants. It’s just that great products and great strategies always deserve a level-playing field and can make a whole lot of difference.” 

***** 

Enough on TV ads

Given the high load of commercials, Philippine prime-time television advertising appears to be of lower efficiency—this is what Chris Prox, CEO of ICON Added Value Germany, said.

Basing his assumptions in a study his group did for the Philippine Association of National Advertisers, he urged Filipinos to be constantly reminded of the fact that effectivity of advertising goes down every single additional minute on the acceptable 19 minutes. The Philippines has among the highest advertising load in the region.

“Because advertisers want to advertise so much, we are sometimes forgetting how much a person can take and if it still works,” he adds. Given this premise, he suggested that television networks and advertisers group altogether to compromise.

“Few minutes may mean lower revenues for TV networks. But if they come to think of it, they only have few minutes to spare for advertisers at a given time, then this gives them the opportunity to increase their rates.”

And for small advertisers who may not have huge budgets as bigger brands, he advises them to review the length of their ads. Aside from a reduction on airtime, this will also translate savings on their production costs.

“In Japan, they have more commercials on breaks but they have lower loads because they work on very few seconds.”

Companies in every category are ready to strike out in the new direction and are eager to know how to succeed. There is a need for a new look at what leads to business success in the current shift from the industrial age economy to the information age—from the time when most business was production-based and dealt with the customer at arm’s length to a time when what you do to interact with your customers can be critical to your company’s future.

For most people writing is a lonely, frustrating and sometimes unhappy experience. The writer who actually enjoys the process of writing seems to be unusual; most writers enjoy having rewritten but get no joy whatever from the actual task of moving a pen across a sheet of paper or hitting one key after another on the computer.

This marketing manager has a dream. He sees himself at the head of the conference table issuing orders to a host of underlings.

Recognized by Forbes as the 34th richest person in Southeast Asia in 2005, renowned business tycoon John Gokongwei instilled the importance of taking risks, braving the odds and gracing great challenges amid the fiercest competition among more than 3,000 delegates at the 20th Philippine Advertising Congress.