This statement has been doing the online rounds lately, scanned jpegs of the just-released statement of the ad agency Campaigns & Grey regarding their participation in the Department of Tourism’s “Pilipinas Kay Ganda” brouhaha. Talk about “furious backpedalling” – they are trying to put as much distance as possible between them and the DOT campaign. I guess the association must be bad for business.
Through it all, I get the impression that a) doing business with the government is a bummer, b) the agency feels really crappy about doing pro bono work for government entities with big budgets, and c) the DOT was a “client” from hell. But due to love of country, they did it anyway.
The closer is the killer. “We shall take this experience as a cautionary tale against giving in to the client and allowing their over-enthusiasm to override our better judgement. It was a reminder that the road to perdition is paved with good intentions.”
It makes for fascinating reading – except that the fonts on this scan are so tiny, my eyes hurt after two minutes! iPad readers will have a better time putting their thumbs and forefingers together and then apart, doing the whole multi touch thing.
“It ain’t over till the fat lady sings.” Whether in opera or in real life, that’s what they always tell us. So in the case of the swirling controversy over the selection of the new Philippine tourism travel slogan, we were a bit excited to to see the massive image of Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago (a lot plumper than we remember) on TV giving us her latest nuggets of wisdom, hopefully providing us some indication that this 24-hour news cycle that had inexplicably lasted over 48 hours would be over. She had us on the edge of our seats, awaiting the first note.
But all she sang was that the logo “… is ignorant, and ignorance is boring.” Hello, National Geographic tagline yun ah. Well at least we know what cable channel she watches. And that she drives an 8-cylinder car.
Update: I thought that the DOT could finally sweep this under the rug now that the DOT’s digital guy Under Secretary Enteng Romano took the fall for his boss and accepted responsibility for the now-dead-and-buried “beautifulpilipinas.com” website. It’s all here, in a heartfelt apology posted on Facebook this morning.
Just like in business, the IT guy always gets the blame, eh? But wait, no one was owing up to the new slogan and allegedly plagiarized logo that still keeps the cauldron simmering. No one has accepted responsibility for approving and pushing “Pilipinas Kay Ganda” and the logo allegedly plagiarized from Poland. Could it be because this is a key strategic element and that the buck stops nowhere but the top? Guys, if you want to kill this story, kill the story already!
So since the story isn’t swept under the rug yet (yes, we can still see and smell it), here are Top 10 Quotes about the PKG brouhaha that were amassed over the past 24 hours from everyone from politicians and bloggers, who had their chance to say their barbs and zingers while the spotlight’s still on them.
[Cue Paul Schaffer and the CBS Orchestra...]
And the TOP 10 QUOTES ABOUT THE PILIPINAS KAY GANDA BROUHAHA ARE…
10. “Pilipinas Kay Ganda is, I think, ignorant and ignorance is boring.” Miriam Santiago, avid National Geographic channel viewer.
09. “Let’s start some neurons in our brains working. Their neurons are not working. They are not on full eight cylinders. They are on two cylinders.” Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago, still riffing on a theme.
08. “If you ask me, I think somebody is drinking on the job,” Sen. Miguel Zubiri.
06. “Pilipinas, Patay Kang Bata Ka.” – @GSChan, after learning the slogan’s logo was copied from the Polish tourism logo.
05. “The new DOT slogan ‘Pilipinas Kay Ganda’ is like the billboard message of Ricky Reyes’ ads, Ganda ng Lola Mo!” – Rep JV Ejercito’s Twitter account.
04 “Paano naman ‘yong Kapuso at Kapatid? Para kasing ‘Ganda ng Lola Mo.’ Hindi mo malaman kung morning show o si Ricky Reyes ang nag-coin.” – Rep JV Ejercito, expanding on his pa-cute tweet, as quoted by ABS-CBN.
03 “My Apologies to the Polish National Tourist Office. I’m really sorry for calling your logo a Google Doodle.” - Spanky Enriquez, the guy who blew the whistle about the Polish logo rip-off. He called the DOT’s new logo a Google Doodle.
02 “Hindi nga na-research ‘yon… wala kasi kaming alam sa mga porn sites eh” – Tourism Secretary Alberto Lim, commenting on the similarity of the beautifulpilipinas.com domain to a porn site. Was there supposed to be a smiley after that remark?
AND THE #1 QUOTE ABOUT THE PILIPINAS KAY GANDA BROUHAHA IS…
01 “There are similarities, pero sa pagkakaalam ko… sa atin mas makulay.” – DOT Secretary Lim, on the striking similarity between the new Philippine tourism logo and Poland’s. Oo nga no?
There were also a lot of comments about signing up Vice Ganda to be the new DOT spokesperson, but they were too numerous to include here.
photo: the old (and much better) Philippine tourism slogan
We recently got wind of the Department of Tourism’s new slogan. It’s supposed to be the Philippines’ new country marketing slogan, after about 8 years of “WOW Philippines“. The new slogan is “Pilipinas Kay Ganda” – obviously a rip off that old Metropop anthem from the 70′s, “Umagang Kay Ganda“. Hey, any Tillie Moreno and Ray-Ann Fuentes fans in the house? Or if you prefer, it also reminds us of that morning show that ripped off the song title years later.
Of course it just literally means “Beautiful Philippines” but the pun is lost on people who can’t connect the dots to make the pop culture reference to the song or TV show.
Well I don’t like it, and apparently the slogan has picked up quite a few other haters on the Net as well. If the ad agency that created the campaign announced the new slogan early to create a buzz, they are certainly reaping a whirlwind of a social media backlash that just might rival the recall of the new GAP logo some weeks back.
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