MANILA – JULY10, 2013 – Philippine Daily Inquirer president and chief executive officer Sandy Prieto-Romualdez has appointed Felipe "Pepito" Olarte as the senior vice president and group sales head of the Inquirer Group of Companies, a newly created group under PDI’s umbrella. He also shares his experience as Philippines’ representative in Cannes Lions Festival.
In his new role, Olarte will oversee the overall transactions of the company’s platform in sales. The multiplatform includes: broadsheet (Philippine Daily Inquir), magazines (Hinge-Inquirer Publications), tabloids and provincial daily (Bandera, Inquirer Libreand Cebu Daily), radio (Radyo Inquirer DZIQ 990AM), digital (InquirerInteractive.net), printing press, mobile company (Megamobile Inc.),Inquirer bus and logistics company.
Prior to his appointment, Olarte was the vice president for advertising of the Philippine Daily Inquirer where he was responsible for the sales and advertising of the broadsheet. He was hired by Inquirer in September 1986 as branch manager of classified ads believing that he can also boost its sales just like what he accomplished in his first work.
Olarte also served as the president for six years of United Print Media Group where Inquirer was an active member.
With Inquirer’s lead in the industry, it was chosen as the official Philippine representative in Canne’s Festival since 2004. As an advertising authority, Olarte was chosen by Inquirer to represent the company. Currently, he is the director of the Advertising Board.
Aside from being focused and hard-working, he believes that dealing with people is his asset. “I think my main strength, even my colleagues in the industry would also agree, is my ability to handle people,” remarked Olarte. His strong connection with his previous clients is an advantage in managing the advertising department for years.
Taking on a new challenge
With Inquirer turning into a multiplatform, Olarte, together with his growing team, will not just boost up the sales and ads revenue but also provide clients with an innovative avenue for their products by utilizing all accessible platforms of Inquirer.
Inquirer’s move will not threaten the creative agencies but in turn will provide an innovative partnership between Inquirer and the agencies.
“Because the problem with the present set-up we do not have a creative person who could think of ways how to maximize the multiplatform capabilities. We can create a campaign, throw that to the creative agency and we collaborate” express Olarte.
Olarte believes that the other platforms will be bringing more revenues to the company in the near future. Inquirer.net mobile advertising is catching up due to numerous applications on the market while the Inquirer bus is accepting more TV commercials now.
Print vs Digital platform
Despite the onset of digital platforms, Olarte says that advertisers still choose to advertise in print than in digital. There might me an undeniable growing number of digital audience, but it is the keen print readers who respond more to advertisements. Banks and real estate prefer to advertise in print than in television because they got more prospective clients from readers than viewers.
This basis does not only benefit the advertisers but most especially Inquirer itself.
In contrast with the decline of newspaper ad revenues in other countries, in the Philippines, revenues show it’s increasing. He believes that print and digital platforms complement each other. Since the youth are not into reading nowadays, Inquirer will make use of the digital advantage like adding games to engage interaction with the readers.
Pepito Olarte in Cannes Lions Festival
Pepito Olarte has been like a “tourist” in Cannes Festival almost every year. He has been attending the festival since 2004 as the official representative of Cannes Festival. Their group have been sponsoring industry activities and sending delegates. He shared that being in Cannes is always fun. “It broadens your perspective, your horizon, you meet different people from different countries, you’ll be seen their works”, he shares.
He believes that he’s the only Filipino that was able to go up the stage to receive the awards of Philippines most especially the second gold win of JWT Manila and other silver and bronze awards. Because of this, he is positive that more jurors from the countries may be named for the next Cannes Festival.
