"FIGHT LIKE A PRO!'on the cover of Kaunlaran, SMC Magazine
In the 1980s, SMC-Magnolia Corporation caps the year by holding its annual national sales
convention, usually in major key cities in the country, like Manila, Baguio,
Cebu and Davao. Here, members of its national sales team are flown in,
gathered, and apprised of the next years plans for the various Magnolia
products they are pushing. These include a review of all the Magnolia brand’s
performance and a presentation of next year’s sales targets, marketing,
advertising, and merchandising plans.
LISTEN TO MAGNOLIA'S "FIGHT LIKE A PRO" RALLY SONG
The direction of next year’s sales initiative is embodied in
a theme, and in 1985, “FIGHT LIKE A PRO!”was the battle cry, a call to more aggressive
selling, but carried out in a professional manner. A Rally Song was
commissioned by Magnolia’s ad agency to motivatethe sales teams and lift their “fighting
spirit”. Musicwas provided by the late
award-winning composer, Caloy Agawa, from lyrics written by Creative Director,
Alex Castro.
During the whole duration of the 2-day conference, the song
was played during social events, most especially on the last day of the
conference: the Magnolia Sales Achievement Awards Night. Here, sales achievers
of every rank are given recognitions in a grand evening of musical entertainment, featuring the country’s leading artists of the decade.
CREDITS:
AGENCY: Ace-Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising
ACCOUNT: Gigi Garcia, Lawrence Tan, Dudy Masilungan
CREATIVES: Alex Castro, James Bernardo, Vianne Lizardo
The honor of being the first Filipina to win a world beauty
title belongs to Gemma Teresa Guerrero Cruz (b. 30 Sep.1943), who was crowned
Miss International of 1964 in Long Beach, California on Aug. 14, 1964. She was
also the first Asian to win the title.
GEMMA CRUZ, AT HER MISS INTERNATIONAL CROWNING
The statuesque Cruz has an illustrious
pedigree, the daughter of writer and journalist Carmen Guerrero Nakpil, and
Ysmael Arguelles Cruz. Araneta's paternal great-grandmother was Doña Maria
Mercado, sister of Dr., José Rizal, which makes her a great grandniece of the
national hero.
WATCH GEMMA'S CROWNING AS MISS INTERNATIONAL 1964
Cruz endeared herself to her countrymen when she donated her
prize money ofUS$10,000 to Manila Boys
Town and Girls Home, which sponsored her in the Miss Philippines contest. She came home to a triumphant welcome., with a
ticker tape parade in Manila.
It’s almost expected that an international beauty contest
winner will be deluged with offers from advertising agencies and movie
producers after her reign. But surprisingly, Gemma appeared in just a handful
of ads.
AS A FASHION MODEL, 1964
Pre-Miss International, she had dabbled in fashion modeling
and was featured in at least one print ad for HELENE CURTISCOLOR ESSENCE
hair coloring product in 1963.
GEMMA CRUZ IN A RARE AD APPEARANCE, 1963
After her historic win in Long Beach, Cruz was seen in at
least 2 print ads for LADY’S CHOICE and
ROSE BLOOM scented hair sprays. It
would seem that Cruz did not pose exclusively for these products; instead, she
made a pool photographs dressed in one attire, which were used as ‘photo clips’
for a variety of products.
GEMMA CRUZ, FOR ROSE BLOOM HAIR SPRAY, 1965
After her reign, Gemma Cruz married Tonypet Araneta in Avila,
Spain with whom he had 2 children. She
had been a director of the National Museum in 1968. She eventually moved to
Mexico, and came back after Marcos was deposed. She was appointed Secretary of
Tourism (1998-2001) by President Joseph Estrada. A member of the National Heritage Commission
of the Philippines (NHCP), she also became president of the Heritage Conservation
Society. Cruz has 7 books to her credit, mostly history-base books, and is
currently a columnist for Manila Bulletin.
KLIM was one of
the early American milk brands that found its way to the Philippines, through
importer Getz Bros. in the early 1930s. the brand is “MILK” spelled backwards,
first createad in 1920 by Merrell-Soule Company of Syracuse, New York. It was developed
as a dehydrated whole-milk powder for use in the tropics, where ordinary milk
tended to spoil quickly, so it was perfect for the Philippines. In fact, during
World War II, it was included as part of the military jungle rations of the
U.S. Army and was used by the Red Cross to feed prisoners of war
KLIM was advertised as early as 1935 in the Philippines, and was actively promoted through the decades, especially through its peak years in the 60s.
In 1960, the Borden company sought the services of rising professional boxer, GABRIEL “Flash” ELORDE (b. 25 Mar. 1935/ d. 2 Jan. 1985), who made his professional debut at the age of 16 in 1951, against Kid Gonzaga. He was the most well-known boxer in the country by that time, and lost only twice in his first 14 fights. But he gained international prominence when he became the Junior Lightweight Champion of the World against Harold Gomes.
Elorde and his family, which included wife Laura, two boys
and daughter, appeared in the 2-color print ad for KLIM—The Complete Milk--where he claims that “My family keep in
shape with KLIM”. “That’s why, I
think every family should drink this milk”, he suggests, “my family always
drinks KLIM at mealtimes”.
By the end of his long and illustrious boxing career in
1971, Elorde had a achieved a record that is hard to beat: The first Filipino
boxer to hold the WBA and WBC World Title belts, the first to become a World
Super Featherweight/Junior Lightweight Champion, and the first to hold longest
the Junior lightweight division title--7 years 3 months. Elorde retired with a
record of 88 wins (33 KOs), 27 losses and 2 draws.
Even in retirement, Elorde was a visible presence on
Philippine media, due t his association with San Miguel Beer. He was tapped to
appear in a 1984 commercial for the world-famous beer along with Bert Marcelo
and Rico J. Puno, entitled “Pulutan”, where he delivered the punchline “isang
platitong mani”. The commercial was voted the year’s best TV ad for 1984.
Considered as the greatest super featherweight champion of
all time in WBC history, he was inducted into the World Boxing Hall of Fame in
1988 and the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1993. Elorde also made itof
the 80 Best Fighters of the Last 80 Years by Ring Magazine, the world’s leading
publication on the sports of boxing. Two of his grandsons, Juan Miguel and Juan
Martin Elorde, have followed in his footsteps as boxers.
Commonwealth Foods Inc. was founded back in 1951 and its
first flagship brand was the popular CAFE PURO. It paved the ay for the opening
of a new Comfoods plant in 1956, the country’s
first instant and soluble coffee manufacturing plant. Once established, new
variants were added to the Café Puro line in 1958: CAFÉ EXCELENTE, a premium brand known for its winey taste, and CAFÉ BUENO, the decaffeinated version.
PARACHUTE JUMPER, Cafe Bueno, 1962
When CAFÉ BUENO
was launched, its benefit of “having coffee as often as you want and wake up
refreshed” was touted in the headline.
Since it had less caffeine, it caused no jitters—“no nerves”, as the
copy noted. Four years later, the “no
nerves” story became the 1962 campaign’s central theme.
HUNTER, Cafe Bueno, 1962
To visualize the benefit, critical situations in which alertness
was pivotal were used in a series of ads: jumping with a parachute, hunting and
shooting a wild animal, walking on a tightrope.
TIGHTROPE WALKER, Cafe Bueno, 1962
CAFÉ BUENO
enjoyed a level of popularity with a niche market throughout the late 60s,
longer than CAFÉ EXCELENTE, which
was phased out by 1966.
BEAR BRAND Sterilized
Milk is an iconic milk brand with a
long history in the Philippines, one of the first brands to be imported locally
at the turn of the 20th century. It is no wonder that “Marca Oso”,
as it was popularly called, became a part of the everyday life of Filipinos for
many generations. The heritage story also inspired the creatives of Advertising
and Marketing Associates (AMA) Consolidated to use this angle in crafting BEAR BRAND’s new campaign around 1981, producing a "Decades" TVC that used vignettes to show how the milk brand played a role in nourishing Filipino families, under the theme--"The special milk trusted for generations"/
Few years down the road, around 1988, a refreshed campaign was launched again for BEAR BRAND, usin te same thematic line, but executed differently.
WATCH THE BEAR BRAND TVC HERE:
The result was an epic, jingle-based commercial that was
unprecedented in terms of length (a minute and a half!) and cost—a novel idea at that time. The agency
came up with a series of period commercials situating BEAR BRAND in the lives
of Filipinos through decades, adding the line, "So much a part of our lives", to the original positioning statement "The special milk trusted for
generations”.
The commercials were noted for their grand production
design, period sets and wardrobe, plus wonderful casting. The main commercial was pure nostalgia, prefaced by the jingle line “I remember yesterday, the world
was so young….” , shows a 1930s scene where family members visit grandma. A
young boy is prodded to “dance with Lola”, with courtesy shots of family
members drinking the milk.
A picture is taken by the boy’s father as lola and grandkid dance. Fast forward to the 1980s. A young girl points to the same picture, now old and framed, and points to the young boy. She asks an oldish man by her
side—“Is that you Lolo?”. To which the senior citizen replied—“Yes…Look at my
mole!”. We realize he was the same little boy 5 decades ago! The story comes full circle when the Lolo
starts dancing with her granddaughter.
The BEAR BRAND
“Generations” commercial not only became famous for its jingle, and memorable
dialogues, but an urban legend developed around the other girl talent (the one
wearing a ribbon) who is allegedly a
ghost. Her face, people say, is never seen in the commercial, and in the end
shot, she mysteriously isnot present!
The campaign lasted through the early part of the 1990s.
There has never been another BEAR BRAND ad that reached the level of prominence
and popularity that this campaign has achieved;in fact, most children of the ‘80s are quick to recall and sing the
jingle that began wistfully with—“I remember yesterday..”
CREDITS:
ADVERTISING AGENCY:
AMA Consolidated / CREATIVE DIRECTOR;
Eva Perez
ART DIRECTORS: Franz
de Castro, Roel Sunga / COPYWRITER: Joyce
Bustamante
CLIENT: Nestlé
Philippines
SOURCES:
Bear Brand old Commercial, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBCguyjreXs, uploaded by Marwin Manuel, 17 Dec. 2009.
Dela Torre, Visitacion. Advertising in the Philippines, Its Historical, Cultural and Social Dimensions. Tower Book House. 1989.
