MANILA, PHILIPPINES—Ogilvy Philippines recently organized BrandCamp, a workshop for emerging Filipino brands, which brought together small and medium enterprises with fresh takes on products, services, and industries; a promising audience; and a growing brand. This was an opportunity to learn about marketing communications from one of the world’s leading agencies.
“Ogilvy was founded on one man’s entrepreneurial spirit, and it’s exactly the kind of spirit we want to encourage in more Filipinos,” said Ogilvy Philippines CEO Elly Puyat. “BrandCamp gives emerging brands an opportunity to learn key marketing communications principles, get the chance to consult with experts, and start to think about branding and marketing as a long-term pursuit.”
For the workshop’s pilot run, Ogilvy worked with representatives from seven local businesses run by millennial entrepreneurs—1Export, Founding Farmers, Habil Crafts, Marquina Shoemaker, Tali Ti Amianan, Tangerine Kitchen, and TimeFree Innovations—to help address their marketing communications challenges. These seven businesses cover varied sectors, including food and beverage, exporting, jewelry, arts and crafts, and shoemaking.
The workshop was led by Ogilvy Philippines’ Strategy and Training Director Toni Tiu, with a faculty consisting of senior leaders from different verticals within the agency, who gave talks on how start-up entrepreneurs could make their brands and their businesses distinct, relevant, and credible to their target markets. Following the talks, the seven businesses took part in a series of consultation sessions where they sought advice from the BrandCamp faculty on sustaining their progress and addressing current marketing communications challenges.
“The key takeaway for me is the importance of crafting the right narrative to convey our message across our target audience to effectively build on the brand and establish better customer relationships,” shared TimeFree Innovations Co-Founder and CEO Chino Atilano.
“The brand is not just the name, logo, colors, or packaging, but it involves each contact point that the public can or will have with the brand, from pricing, distribution, social media, event activation, and customer service,” said Founding Farmers Business Development Manager Jennifer Tan. “The consistent, clear communication of the brand message across all channels is critical for any brand to stand out to succeed.”
Follow-up consultation sessions to help participants with their marketing communication goals continues.
“Entrepreneurship is a path to creating jobs, improving lives, and uplifting communities, ushering people into new opportunities,” said Puyat. “We hope to organize more of these BrandCamp workshops, reach out to different industries, and help build up exciting concepts and brands.”
