The 1993 TV Ad of the Year was an 11-second video commercial with no budget, no production expenses, and no human talents involved. In fact, the pig that hogs the camera lens proved to be the underdog that beat several other more expensive efforts for the plum prize.
The ad was one of the many pro bono efforts handled annually by Basic/Foote, Cone & Belding. The client was a non-governmental organization called Anti-Smut Philippines, and creative director Tere Filipinia recalls how two members of the two-year old organization approached them one day with no advertising experience , no parameters, nothing but an intention: to fight smut.
“They didn’t even know what advertising was,”Filipinia recalls. “It’s when we have accounts like these na puwede kaming magwala.” The whole agency was gathered for some brainstorming , and ideas were scattered like dirty tabloids. Copywriter Chris Martinez remembers some of the far-out examples. “May kumakain ng tabloid, may lolong masama ang tingin sa apo.” “Several ideas were just too sexy,” Filipinia recalls. “I guess the challenge was how to show smut without having to show smut.”
Filipinia relied on plain consumer insight to figure out the proper approachto hitting the market of downscale, libidinal tabloid readers. “You couldn’t get these guys by making them feel guilty. It definitely wouldn’t work, either, if you told them they were wasting their time, that they should just read books. Manhid na ang mga taong ‘iyan.”
Watch the 1993 TV AD OF THE YEAR "Anti-Smut-Baboy" TVC HERE
Source: 4 As Philippines you tube channel
Martinez opted for insulting the viewer in the most harmlessly graphic and unbelievably literal way possible. The ad, he says, may have worked because of its “pure concept. It’s almost stark.”It opens with a frontal shot of a smut publication, presumably hiding the guilty reader, whose face the first-gime viewer is immediately dying to see. The surprise comes when the page is dropped, and an extreme close-up of a real pig , snout practically on the lens, is revealed, accompanied by the accusation that’s almost spat out: “Ang baboy mo!”.
Filipinia recalls how enthusiasm almost died down for the project, and how the creative team rushed last-minute production to make sure the ad made the cut-off date for qualification for a Creative Guild award. “It’s much easier to aim for awards with pro bono campaigns,” she reveals. “We call these our ‘therapy accounts’ , because they allow us to create what we want.
The ad involved a team effort of professionals who all worked gratis: visualizer Jo-Ann Cordero, producer Juliet Mutia, director Jun Austria, production house Production Village, and composer Jimmy Antiporda, who produced an excellent soundtrack that gave the ad its high-impact, straightforward drama minus a catchy jingle or sound effects, aside from the pig’s punctuating snort.
The ad received inconsistent exposure, also because air time was given away gratis, but it was apparently seen on the air often enough to be noticed, and to be adjudged a winner. It even attracted the attention of piggery owners, Filipinia reports, who then wrote a formal letter to lament how the ad was giving the business a dirty name. Interestingly, the ad failed to win recognition on any of the international competitions it was entered in. Martinez believes the discrepancy is cultural. “It’s probably only in the Philippines that the word baboy has such a string meaning.”
AGENCY: Basic /FCB
CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Tere Filipinia / ART DIRECTOR: Jo Ann Cordero
PRODUCER: Juliet Mutia / DIRECTOR: Jun Austria
SOUNDTRACK: Jimmy Antiporda / PRODUCTION HOUSE: Provil
ADVERTISER: Anti-Smut Philippines / PRODUCT: Anti-Smut Campaign
SOURCE: Butch Uy and Alya Honasan, Perfect 10: A Decade of Creativity in Philippine Advertising, p. 60,published by the Executive Committee of The Creative Guild of the Philippines, an affiliate of the 4A’s of the Philippines.
4 As PHILIPPINES youtube channel
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