Development of Advertising in the Philippines

Early Development:

In the early years, before the Spaniards took over our homeland the Filipinos
already had discovered early signs of advertising, of course with them not
knowing what great things it would lead to in the future. These early forms of
advertising our ancient ancestors discovered were unlike the primitive forms
practiced by the Egyptians, Greeks, or Romans.
The Philippines is a country known for its rich resources, and thus it isnt a
surprise that trade was one of its main sources of income. The earliest
partners the Filipinos had in trade were the Chinese. They say that the
earliest date suggested for direct Chinese contact with the Philippines was
982 AD. At the time, merchants from "Ma-i" (now in Mindoro) brought their
wares to Guangzhou. This was noted by the Sung Shih (History of the Sung).
During these transactions, the early Filipinos would make hand made printed
signs to communicate their business messages. There were writings found on
the shoulders of the excavated jars they found in Calatagan, Mindoro, and
Batangas. These writings on these jars were from poetic tagalog compositions
called a Tanaga, which is tagalog for short poems with seven syllabic lines.
Another form of advertising that also existed in the early prehispanic years
were town criers people who shout out their wares to passerbys and printed
materials that were present during the galleon trade that occurred in Manila.
In 1637, the Succesos Felices (Fortunate Events) was published. This was the
first every Philippine newsletter launched by Tomas Pinpin, who is now known
as The Father of Filipino Printing. This printed publication was written in
Spanish and contained a 14-page report on current events. This newsletter
paved the way to innovation.
Del Superior Govierno , although it took a bit of time before they printed
the first actual newspaper it eventually came. Gov. Fernandez del Forgueras
launched the publication on August 8, 1811. The contents found in this
publication included reported developments in countries like Spain and
Europe. This was also the first newspaper the information (name, date, place)
of its publication. Sadly, they stopped the publication after 15 issues.
Around that time, the church and the government have become more
controlling on what to restrict and what can be printed. Thus 35 years passed
before the development on Philippine press continued. On December 1, 1846
La Esperanza was born, the first daily newspaper edited by Evaristo
Calderon and Felipe Lacorte. This publication gave birth to other daily
newspapers like El Diario de Manila was put up by Felipe del Pan and lasted
38 years during the reign of the Spaniards and La Estrella. Unfortunately
La Esperanza stopped after three years.
Early History of Print Ads

The growth of advertising resulted to the growth of journalism and printing in

the early years. Showing how advertising was connected to social and
economic temper. In development to the 19th century, the Philippines had
caught up with the current industrial revolution. At this time, some people
had the money to buy things they needed and wanted, and with the early
history print ads raising their awareness on what items were available for sale
on the market, this also raised the purchasing power of the people that could
afford to buy such extravagance. Due to this high demand, companies
boosted production and it seemed as if the use of print supported by an
advertising strategy was a pretty good way to sell goods and services. The
ads were placed on newspapers, La Esperanza for example was a daily
newspaper with paid advertisements.
During 1896 most of the Philippine publications were subsidized because of
advertising. Some of the best journalism from Spain were hired.
19th Century
The Philippines Advertising during the 19 th Century has greatly improved.
Advertisements have become more abundant since the market just keeps on
growing. Most of the Ads during this century contained information about the
product or service they were advertising and the outlet where you can find
the said product or service along with its producer. The layouts of the
different ads were very simple and quite boring. These ads were full on text
with the use of a very uninteresting typeface. Content was very straight to
the point and were wholly announcements about business. Obviously, this
kind of advertising gave way to illustrations once competition for
advertisement billing grew tougher. During the 1880s advertising stepped
up, ads contained artworks that were related to the ad, catching the eyes of
the masses. Picture power also paved the way for color in advertisements.
Some of the Popular reading materials were Excelsior, Manila Times, Filipinas
and Renacimiento Filipino.
Excelsior was a magazine with audiences that were the middle class whom
were able to speak and read Spanish, it also contained rustic genre painting
of the age. (A history of publishing in the Philipines, pg35)
The Manila Times on the other hand was one of the oldest English
newspaper in the Philippines, which was founded by Thomas Cowan on
October 11, 1898, which was after the treaty of Paris was signed signifying
the of the Spanish-American war where in the Philippines was transferred to
American hands. This publication was written in English and catered to
American businessmen and Bureucrats.
Filipinas was also a famous publication during this time that was bilingual. It
contained articles both in Tagalog and Spanish. Contrasting the target
readers of The Manila Times, it was purely a woman magazine which included

various articles and ads relating to fashion, homa management, furnishing,

cooking recipes and novelty items.
Renacimiento Filipino was a news magazine that was released to the
public weekly during the time of American influence in the Philippines which
was published and edited by Martin Ocampo. This publication contained two
divided sections in Spanish and Tagalog, with various literary and news
articles.
Other than the bloom of publication, it was also in this century did the turn-ofthe century print ads show up. It was because during this our countrys
loyalty was stuck in between two countries, Spain and USA, and because of
this great dilemma ads that were honest to the public has become tools for
showing the cultural and social history of a certain country.
Advertisements had thought of a new strategy, to create ads that display
what the consumer needs and wants to bring them in. Most Ads in this time
represented a more western lifestyle. Advertisements represented the best
and the finest to catch peoples attention even promises of foreign import
houses such as Springli and Company, Alfredo Roensch and company, and
event elegant shipping areas. Ads thus featured products and services that
appeal to the higher class, the A and B market some people called this sort of
behavior the good life.
The good life represented the ideal community, some of the fads and
fashion associated to this were Horse-drawn carriages, Telephones, Amateur
photography, huge hats, An Amercian or all white suite, and Long white or
pastel street dresses. The idea of the good life had a great impact in the
advertising world. Even the kind of copy the ads carry changed, they
centered more on the product now, and sometimes they would show the list
of the goods they have in stock. They also started to show announcements
on the arrival of imported products. Slogans were also present during this
time.
All in all the ads during this time were developing, unfortunately it was
evident that they still didnt have a clear strategy. Instead of persuading the
consumer to buy the product they would just inform them about what the
product is and what its good for, there was no call to action in their copy.
There was no such thing as brand character and meaningful copy was nonexistent.
Women in ads to persuade men to buy a product were shown during this
century, but nothing inappropriate. Illustrations of women were very chaste;
they were covered head to foot. Usually they use attractive young women to
sell cigarettes or liquor. Ads of this century usually are in art nouveau, with
some ads featuring fat young boys working on machines, at this point
caricatures were also adopted in ads.

As the years of the Spanish regime were staring to close more vehicles for
advertising popped up like the point of purchase signs, outdoor boards, and
many more.
1920
Advertising is a very complicated yet effective medium of informing and
influencing the masses, and when the Americans took over the Spanish
regime they also took advantage of advertising to communicate to the local
market. The advertising that the Americans introduced to the Filipino public
influenced them greatly, they were able to sell their products to the locals.
They were also able to sell their mentality and even their lifestyle with the
Filipinos because of how effective their advertising was.
It was during the early 1920s that one-man advertising agencies were set
up. These men individually did everything from contacting the advertisers,
writing the copies on the ads, creating the layout and artwork, even
delivering the finished ad to the production companies. One of these men
who pioneered in creating these agencies was Manuel Buenaventura who was
also the first Filipino to hold accounts.
During this century outdoor advertising was also prominent, there were
posters everywhere and because of this signs showed up on walls with the
words Fijales Carteles
It was on 1921 that the Philippine Publicity Service, Inc was established, the
first advertising agency. In this agency they were already divided into teams,
the work load was shared and more work was done. On 1922 the first radio
station was put up, sponsored by the Electrical Supply Company. The number
of people who listened to the radio during this century grew each day, due to
the radio programs the company had to offer. They had programs related to
dance, music, radio dramas, and even singing contests. An example of this is
the Tawag ng Tanghalan contest.
Advertising the Philippines was slowly growing, during 1929 we already had
the Advertising Bureau, which offered a lot more services, Florentino Gariz
headed this. Another agency that pioneered corporate advertising was
Procter and Gamble, they started national advertising by utilizing various
forms of advertising.
1930s
Since in the twenties advertising services have been very limited to ads in
publications, the thirties had a bigger surprise for the Philippine advertising
industry. They developed various more services, which included accounting
and art departments. The Philippine Advertising Corporation was one of the
companies that decided to think outside the box. This company focused more
on billboards

The cost of advertising during the thirties were approximately ten to fifteen
thousand pesos for top agencies The advertising in 1930s was described by
Antonio Lagos, an advertising manager of a shoe company as wild and
wooly the newspapers never had it so good. (Philippine studies vol17, pg
74)
1940s
In the forties there was one young man who saw the advertising world
differently. He saw that there were more than a handful of advertising
companies, and he believed that only two of these companies had been
divided into two departments, the art and copy departments. Some
companies just rented out spaces or services while others were more manual
printing like billboards and silkscreen. The name of this young man was
Anthony O. David, Filipino-Chinese who chose the road of entrepreneurship.
Anthony created his own advertising agency, which he named after the Great
Wall of China, called Great Wall Advertising, which lasted for more than 60
years and is still present today. They focused more on silkscreen printing
since his partner was a silk screen craftsman.
1950s
During the 1950s advertising played a very important role in the Philippine
economy. Even the Filipino businessmen who tend to be a bit stingy when it
comes to spending money had succumbed to the idea of it and most of them
are even considering it as an approach. In the fifties advertising discovered
markets that were untouched and even explored stores with various local
goods, thus affecting the balance of supplies.
Advertising in the fifties also helped lure the Filipinos back into the local
market and has started to purchase goods from local stores. Although they
are slowly reverting back to local products, some of the population still
prefers to buy from American or state side products frankly cause they are
better in quality. It had nothing to do with colonial mentality but the gap of
quality local goods had compared to imported goods.
The marketing concept was also introduced in the fifties, which was to show
the public what they need and want. Antonio de Joya one of the pioneers in
advertising and was a marketing executive approved of this concept strongly;
the industry eventually ate it up.
After the war, Manila had only four different radio station that broadcasted to
the AM. The Philippine Manufacturing Company (PMC) managed to reach the
provinces by subsidizing radio stations in each province, to pin point the
regional consumers. PMC was the first to use vernacular advertising, or
advertising in the native tongue of a specific region. They also were the first
to build their own studio to create their commercials. PMC is today known as
Procter and Gamble, Philippines Inc.

When Procter and Gamble started their radio ads were done live or pre
recorded on a disc. In the fifties they didnt have a professional recording
studio, so they worked on the their commercials past midnight after they
finished their broadcast. They were so limited in equipment that they had to
improvise. James Black, a studio technician at the time, remembered that he
used to do all the work, We had a wire recorder that was inasequate for the
purposes we needed. Four months after I started with the company, we had
our first tape recorder. But it was one tape recorder he said. (Advertising in
the Philippines, pg50)
P and G grew from the ashes and rose like a phoenix, and not long after that
they were able to set up a recording studio and more. Their staffs were
hardworking, and they invited celebrities to speak in their radio dramas,
because of this the radio grew to be quite popular. Everybody listened to the
radio in the fifties thus broadened the advertising market. PMC took
advantage of this information and sponsored an amateur singing program
called Tawag ng Tanghalan, which was the inspiration for Filipino dreamers
who desired to stars. One thing led to the other and the PMC-sponsored
dramas attracted a lot of people, because of this more dramas popped out.
Gulong ng Palad; Principe Amante;Ilaw ng tahanan. These shows were
all sponsored by PMC, and since a lot of people listened to these shows
practically everybody grew aware of PMC and started buying their products.
PMCs first advertisement was of the brand of a soap Camay. Their campaign
was entitles Camay, the soap for beautiful women, they had beautiful
celebrities to represent the product in the ads. PMC wanted to expand their
market, thus Field advertising was created. Field advertising was done with a
truck that played jingles in a really loud speaker as they rode around town.
This gathered a lot of attention from the people by nightfall where they would
bring chairs to sit on as they watched the show. The PMC brand was shown on
screen as a commercial once in a while.
Cinema advertising was also introduced in the mid-fifties. Cinema advertising
had three different types. Cine slides, film commercials, and casual movie
advertisements. Among the three the advertisers used cine slides more often.
Television was brought to the Philippines on October 23,1953 by Slim Chaney
and James B. Linderberg, both the owners of the Bolinao Electronics
Company. Tawag was PMCs first television program that brought in the
first television contract sold in the Philippines. Channel 3 was a huge success
as it catered to 52 advertisers.
The Philippine Association of National Advertisers (PANA) was created after
two years of national advertisers getting together for the growth of the
advertising industry. The organization was created in order for the members
to talk amongst themselves the problems that they all commonly face as
advertisers. Today, PANA has more than two hundered members.
1960s

The Philippine Refining Company (PRC) was a growing concern, since it was
making a crack at the benefits that marketing research and group discussions
had to offer. The discussions that they have done made them discover
various marketing strategies that were proved successful for PRCs products.
During this time the value of media research decreased and another
organization was born. Media Research Foundation of the Philippines (MRFP)
had a goal to gather a huge amount of factual data about advertising media
in the country. Their chairman George L. Burwell explained the rationale of
the MRFP program, which was
The lack of advertising research data and the high cost of research were the
main factors that resulted in the formation of a trade association to carry out
advertising research. Evidently, no single firm could afford the cost of a fullscale advertising research operation. Through cooperative research efforts,
valuable research date have been made available to individual participating
firms at considerably lowered costs (Advertising in the Philippines, pg60) In
short there has been a lack of research data in regards to advertising
because its so expensive to conduct one. They are there to help provide this
information by doing the research for the advertisers and selling the
information at a lower cost. MRFP was able to do what they promised until
during the late sixties where the Philippine Mass Communications Research
Society (PMCRS) replaces them.
In this century they first tried to use the jingle for PRCs detergent brand
called Breeze created by Freddie Cochran sang by a female singer. It got so
many good reviews that after Breeze its predecessor, Tide became so well
known it was the publics first choice. The person known in the sixties for his
jingles were Jose D. Reyes or as they call him Joe Jingle
They say that he was able to create charming and exciting jingles mostly for
American products. His Jingles were all instinct or so they say, he did not
write down or read from notes. Joe Jingle was also a broadcast man who
hosted Gumising na tayo on the radio station DZBB. He was considered one
of the pioneers in radio-TV Manila.
In the sixties advertising agencies services were limited to advertising
services only. Other services like marketing were not done for the clients.
Advertising billings also went up during the sixties since the peso was
devalued at that time. During this time the average expenditure in
advertising were one hundred million pesos. This clearly shows how the
advertising industry has grown.

1970s
It was during the seventies that President Ferdinand Marcos imposed the
martial rule on September 21, 1972. The year 1970 was a very complicated
year, it was bad for all the businesses and industries. The advertising budget
however for consumer goods rose to twenty percent. This rise in price was
due to the need of the producers to keep their position in the market. Due to
this there has been no real change in advertising expenditures.

The movies was one of the things that kept people in the sixties entertained,
and the advertisers has used this an advantage for years, but the main
question is how to reach out to the people who cant afford the cinema due to
harsh times and to the advertisers whos budgets are a bit tight. Aurelio
Reli German created the first cinema audio advertising where he just plays
a jingle in due time and he had movie houses that contracted to him on an
exclusive basis. The cost for cinema audio advertising was estimated one
fourth of the regular cinema-advertising price.
In print media, this was the sector that was affected greatly by the
governments restrictions on imported goods. Due to this newspapers and
magazines became more expensive even if production companies had
already tried their best to cut down on cost.
After the martial law the Philippine advertising industry slowly recovered but
advertising agencies were still very careful about their expenses because of
the inflation rate.
A while after the martial law direct comparison advertising was then banned
and so were other ads that show any violence or vulgarity. They created a
Code that tells them what to do and not to do in advertising. It is very specific
and is a living instrument. The code went through a lot of revisions but in
general The Code of Ethics commits to the industry, to insure that they show
the truth in their ads, and to instill public confidence in advertising. Then
The new society was born, the consumers had transformed, they werent as
gullible as before anymore men and women have become more outspoken
and less impulsive when buying. They dont just believe anything they see in
an ad, it was during this time that the Mamimili publication was created. The
Mamimili was a for the buyer magazine, which contained regular reports on
the performances of products and its guidelines. The consumers were also
given the chance to voice out their complaints about false advertising. This
led to advertisers being more cautious about what they release to the public,
in order for them not to stain their clients company name and Manufacturers
were encouraged to insist in product quality. Later on the Consumer
Protection Week was also created, to be held every year by virtue of
Presidential Proclamation 1881 dated August 14, 1979 which states that
every first week of October every year was a period during which solid efforts
for the assertion of consumer rights may be planned and carried out to
safeguard the public against unreasonable price increases and fraudulent
advertising practices.
The return of the laundry bars and detergent trends also happened during the
seventies. Bert Timbol says that Filipino housewives preferred laundry bars
since these were less expensive
The Asian Institute For The Development of Advertising (AIDA) was also
created during this year. It was a project of the Phiippine board of advertising
which was created to do two specific functions which was:
1. To promote man power development for the advertising industry

2. To coordinate business research of value to industry decision makers.

It was during the seventies that there has been a setting of new trends.
Edwina Koch Arroyo broke the stigma of only mestiza women being used as
models in ads. In the shell Calendar Arroyo chose ethnic looking Filipino
women to model for her.
Then there was the Asian Federation of Advertising whom Antono de Joya is
the chairman of. They go with the concept servous populi which means a
servant of the advertising associations and practitioners of Asia. This
organization acts as a planner, doer, and coordinator of the tasks the Asian
advertising industry has to do. This organization is the only worldwide
association of people in advertising. In the end of the seventies, Filipino ads
stuck closer to home.
1980s
During the 1980s the quality of advertising they had to show was stale and
boring. Their ideas grew bland and most of the advertisers focused on safe
themes. Tang, an advertiser, was able to release a colorful and exciting ad
during this time and other ads like Magnolia Ice cream and PNB followed
after.
In the eightees the economy of the Philippines was reeling, and the Filipinos
observed the changes that have been going on around his country. Filipino
creatives adapted to a more western approach in advertising similar to the
ads found in New York. The downside of this is that the Philippine copy does
not match the visuals.
Discussion of the Philippine advertising industry surviving through the
economic crisis was being discussed, they tried to find a solution and they
did. By 1983 there were 343 advertising agencies that were registered under
Securities and Exchange Commission where Media billings had already
peaked to at least one billion pesos. In the whole East Asia, it has been noted
that the Philippines had the smallest advertising market, but this changed
when by 1981 the industry grew by 11% while inflation was at 10.2%. By
1982 the industry grew by 20% while inflation was at 11%, lastly by 1983 the
industry grew by 13.5 when inflation was at 20%.
During the eighties taglines were made popular, an example of these taglines
are Purefoods Its Purefoods all the way Philip Morris Because only Philip
Morris tastes like Philip Morris 7-Up A crystal clear glass of bubbly
refreshment Milo Campaign The Olympic energy drink and lastly Nidos
mommy, youre number one!
Then there were new production values. Our advertising industry rose and
new technologies began to pop up. There were special gadgets composed of
digital electronic devices. Examples of these are Computer assisted frame by
frame animation machine, Digital-effect machines and High Tech live-cell
animation on video ads and promotions.

All these high tech innovation through local video production have invaded
the local tube. This marked the improvement of the production value our ads
have produced in the country. Due to this the morale of Filipino men and
women in production rose.
Photography has also been invented and was called new wave in
production. Some companies during this times had print film called
profilmation. Because of Photography poster ads have become easier to use
and everything became more creative.
The creative Guild of the Philippines composed of creative directors from
various advertising companies held a monthly creatives choice which was
to give recognition to creative advertising executives.
The eighties was also considered as the Rise of television. There was an
increase in number of tv sets and tv stations put up and a realization from
advertisers that media impact was more important than media presence.
Although TV has been a very popular form of media the radio still remains
effective and reliable.
Outdoor advertising was also present during the eighties, this reached out to
people in an increasingly segmented media market with unequalled
frequency and at a low cost per thousand impressions. Cinema Advertising
still stayed, but it tapered off during first few years of 1980s because people
preferred to borrow tapes instead and watch the movies at home ad free.
Mascots started during the eighties. They call mascots as a Promotional
stunt usually their target market is the children and is quite good for a
number of years.
In 1985 the first ever Philipine advertising agency was put up in California,
USA. It was a branch of one of the leading advertising agencies in the
Philippines. Advertising and Marketing Associates (AMA) Consolidates, INC.
Joselito P. de Joya the executive vise president of the AMA Consolidated Group
of Companies headed this. AMA, USA was a medium sized agency that
served Asian American businessmen and women. They were also involved
in special projects managements, public relations, market studies and Market
Development services for Asians.
The Filipino customer in the eighties has evolved to become more choosy,
and perceptive, sometimes discriminating even. To protect the consumers the
Senate Bill No. 742 was filed by Senate Majority Leader Orlando Mercado that
states that ads of food and drugs must be verified by the bureau of Food and
Drugs (BFAD) those who are fail to comply will receive a punishment of
imprisonment of not less than 6 years and a fine of at least six thousand
pesos.
1990s and the 21st Century
In the nineties there was a man who said we tend to look for the Filipino in
all our arts and communication activities. His name was Cid Reyes, the

associate creative director of ACE/Saatchi Advertising. His point was that

there was a way of viewing the search of a Filipino ad, he released a desire to
exploit Filipino values in ads, to show how a bit of our culture and our identity
in our ads. Reyes once noted that various Filipino ads highlight values such as
pakikisama, barkadahan, family solidarity, respect for elders, and fondness
for tradition. Generally his information is factual, especially during the
nineties where Filipino pride and dignity play key roles in the struggle of the
Filipino race, which was to be an equal brotherhood of the nations. Reyes
states that there is an obvious attempt in trying to copy Madison Avenue
when it comes to aspects in advertising. Reyes expresses that the Filipino is
exemplifying foreign international flavor.
Another person who contradicts to Reyes theory and his name is Benjamin
Canapi, currently works at Viva Communications, Inc. Benjamin states that
the Filipino advertising tries to project the product to be more than just
Filipino. He says the Filipino must highlight the difference in their ads.
In the nineties the Filipino has begun to seek out his roots to determine their
specific style. Greg Macabenta the president of Advertising and Marketing
Associates (AMA) speaks about Filipinos beautiful culture and appalling
creativity. He explained to the public that there may be some ads that had
took inspiration from American ads but Filipino advertisers added a twist to
their ads, their own flavor, Filipino ads have become more personal. They
speak to the Filipino consumers directly and they trigger the emotions of their
target market in order for the ad to become more memorable.
In the Modern years, Advertising in the Philippines have evolved and now
Filipino advertisers have their own style on doing things.