In review and in prospect
The Philippines suffers a branding problem not because it hosts incompetent brand and PR managers, but because it offers these professionals not much to work with to begin with. Efforts to come up with witty or fancy marketing collateral for the Philippines is the equivalent of putting lipstick on a pig. It's unsustainable. Worse, as has become evident over the last couple of decades, it often backfires.
A branding effort, at its most essential, accentuates the assets of the subject. The important questions then needs to be asked about Filipinos and their country: What are the Philippines’ assets? What are Filipinos good at? What does their country stand for? What makes it an interesting place to visit? To this day, these are questions that elicit no more than head scratching even among Filipinos’ most revered “thought leaders”.
So Filipinos and their leaders struggle to pitch to the world a treasure one would regard as worth thousands of dollars in plane fares and hotel bookings to personally experience. Perhaps it is because Filipinos themselves have not demonstrated any ability to treasure what they have to offer. The mark of the renowned Filipino Reverse Midas Touch is evident everywhere in the poor quality of the build of many public works and the way formerly beautiful places have been allowed to degrade. Filipinos need to learn to respect themselves enough to build and make things of excellent quality and sustain that quality. If they cannot respect their most valuable natural, man-made, and cultural assets at least amongst themselves how then can Filipinos convincingly showcase anything to the world?
What the fiasco surrounding the allegedly plagiarised images used in the the most recent tourism campaign of the Philippine Government really highlighted is that there is nothing unique the Philippines could offer to international travellers that other countries in the region already competitively offer. It is not the Philippine Government that needs to do better. Filipinos need to do better.
Last week's blog posts
July 16, 2023 by Ramon Ortoll
"Shortly after the payment of P28M was made to BSMG Worldwide Inc., it was able to get an audience with President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. The photo op shows the President with Almeda, Sy, and Philippines Ambassador to the US, Jose Manuel Romualdez..."
What art? Any moron can dress like Jesus Christ and act like an idiot in public.
July 14, 2023 by benign0
"...it is quite interesting that Filipinos spend their days dancing around and wagging their dicks over outrage fads created by morons and challenged by zealots."
Posted onJuly 12, 2023AuthorOman
"In the realm of politics, hypocrisy can be a prevalent and disheartening characteristic. It is essential to hold our leaders accountable for their actions, especially when they claim to champion the interests of their constituents."
July 11, 2023 by Oman
"...THE biggest loser, is a businesswoman from the Visayas who got scammed out of P300 million by Diokno Eje. Allegedly, the so-called Hari ng Baclaran convinced the businesswoman that for P300 million, he could get her a gaming franchise from the PCSO that would be worth billions of pesos."
Should the Philippines host Afghan refugees?
July 10, 2023 by The Unpopular Opinion
"If these wealthy countries are experiencing problems integrating and assimilating these immigrants, how much more developing countries like the Philippines, which have limited resources?"