The hugot history of the Dolfenal “Love” ad

MANILA – On Christmas Day, while some people were sharing holiday greetings and well wishes, the broken-hearted segment of the Philippine population on Facebook was sharing a Dolfenal TVC about the painful journey of a man who was cheated on by his girlfriend.

The Facebook users who were sharing the video kept saying “Grabe ang hugot ng Dolfenal!” Hugot is a Filipino term that means to pull out but is now being used as an internet slang to refer to something sad or emotional and is often related to love and relationships.

Apparently, the history behind this Dolfenal TVC is quite a hugot story itself. This ad, directed by Erik Matti, was made by the creative agency, TBWA\Santiago Mangada Puno together with Revolver Studios and Post Manila in 2009. But back then, the response wasn’t as big. When it was uploaded in Unilab Philippines’ Youtube channel, it only got a little over 3,400 views but when it was re-uploaded at The Viral Express’ Facebook page, the viewership quickly rose to more than 2.7 million in just over two weeks with some netizens reacting as if seeing the ad for the first time. As of this writing, the post already has almost 40,000 reactions, more than 55,000 shares and over 7,600 comments.

And much like Anna and RJ at the end of the film, TBWA\Santiago Mangada Puno and Dolfenal have gone their separate ways and are now happily working with different clients and agencies respectively.