On April 30, the first official TV commercial for the Department of Tourism's new "It's More Fun in the Philippines" campaign has been aired, and has so far been shown on CNN International. The video has then made its way to YouTube and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, where it has earned both praise and criticism.
The 30-second ad, which combines still photos and video clips and uses the song "Barbra Streisand" by Duck Sauce, begins with the words "We asked people why it's more fun in the Philippines, and they answered:" and ends with a message persuading the people to check out the campaign website, as well as to create more memes such as the ones shown on the ad.
One YouTube user commented:
On the other hand, the ad campaign has been criticized by others for being too "simple", or amateurish, with other YouTube users even saying that even college students could make an ad similar to this one using simple movie-making tools on their computers.
When I first saw the ad on CNN just a few hours ago, I was pleasantly surprised, especially since it has been a while since I last saw a Philippine tourism ad on a foreign cable channel. After reading the comments on YouTube, however, I did realize that the ad does seem to be lacking something--that extra oomph factor, with visual elements that would make it as memorable as the famous "Malaysia Truly Asia" ads (which are EVERYWHERE, mind you), the "Incredible India" ads with the hauntingly beautiful imagery and background music, or even Macau's "Touching Moments, Experience Macau" campaign (though I admit, the campaign song they used was quite terrible, especially when you get to the second half of the ad--search for it on YouTube yourself).
Don't get me wrong--I do think the ad has that special quirkiness to it (especially with the song choice and the clever lines such as "My Humps. More Fun in the Philippines"). I could see that the Department of Tourism (DOT) and the agency behind that TVC (BBDO Guerrero) was trying to go for humor and that they were really trying hard, but the ad shouldn't just be enough to make the people laugh (even though it is believed that humor helps in the retention process). I do think that the ads should also be done in such a way that they would want to make the foreigners actually go and check out the places themselves. The pictures were flashed too quickly for the people to actually "absorb" what they were seeing; the text also appears to be a distraction too--viewers would be torn between reading the text or looking at the images).
It's only the first ad though, and there is certainly more room for improvement. Let's just hope that the DOT pays close attention to what the people are saying about this first ad, and actually take into consideration the people's comments or suggestions so that they could come up with better, more engaging ads in the future.
With that being said, I give this first TV commercial a score of 5.5/10.
Let me know what you think about this ad--leave your comments at the "comments" section below.
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