MANILA, PHILIPPINES — In the weeks leading up to the launch of Trese on Netflix, several billboards began popping up not just in Metro Manila but across the country featuring protagonist Alexandra Trese. That alone was eye-catching already and began to go viral on social media but, mere days later, the billboards suddenly had red markings and appeared vandalized. With the words, “Layas, siyudad namin to!” or “Leave, this is our city!”
“The series is all about the war between the underworld and humans, and Trese is at the center of it,” says Herbert Hernandez, Founding Partner at GIGIL. “It’s true to the theme of the campaign. (Alexandra Trese) is the protagonist trying to balance both worlds. And just like in the show, not everyone is happy about Trese’s coming, especially the aswangs.”
Starting in comics form in 2005, Trese was written by Budjette Tan with art by Kajo Baldisimo and tells the story of Alexandra Trese, a woman with supernatural abilities that the Philippine police contact when cases are difficult to solve due to mysterious circumstances, often with occult origins. With her twin bodyguards Crispin and Basilio right behind her and armed with the mystic dagger called Sinag, Trese is the sixth child of a sixth child, the prophesied warrior that must protect humanity in the coming war against creatures of the underworld.
“This is already our fourth project with Netflix,” Hernandez says of the billboards. “We started working with them in December 2020 for their Christmas campaign, as well as their previous releases like To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before 3, DOTA: Dragon’s Blood, and Army of the Dead. Our Netflix clients knew what they wanted for this campaign: they wanted it to be really big and disruptive, because they knew how big Trese’s premiere on Netflix is for the country.”
What kind of monster would do this??? Keep your eyes peeled and don't forget to use #TabiTabiPo if you see anything weird – we're going to find out who did this 🔍 pic.twitter.com/3qmnBhq248
— Netflix Philippines (@Netflix_PH) June 6, 2021
Since the creation of Trese, the duo of Tan and Baldisimo have grown and nurtured a fanbase that has shown passion for the characters and stories they created both at the local komiks conventions and on social media. It follows, then, that in an agency like GIGIL, there would be some Trese fans among their number.
“Our minimum requirement for choosing the concept team is that they should be fans of Trese,” Hernandez mentions. “At least 50% of the team knew Trese even years before. The rest of the team genuinely became fans as they immersed themselves in the world of Trese for our research.”
Regarding the process of developing the campaign, Hernandez notes that a connection with the source material was something that the agency took seriously. “Like any other campaign we’ve done in GIGIL, we always immerse ourselves with the product and the owner,” he says. “So the first thing we did after we got briefed by the Netflix team was to interview Budjette himself, the creator. It was very helpful because he shared a lot of things with us that were not easily available online — his intentions, his inspirations, and a lot of explanations about why Trese is what it is.”
It also helped GIGIL that the Netflix team was easy to interact with. “Sobrang saya nila katrabaho,” he gushes. “Stef Pajarito, a Pinoy expat on the Netflix team, and Daphne Ng of Netflix are both definitely great clients we admire. They trust us to share with them our local insights to make sure we help their content land well among Filipinos.”
As the past week has shown, the vandalized Trese billboards were not limited to just one or two main thoroughfares in Metro Manila. As Hernandez bares, there were “over 20+ billboards across the whole country. Sobrang tindi ng effort to make sure the release was synchronized.”
The vandalized billboards have since gone viral, with people initially fearing real vandalism done by people who might not have been fans of the property. Hernandez gladly says that the people at GIGIL have been overwhelmed by the response. “For our whole campaign, we did our best to make the fans happy, and when they expressed their reactions to the campaign online, everything felt worth it,” he points out.
Looks like we found the culprits… but don’t be afraid. Trese’s coming to let them know they can’t mess with our city.
Until then, careful where you tread and use #TabiTabiPo to keep the monsters at bay. pic.twitter.com/MlIkxKaanK— Netflix Philippines (@Netflix_PH) June 7, 2021
Lest anyone think that creating a nationwide billboard campaign for a Filipino comic about to debut on Netflix was easy, Hernandez quickly squashes that notion. “The team was really relieved especially because we had so many late nights just to make all of these happen together with the clients and our production partners,” he shares. “This campaign for Trese felt equivalent to 4-5 standard projects happening at the same time. It was that big of a campaign.”
As the show was set to make its anticipated debut at midnight of June 11, count Hernandez and the team at GIGIL among those eagerly anticipating finally seeing Alexandra Trese in animated form. “We will watch it in all languages – English, Tagalog of course, and even Japanese,” he says.
With the success of the Trese billboard campaign, it would not be a stretch to expect more of the same from GIGIL, but Hernandez is playing it coy for now. Asked if the agency will develop more Trese material in the future, he had one answer: “Secret.”
