By Ma. Stella F. Arnaldo / Special to the BusinessMirror
IT is “broke” after all. This was the assertion of officials of the Department of Tourism (DOT), who cited a Nielsen Media report that indicated the slow conversion of the “It’s More Fun in the Philippines” branding campaign into increased visitor arrivals.
In a press briefing on Tuesday, Tourism Secretary Wanda Corazon T. Teo also said the new Philippines brand and slogan will be launched “during the Miss Universe” beauty pageant, possibly by January 13, when the candidates from 97 countries start arriving in the country. Coronation night will be on January 30 at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay.
Tourism Undersecretary for Administration and Special Concerns Katherine de Castro said the agency is currently speaking with a media and advertising company to come up with the new tourism slogan. She declined to identify the company, “as we’re still revising our target markets for the campaign,” so the DOT has yet to sign a contract with the firm.
Citing the Nielsen Media assessment report regarding the “More Fun” campaign, she said, “for the European market, 65 percent like the campaign but only 26 percent intend to visit the Philippines.” For North America, she added, while “72 percent like the campaign, only 45 percent intend to visit the Philippines.”
De Castro added that they “literally discovered the study only last week, so we now have to revise some target markets for the new campaign. It [the study] was kept from us. It was never released.”
Teo underscored that the More Fun brand was launched in 2012 and that by now, this should have encouraged more visitors to tour the country. “2012 was a long time ago; it’s time to launch a new campaign,” she said, adding that in her recent trips to key markets abroad, she managed to get immediate commitments for tourists to come to the Philippines.
Last year about 5.4 million foreign tourists traveled to the Philippines, up almost 26 percent from the 4.3 million arrivals in 2012, the first year of the More Fun campaign.
Asked to comment on the expense involved in launching a new brand campaign and slogan considering the agency’s lower budget for 2017, de Castro said, “we’ll be using funds from 2016.”
The DOT chief also disclosed that Budget Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno assured her that “if we have savings for 2016, we can use these [to augment our] 2017 budget.”
Under the Duterte administration’s proposed National Expenditure Program for 2017, the DOT budget was cut by 32 percent to P2.5 billion, despite the higher arrivals targets of 6.5 million foreign tourists and 73.3 million domestic tourists next year.
De Castro said the Miss Universe beauty pageant will likely bring in some 110,000 visitors to the Philippines for January 2017 alone. “Beauty-pageant experts say each candidate brings as many as 1,100 supporters. Considering we are expecting about 100 candidates,” she said there would be an increase in foreign arrivals.
She averred that usually the candidates also bring their families and arrive before the pageant proper so they can tour the host country.
Destinations that would be featured during the different pageant portions are Cebu, Batangas, Siargao, Davao, Vigan, Palawan and Legazpi. The candidates will also be taken on a tour of the Walled City of Intramuros.
Meanwhile, the DOT brought up the Nielsen Media report to respond to concerns that “if the More Fun campaign ain’t broke, why fix it?”
Tourism stakeholders interviewed by the BusinessMirror recently appealed to the DOT to keep the current brand campaign and slogan “as it has not yet reached it maximum potential.” They added that the agency should just “build on the momentum” already earlier generated by the slogan and just “enhance it.” (See, “Stakeholders to DOT: Let’s keep ‘It’s More Fun…’ tourism slogan” in the BusinessMirror, September 15, 2016.)
Advertising experts also said a good slogan such as It’s More Fun in the Philippines could work for decades, likening it to the “Just Do It” brand campaign of sports-apparel company Nike. They added that the slogan could still be used but “with different executions.” (See, “Advertising experts weigh in on ‘More Fun’ slogan,” in the BusinessMirror, September 20, 2016.)
Advertising firm BBDO Guerrero conceptualized the More Fun slogan and brand campaign at a cost of P5.6 million. But media placements and advertising spots over 4.5 years cost the DOT and its marketing arm, the Tourism Promotions Board, about $61 million (P3 billion).
Image credits: Image courtesy DOT