The 1993 Print Ad of the Year, a Saatchi creation for the
Philippine National Bank, a client from 1986 to 1993, gain exploited
two-pronged meanings. This time, however, the meanings could be deciphered in
the simple, graphic visual image.
The market was the family and/or dependents of the
overseas contract worker based in Hong Kong, the product is one of Santiago’s
admitted favorites, remittance services, specifically the bank’s new, speedy “Rapidremit”
system.
“It’s an interesting audience,” Santiago observes,”you’re
talking to the people waiting here for the money. “Mainit na ang ulo niyan. It’s
a very emotional market.”
Yet, Santiago and his team, composed of creative director
Mario Monteagudo, writer Edsel Tolentino, art director Randy Tiempo, and
artists Lulu san pedro and Tracy
Montinola, skipped the overtly emotional approaches commonly employed for
such complex, close-to-home subject as the Filipino laborer. “You can always talk
to labor exporters, show pictures of workers,” Santiago says ,but it’s hard to
be emotional in print. The speed must be the message.
As fast as the snap of a finger. Or as the ad shows, fast
as the blink of an eye,the “kisapmata” or fleeting moment it tales for a closed
eye to open. “People easily lose
interest in a newspaper message. It has to be simple. The visual has to tell
the story”.
The bonus, courtesy of Monteagudo, was the witty cultural
reference. The “kisapmata” also mared the difference between a slit eye, the
kind you’d find I a Chinese Hong Kong native, and the long-lashed orb of the
Pinoy. The double entendre again fell smoothly into place; PNB couldn’t have
asked for a simpler, more appropriate visual representation for the people of a
foreign land—one that happened with the big idea as well. This big idea was
speed; if you happened to get the cultural connotation, as well, then Santiago be
doubly happy.
The bank’s aggressive advertising did its job. PNB became
the leader in the remittance field, and the campaign also contributed to the
perceieved credibility of the country’s national bank.
CREDITS:
AGENCY:
ACE-SAATCHI & SAATCHI
EXECUTIVE CREATIVE
DIRCTOR: Jimmy F. Santiago
CREATIVE DIRECTOR:
Mario Monteagudo
COPYWRITER: Edsel
Tolentino
ART DIRECTOR:
Randy Tiempo
PRINT PRODUCER:
Beloy Anegeles
ARTISTS: Lulu San
Pedro, Tracy Montinola
ADVERTISER:
PHILIPPINE NATIONAL BANK
PRODUCT: PNB
Remittance
SOURCE:
PERFECT 10: A Decade of Creativity in Philippine
Advertising, 1995, p. 36
Philippine National Bank
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