The concept of brands acting as cultural creators—doing more than just participating in or representing the culture but actually helping create it—began when Bill Bernbach from DDB proposed the idea that products should be culturally authentic. To achieve this goal, brands had first to disengage from a company’s economic agenda. DDB’s solution was to give products an iconic brand persona.

FOR Norberto Timbol, working for Unilever is almost like working for the family business.

“I practically grew up in Unilever,” said Norberto Timbol, chairman of Media Arts System and Services Co., or MASSCOM, who has for more than two decades served Philippine Refining Corp. (PRC), now known as Unilever Philippines. “My professional philosophy and orientation actually developed in Unilever from my 26 years of working here.

In spite of the overwhelming acceptance by the advertising community, it’s possible that positioning will come to play an even greater role in public relations. The reason is obvious. Positioning is essentially an “against” strategy. That is, you normally position your company or brand against another. In this mass-communication society, if you don’t exist in media, for all practical purposes you don’t exist. Publicity is like eating. Nothing kills the appetite quite as much as a hearty meal. And nothing kills the PR potential of a product quite as much as a premature feature story. Or a misdirected television placement.

Change in PR has become an ever-increasing factor in today’s high-speed and complex world. The Public Relations Society of the Philippines (PRSP) sought to give new meaning to PR during its 16th National Public Relations Congress on September 10 and 11 at the Manila Hotel—that is, pursuing reforms—and as such, to highlight the role of PR practitioners as catalysts of change. The congress is a major initiative of the PRSP this September, which is Public Relations Month by virtue of Presidential Proclamation 1357.

“All social change needs good communication,” Ateneo de Manila University president Fr. Bienvenido Nebres, SJ, pointed out in his keynote address. Culling insights from the Ateneo experience, Father Nebres said meaningful social reforms may be achieved by educating potential leaders who will be able to eventually institutionalize structures that will initiate concrete changes while encouraging and engaging people who will benefit most from such reforms. “And public relations—with its expertise in communication and relationship management—plays a key role in effecting social change.”