437. Development Bank of the Philippines, “NARDA, “Sipag” TVC, 1988-89. PILAK Awardee 2002

The very famous “Pamilyang Uliran” personal narrative ads of Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP), were offshoots of an earlier insititutional campaign started in 1987, “Buhayin Muli”,  that highlighted core Filipino values such as “katapatan” (honesty), “kasipagan” (hard work),”kalinisan” (cleanliness), “delicadeza” (sense of propriety), and “palabra de honor” (word of honor).

A year later, these values came alive in a series of “Pamilyang Uliran, Kayamanan ng Bayan” (model family) story ads, which won praise and awards for the outstanding way the values were dramatized that always ended with human triumphs over life’s adversities, emotional-laden  plots that resonated with the TV audience.

 WATCH DBP "NARDA" TVC AD HERE:

Perhaps, the most popular version was the NARDA TVC, that meant to illustrate the “pagkamasipag” and “pagkamasinop” on TV and Print, respectively, of the Mountain Province family. The main protagonist was LEONARDA “Narda” CAPUYAN of Besao, Bontoc, who was introduced to the art of ikat weaving and embroidery  through her mother, Irene Docallas, who also practiced this age-old craft.

Using her savings, she parlayed her love of tribal weaves into a home business in 1973, making blankets for the local market. Her small business expanded and in 1975, and secured an industrial loan from DBP, to put up her own Narda’s Cottage Industries, later called Narda’s Handwoven Arts and Crafts”. Her shop grew to include 71 looms, including 36 outsourced backstrappers and 120 workers. Soon, she was providing linens, curtains, upholstery fabrics and ikat wall displays to such big institutions like Pines and Manila Hotel.

At her peak, NARDA’s products found international buyers , and in 1982 Blooming dale in New York put up an exhibit-sale of her creations, which sold out her entire 6-month production. Fashion centers in Japan, Germany  France, Canada, Hongkong and China sought out her products. Her worldwide clients include the Pacific Star in Guam which she supplied with complete furnishings. In 1986 she was the recipient of the Golden Shell Award from the Ministry of Trade for her outstanding contribution to a pioneering export enterprise.

DBP picked up her success story in a commercial produced by its agency Basic /FCB Advertising, that drew raves for the acting, casting, production design, directing and overall creative excellence. DBPs “NARDA” is enshrined among the 25 PILAK Awardees, in 2002, representing the top 25 ads of Philippine advertising from the 1960s-80s decade.

CREDITS:

AGENCY: Basic/FCB / CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Minyong Ordoñez

COPYWRITER: Danny Almirañez / ART DIRECTOR: Rino Hernandez

PRODUCER: Ding Fernandez / DIRECTOR: Danny Almirañez

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Tito Arce / PRODUCTION HOUSE: Creative Directors

SOURCES:

DBP ‘NARDA”, youtube video posted by 4A’s Philippines, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdbmEpTjma8

De la Torre, Visitacion. Advertising in the Philippines: Its Historical, Cultural and Social Dimensions, Tower House Books, 1989. pp. 116-117, pp. 194-195,

436. Retro-Story: IVORY SHAMPOO & CONDITIONER TVC, 1995, by Chairmom Merlee C. Jayme

ANG GAAN-GAAN NG FEELING, with Ivory model Bianca Araneta, 1995

MTV’s golden age lasted from the early 1980s to around 1992, but endured longer in music-loving Philippines. At its peak, MTV had a significant impact not only on our music landscape, but the format was also borrowed and used in advertising production. Agency creatives would often propose executions “a la MTV” to capture the interest of youth who were very much into music videos popularized worldwide by the MTV cable network.

WATCH AND LISTEN TO IVORY'S"ANG GAAN-GAAN NG FEELING" MTV, 1995 HERE:

Courtesy of Merlee Jayme, uploaded on youtube 30 Dec. 2021, 

One of the most memorable campaigns that used this longform MTV format was the IVORY Shampoo and Conditioner campaign created by Ace-Saatchi & Saatchi in 1995 for Procter and Gamble. It spawned a jingle-- “Ang Gaan-Gaan ng Feeling”, which became a hit pop song for the singers DV8, a fairly new music band. It also introduced us to a fresh new model, Bianca Araneta, whose mother (Maritess Revilla)  and grandmother (Paquita Goyena)  had strong Procter & Gamble ties, being former Camay Girls.

Chairmom Merlee Cruz Jayme, then copywriter for IVORY at Ace-Saatchi& Saatchi shares her recollection of the now iconic music video, with the hit jingle that turned into a mainstream monster hit, ruling the TV and radio airwaves for quite awhile, nationwide.

**********

As a Copywriter in Ace Saatchi & Saatchi, I worked on the launch of IVORY Shampoo & Conditioner. IVORY is gentle on hair and scalp with no harsh and heavy ingredients. So, hair feels light and not weighed down.

It was the 90s, and music videos were a big thing. Targeting young teens, I started writing a song. When I wrote the first line, “Dati ang aking buhay ay kulang sa sigla…” I tried to set the mood for heaviness and the need for lightness. Then the mood changes with a happy, catchy, breezy refrain that perfectly captures the feeling of lightness: “Ang gaan, gaan ng feeling.” The famous composer Jimmy Antiporda did the melody.

We searched and discovered the perfect talent to embody the pure, gentle, and light brand persona: the 14-year-old Bianca Araneta, the daughter of the 70s actress Maritess Revilla and businessman Iking Araneta. I remember that day when I had to go to their condominium in Mandaluyong with my Accounts Director to convince her parents to allow her to be our Ivory girl.

The music video made her an instant star, and her signature hair shot. She was blowing her wispy bangs away.

Today, what surprises me is the fact that carolers and choirs sing “Ang gaan, gaan ng feeling” during Christmas. I didn’t think the lyrics I wrote for a shampoo had a deeper religious meaning.

 About the Guest Writer: MERLEE CRUZ JAYME is the Chairmom & Chief Creative Officer at Dentsu Creative Philippines and Chief Creative Officer APAC at Dentsu. Before that, she co-founded  DM9 Jayme and Syfu. She started her illustrious career as a Copywriter at Ace-Saatchi & Saatchi advertising, where she met and married her colleague, Timmy Jayme, then an account executive. They have 4 daughters. Merlee is also a founder of a school, The Misfits, a training camp for autistic and deaf creatives.

 CREDITS:

AGENCY: ACE SAATCHI & SAATCHI ADVERTISING

COPYWRITER: MERLEE CRUZ JAYME

ART DIRECTOR: JAKE TESORO

CREATIVE DIRECTOR: MELVIN M. MANGADA

ECD: JIMMY F. SANTIAGO

PRODUCER: NANETTE RAMIREZ

 CLIENT:PROCTER & GAMBLE PHILS.

BRAND MANAGER: CHRISTINE ANGCO

CATEGORY PRODUCT HEAD; CITO ALEJANDRO / ISCA  ABAYA

 PRODUCTION HOUSE: UNITEL PRODUCTIONS

PRODUCER: MARIJO CLAUOR

DIRECTOR: JOEY AGBAYANI

MUSIC COMPOSER: JIMMY ANTIPORDA

 MANY THANKS to Ms. Merlee Cruz Jayme, for the background story of the Ivory campaign, and for the use of her youtube video.

435. 1994 Creative Guild Ad of the Month for July: MOTOLITE “Tawid” TVC 30s

July 1994 Winner!! MOTOLITE "Tawid" TVC by Basic/FCB

Humor is the charm of this MOTOLITE Brake Fluid TV ad that won a nod from the Creative Guild judges as the best commercial for July 1994. Blame it on the hyperbolic acting of the well-cast talents who dramatized to the max the fear of being run over by a brake-less vehicle. 

The over-the-top acting was so sit-com funny, that the models could give even present-day comedians a run for their money. The composition of the shots and the editing added to the ridiculous hilarity of the situations. The judges weren’t even looking at the production design (was there any?) or listening to the score gone haywire--they were just riveted at the paradoxical effect of the comedy happening in the face of impending tragedy. Now that’s funny!!

CREDITS

Advertiser: CC. UNSON
Product: MOTOLITE

Agency: BASIC ADVERTISING
Creative Director: BOY LEUTERIO
Copywriter: EMIL REINTAR
Art Directors: REY TOLENTINO / EGAY OLIVA
Artist: PETE CLEMENTE
Producer: PAM PAJARILLO
Caster: TESS GELLA

Production House: ELECTROMEDIA

Director: MANDY REYES
Producer: MERIE VILLAMAYOR
Cinematographer: LESLIE GARCHITORENA
Prod. Designer: GAY GUILLERMO
Post Production: VIDEOPOST
Recording Studio: HIT PRODUCTIONS
Sound.Music Composer: BRIAN CHUA

434. 1993 Creative Guild TV Ad of the Year, ANTI-SMUT "Baboy" CAMPAIGN, Basic / FCB

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.”

 CREDITS:

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