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CREATIVE Juice Manila team

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Consumers are certainly averse to overt selling when the product doesn’t deliver. But the point is to sell the product! Is it smart for marketing to be so seamless that consumers don’t know when and why to open their wallets? We can’t remember seeing an infomercial that we thought created a seamless brand experience. We would argue that consumers appreciate brand messages—when the brand is relevant. And we would insist that consumers don’t like the big brand-reveal, especially if they’ve been tricked into thinking that the content that they’re enjoying isn’t actually a sales pitch.

It’s easy to understand why top heads of other advertising agencies are frantically grasping at any new tactic in order to get consumers to open their wallets. “It’s necessary to create an integrated strategy that fuses a great product with marketing, and communications that reflect the product’s attributes,” Creative Juice Manila CEO Gigi J. Tibi said in an interview.

To champion disruption is a great addition to this strategy. Anybody creating marketing campaigns today needs to be thinking about how the core message is going to spread. In others words, quick marketing fixes don’t solve deep product issues. “Our kind of disruption is very strategically directed. Because if you keep on doing what you keep on doing, you keep on getting the same results. That’s insanity. [That’s why] we break away from the norms. We do not follow conventional norms [whatever else is doing],” stressed Tibi. The same formulas, she pointed out, are actually what’s preventing the brand from making the leap forward.

Creative Juice Manila surpassed its expectations for the year, possibly setting a record. Only three years old, the agency has grown beyond expectation, already absorbing long-standing clients such as Skin White, Maxi-Peel, Oishi, Nissan Patrol, Wrangler, Trace College, Novartis, Mrs. Fields, Standard Chartered, Teriyaki Boy, Food-Flow, Easy Pha-mex, Pediatrica Inc. and Asian Aesthetics and Anti-Aging. “We posted double-digit growth over the period last year. Also versus our target, we have achieved double-digit growth [as well]. What else can you ask for?” she said.

Skin White and Maxi-Peel earned top recognition at the Gawad Splash 2009 as Creative Juice Manila won the Creative Agency of the Year (beating McCann Erickson, DM9 and AB Communications) and the Business Partner of the Year (beating media agencies, packaging, product and other external products). The agency likewise reaffirmed its creative leadership during the 2nd Creative Guild Kidlat Awards held on March 7 at the Boracay Regency. The feat was courtesy of the “More Power” campaign spearheaded for Mach 5 Energy Drink Powder that features a series of three individuals exerting extraordinary energy in the most ordinary of locales. The hardworking campaign garnered the agency an impressive haul of two bronzes in the midst of stringest judging that only awarded three winners per category. Another outstanding achievement was when the agency ranked No. 3 during the 1st Tinta Awards 2008 organized by the United Print Media Group.

Armed with the agency’s corporate mission statements and five-year plans, Tibi points to the inescapable fact that “positioning” is serious stuff. It sets the direction for a company’s business strategy. “We try to look at brands from various angles. We study the industry, the competition, consumers and the corporation. Others just study the consumers and the competition, but that’s not all there is to it—one has to study the industry [where business exists]. We go as far as having an extensive study on the suppliers, the distribution. Because at the end of the day, the brand is dependent on the culture of the company. And no matter how good your strategies are, if the culture is not supportive [of that], it will not work,” she explained.

Tibi knew that a good reputation is one of the greatest assets a company can have. “We all have, at least, concern about how others view us; for any company, this is especially important. We know that customers are demanding more authenticity from companies and their products, that people want to be heard by companies, and that people value corporate commitment for the long term, not just for quick financial gains.”

Tibi’s own training—from accounts (Ace Saatchi & Saatchi) to marketing manager (Penshoppe) and now, as CEO of Creative Juice Manila—has made her an expert herself by learning from experts. “Ace Saatchi & Saatchi provided me the tools. The agency was the school of advertising and marketing. From there, I moved to Penshoppe as marketing manager. That was the biggest transition in my career, from working with a multinational to a local Filipino-Chinese family business. While with Penshoppe, I was able to turn around the business,” she enthused.

How does a CEO operate? There’s a tendency at the senior level and middle-manager level to be too big-picturish and too superficial. There is a phrase, “The devil is in the hands.” One can formulate brilliant strategies whose executability is zero. It’s only through familiarity with details—the capability of individuals who have to execute, the marketplace, the timing—that a good strategy emerges.

Tibi summed up her approach in one sentence: “I like to work from details to big pictures.”