MANILA, PHILIPPINES — In one of adobo Magazine’s latest adoboTalks, the Word on Creativity collaborated with AdSpark for a roundtable discussion on the influence and impact of Philippine values on digital marketing. Building on an AdSpark white paper, the session included Home Buddies Buddies founder Frances Lim Cabatuando, Max’s Restaurant COO Mark de Joya, and advertising industry veteran Marlon Rivera. On hand to facilitate the discussion was Kumu Vice President of Marketing Vicky Herrera, who served as event host.
The core of the topic lay in seven “traditional” values identified in the study, namely, hiya, utang na loob, lakas ng loob, pakikisama, bahala na, and pakikibaka, all of which were, to various degrees, reflected in the careers of each of the panelists.
De Joya, for instance, cited pakikibaka as a value that he most identified with; given Max’s status as a legacy brand, he considered the responsibility of doing good as a proactive member of the community a priority. For Cabatuando, the experience of forming the popular Home Buddies online group had given her a new appreciation for the community-centric values of pakikisama, pakikipagkapwa, as well as the can-do attitude of lakas ng loob.
On the pakikisama part, Cabatuando said, “It just grew because it’s the thing now and people just want to help each other…apart from my gathering the home enthusiasts together, it’s really also the situation that got people talking, and that’s how it grew.”
Having worked on a number of international brands, Rivera drew from his advertising experience to point out that adapting brands implied more than simply repurposing existing materials and dubbing them into the local language. According to Rivera, a large part of “localizing” a foreign brand involved recontextualizing it from the ground up, citing the example of Nescafe, wherein Pinoys formerly used coffee (primarily) to warm up, versus the European custom of it is a social drink.
“These things are very hard to explain to foreigners, why we do the things that we do, but you just have to do it, because otherwise, it will not work in the local context,” said Rivera. So as an advertising guy, you have to be able to transpose and you have to be able to argue with your clients that certain concepts will not work in the Philippines, because this is where the market is…that’s what we’re paid to do: to transpose, to massage. And to do all these things until it becomes fit for the market that they’re in, which is the Philippines.”
For Pinoys, the incorporation of values into their everyday lives wasn’t a geography-bound phenomenon, as Hererra shared that a large part of Kumu’s surprise success (it is currently a top download in 55 countries) was its ability to deliver a taste of home to Filipinos, no matter where in the world they happened to be.
On the notion of traditional values being a common touchpoint for Filipinos all over the world, de Joya likened it to an OS that was constantly being updated, while still retaining a common baseline, using Max’s original signature dish of steak as an example (versus their current reputation as “The House That Fried Chicken Built”). While it is natural for brands to adapt and grow in order to stay relevant, they also needed to retain core tenets to be true to themselves: “Fundamental things that were true for Max’s all the way back in 1945, those still stay true now in 2021. The things that were true back then – inclusiveness, blendedness, the coming together of disparate cultures and communities – is something that is sacred to us.”
The same held true for Max’s going out into the world, as, much like Nescafe being adapted to the Filipino market, the “Filipino-ness” of Max’s had to be adapted for foreign markets when it ventured out.
“It’s probably the most Filipino condiment you can think of,” laughed De Joya, using Max’s trademark banana ketchup as an example. “When I go to our international stores in North America, Canada, it’s ‘banana sauce’, because the alienation of ‘banana ketchup’ is hard for people to process, (being) so Filipino, yet being blended with Worcestershire sauce to come up with something that is intrinsically unique, itself representing a blending of culture.”
Of course, while recognizing and preserving core values was important, Cabatuando noted that it brought an inherent responsibility to keep things authentic and on-brand when it came to the target audience. For Home Buddies, a group built on community spirit and a love of DIY, it regularly falls to Cabatuando and her fellow group admins to keep things honest by evaluating any and all brand partnerships that come along. Rather than accept every offer that comes along, they consider whether or not the brands in question are ones they themselves would actually incorporate into their homes.
Rivera agreed, stating, “You have to be a good brand steward, but you also have to be a steward of the culture that you’re in.”
Click here to view the full Filipino in Flux roundtable session, or here to view or download the original AdSpark study.
