Manila, Philippines – The Philippine headquarters of the now global fast-food brand Jollibee has released its Christmas ad in the country, which puts to the spotlight one of the few silver linings the pandemic has brought – more time with family.
The ad is one straight out of the “new normal,” where in the first few seconds of the ad, people walking in the streets with face shields on are seen.
The ad was made with no special fuss, but hits home – people have definitely been plagued by the massive lifestyle changes amid the pandemic, but on the other hand, it has also unexpectedly brought a positive effect, such as closer ties with the family.
Such sentiment is represented by the inner thoughts of a child, who looks out the window, longing to go back outside and play in the playground. Then the mellow beginning quickly changes into a happy and grateful disposition.
From the bothered musings of the child “Hangang kailan kaya ganito…” (Until when will this continue) that are delivered as a lyrcial song, the child breaks into a smile and an upbeat tune, now enumerating, still through a song, the good side of it all: the home standing in as the boy’s playground, creating bonding moments with his parents, grandparents, and siblings.
So where does Jollibee appear? In the ad, Jollibee’s signature food items – such as Chickenjoy and Jolly Spaghetti – are displayed as the anchor for the characters’ family time at dinner and merienda (snack time).
Within two days, the ad has already raked in 2.6M views, as of writing, on YouTube. Filipino viewers loved the film, with one commenting on Jollibee’s channel, “[Nice] commercial. [Showing] the positive side of this pandemic ?? [and] bringing family closer to each other ?”
Another user commented, “Jollibee never fails me with [its] commercial ✨??”
Jollibee has been known for proactively participating in designated calendar celebrations and using its special films to pay tribute on Valentine’s, Mother’s, and Grandparents day.
One of its films released on Valentine’s of this year called #CoupleGoals, garnered 21M views, which depicts the reality among seemingly perfect couples on social media.
Aside from the brand’s Christmas ad, the fast-food chain has also recently delighted its Filipino patrons with another year-end surprise when it brought back its signature one-third pound patty burger Champ, and the jumbo variant of its staple Burger Steak, Ultimate Burger Steak.
Manila, Philippines – China-based game developer Moonton has tapped Filipino professional boxer Manny Pacquiao to become the new face of the company’s game, Mobile Legends.
The campaign started out with a teaser on Mobile Legends’ YouTube channel, where the video shows boxing material elements like boxing gloves and punching bags, with an announcer voice-over revealing the new collaboration with “The fighting pride of the Philippines.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nckwqY3X-Oo
The teaser uploaded by Mobile Legends on November 13, hinting the inclusion of another in-game hero (Video Courtesy of Mobile Legends YouTube channel)
In a virtual press conference, Pacquiao shared his excitement with the new partnership, and took note of the growth of the local esports community.
“It is an amazing experience [since] I have seen how much the esports community in the Philippines has grown [and] how much the gaming community has embraced Mobile Legends Bang Bang, and with their skills, have elevated the game,” Pacquiao stated.
He added, “The dedication, the focus, the hard work that comes with building skills–these are present both in [actual] sports and esports. More importantly, that drive to succeed and conquer, as well as the spirit of camaraderie and fairness are also key threads binding the two.”
The recent company move is in line with its ongoing Project NEXT initiative, which seeks to provide “revamp” of the game’s original characters and improving them. As part of the campaign, Mobile Legends is launching a new hero based on Manny Pacquiao called “Paquito” which features boxing skills, with “damage” and “chase” specialty.
A Mobile Legends gameplay featuring the new “Paquito” hero, resembling Manny Pacquiao (Video Courtesy of OzaRess YouTube channel)
“Playing Mobile Legends has become a daily routine to all the [Filipinos]. The Philippine culture also provides a steady stream for the inspiration of in-game updates and collaborations,” William Mei, marketing manager of Moonton stated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6InxBaL_WM
Manila, Philippines – The Japanese automaker Nissan in the Philippines welcomes local celebrity Matteo Guidicelli as the brand’s new ambassador, formally introduced during the company’s annual Dealer of the Year Awards on November 6.
A local actor-singer and multisport athlete, Guidicelli expressed high hopes for the new partnership, which also coincided with the company’s recently launched brand campaign “Dare the Impossible.”
Matteo Guidicelli (left) recently met with Nissan in the Philippines President and Managing Director Atsushi Najima during a recent company event.
“The Dare the Impossible campaign is a brilliant way to further ignite the passion and innovation behind Nissan. In combination with the brand’s new look, this attitude is something I can totally relate [to and] live by. I am looking forward to the full experience from the vehicle line-up, including the Nissan Terra, Navarra, Patrol, the 370Z, the fully electric Nissan LEAF, and beyond,” says Matteo Guidicelli.
Meanwhile, Atsushi Najima, president and managing director for Nissan in the Philippines commented, “With Matteo, we are further igniting the Nissan brand in the Philippines. He is an inspiration and fully aligned to how we manage marketing, sales, consumer touch points, dealer network, after sales and communications. We are proud to have Matteo with us, as Nissan boldly shapes an innovative and human-centric future in the country and in the region.”
Manila, Philippines – Expertise is the name of the game in the workplace, but even that carries a challenge – often you are thought to be limited to your specialization and miss the chance for your voice to be heard in other valuable areas of the company.
In the field of user experience, designers aren’t an exception who are often left from the business decision-making process, but a principal product designer from Indonesia e-commerce Tokopedia might just have the perfect answer.
In the recently held UXPH Conference for experience designers last November 14 to 15 in the Philippines, Tokopedia’s Sonya Seddarasan presented a framework that can help UX specialists gain ample background of a product’s marketability, and therefore, get their foot in the “business” door.
Seddarasan has been with Indonesia e-commerce since 2019 where she works with multidisciplinary teams of business, data analytics, engineering, and experience designing.
“[There’s] a lot of culture [where] [UX] designers are being [passed down] requirements, and our job is basically just to empathize with it, and then give [back the result] to [the] product [team]. So you are actually missing a lot of the background work that has to done,” she said.
In her talk Using Customer Value Proposition as Revenue Model, she explained the structure of how designers can identify a product’s best revenue model with customer value proposition as the entry point.
Also called a viability assessment, the framework consists of three building blocks: identifying a product or service’s top customer value proposition, coming up with user personas, and then matching the latter to the best revenue model for the business.
With four to six key people in the team, the assessment simply involves asking the right trigger questions, brainstorming a list of the answers, and rearranging them based on priority.
With the existing product or solution as the baseline, Seddarasan said to ask three key trigger questions to name the top values it offers the user: what value does the solution offer, why should customers use the solution, and what problem is being solved for them.
With three priority values named, the target users are then identified. Seddarasan said to differentiate them based on four different tiers: their job, their age, their needs, and their behavior.
Similarly with a number of three user groups to focus on, the best revenue model – from pey per use, bundling, or subscription, among others – is matched to each persona. For the final step, Seddarasan said such questions must be asked: how much is the customer in a certain group willing to pay, in what medium are they likely to pay, and where can they find such medium.
In the UXPH session, Seddarasan said by applying such framework, designers won’t need to clamor for validation from stakeholders, whereas an intelligently informed business suggestion would naturally emerge via following the steps.
Seddarasan, having been in the design industry – with experience ranging from graphic and product design to UX – for more than ten years, is no stranger to receiving prejudice from other functional teams in the workplace.
“At the end of the day, you’ll meet different people anywhere, whether they’re accommodating or [not], but everyone has got the same basic behavior. If they know that you actually add up to [the company], no matter how small it is, as long as you know how to speak to them and how to negotiate your way around it, I think everything is workable.”
But despite workplace differences, Seddarasan said pushing for the immersion in business strategy is well worth the effort, for business knowledge could make or break designers’ longevity in the industry.
“UX strategy will be something that is an [asset] for us designers to be able to have a chair, to have a seat in the middle of business environment.”
Manila, Philippines – Last August, Thailand-headquartered tech company True Digital Group (TDG) launched its entertainment platform TrueID in the Philippines which offered free curated content, and since then, its content lineup has grown to include originally produced shows featuring famous Filipino vloggers and celebrities.
During its pilot launch, the platform’s roster of shows included those licensed from leading local broadcast networks GMA and Cignal, and now, TDG in the Philippines announced that a fresh lineup is slated for users from both social media and TV personalities such as TikToker and dancer AC Bonifacio, former “housemate” in reality TV show Pinoy Big Brother and vlogger Baninay Bautista, and social media influencer and content creator Kimpoy Feliciano.
In the past week, AC has already premiered her Style Must-Haves vlog on TrueID. AC started to grow her name in the country when she won the local TV dance competition “Dance Kids” in 2016. TDG said she is also set to premiere more videos on the platform having been signed on as a TrueID Ambassador.
Meanwhile, Baninay and Kimpoy are also slated to premiere their videos on TrueID in the coming weeks. Both personalities will be publishing their daily life vlogs on the platform giving their fans a chance to see more of them on the web.
Filipino social media personalities Baninay Bautista and Kimpoy Feliciano.
TDG said the three social media personalities are only the beginning of what’s to come on TrueID Philippines. 28 Squared Studios, a digital studio owned by another TrueID Ambassador, Philippines-based Chinese model and host Richard Juan, is set to bring in more video content from celebrities and influencers as well as originally-produced content, including a show with Miss World 2013 Megan Young, as revealed on its Instagram.
28squaredstudios’ announcement on Richard Juan and Megan Young’s show.
Other well-known Filipino personalities are expected to premiere their content on the platform soon. This includes lifestyle content creator Erwan Heussaff, actor Enrique Gil, and singer Jinho Bae.
“The vision here is that all Filipino Creators would be creating content not only for TrueID Philippines but also for TrueID Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand. That is what’s exciting about this,” said Dindo Marzan, managing director for True Digital Philippines, Inc.
Manila, Philippines – “Designing the overall digital experience while creating magic in the details.”
The phrase, defining interaction design as a separate entity of user experience design, is a perfect summary of how new experiences can be developed out of ambiguity, as explained in one of UXPH Conference 2020’s lightning talks titled “Designers as Enablers of Change”.
Presented by Daisuke Yukita, one of global design firm IDEO Tokyo’s interaction designers, the talk centers on the importance of creating meaningful designs that speak to customer experience and accessibility. Furthermore, Yukita stresses the importance of bringing the stakeholders on board to further understand the design process and achieve change.
“We should try as much as possible the stakeholders along the design process, and it’s not just the furnished parts, it’s also the messy parts. We need to learn to embrace that effort and time that it may take because it does lead to a bigger impact,” Yukita stated.
During the talk, he also narrates various instances that interaction design has led to a ‘golden age’ of small yet meaningful designs, from micro-features like Recycle Bin and right click, to more meaningful and interactive projects from ‘Remote High Five’ to creating a school from the ground-up.
While often met with ambiguous questions from clients on solving business problems, Yukita notes that most of them change from “I wish it was…” to “How it can be changed…”, all thanks to a diversity of effort.
“There are designers like interaction designers, communication designers, mechanical engineers, and business designers. It’s not just that, there are people from all sorts of backgrounds and careers, like physicians or musicians or food scientists. With these amazing people, we practice design thinking.”
Another key takeaway from the talk is that the design process is, and should be focused on the lens of the people.
“Always think in the lens of the people. When you create something new, you need to think of it from a business sense, which would be the viability; the technology lens, the feasibility, and the people lens, the desirability. You all make the key decisions with the people in the center of the design process.”
Daisuke Yukita, Interaction Designer at IDEO Tokyo
Yukita concludes his talk by adding that aside from taking stakeholders on board, designers must also provide rationale for future processes and create outputs that are distributive
Manila Philippines – Acquiring insurance will always carry its own complexity, and in a bid to trivialize the process of finding the right financial product for consumers, the Philippine arm of Canada-born insurance company Sun Life has launched a campaign that bundles insurance products with mutual funds, rolling them out as different “starter packs.”
Dubbed as “Celebrity Product Starter Pack,” Sun Life wanted to make insurance friendlier by offering “combos” specifically curated for each life stage, enlisting well-known Filipino celebrities that best represent such stages to forefront each bundle.
Sun Life offers five starter packs, namely, the Adulting, Negosyante (entrepreneur), Newlywed, Health, and Parent of OFW (overseas filipino worker) bundles.
For each starter pack, one insurance and mutual fund is bundled together. For example, the Adulting Starter Pack, which is the brand’s offer for first-time workers discovering their independence, combines its basic life insurance plan Sun StartUp and minimal risk mutual fund Sun Life Prosperity Money Market mutual fund for an affordable monthly premium starting at P2,000 ($50).
The said starter pack is endorsed by Gen Z actor and singer Iñigo Pascual. Meanwhile, for its Negosyante or entrepreneur bundle, the brand got young adult and TV personality Enchong Dee.
For its Newlywed Starter Pack, Sun Life has partnered with recently wedded Matteo Guidicelli, who created buzz earlier in the year for his secret wedding with popular Philippine pop star Sarah Geronimo.
For its Health and Parent of OFW starter packs, on the other hand, Sun Life appointed Piolo Pascual, who is also the brand’s main endorser, and Charo Santos-Concio, respectively, who is a well-known media executive in broadcast giant ABS-CBN.
The campaign is a digital campaign with banners rolled out on its social media channels Facebook and Instagram. A 6-second spot for each starter pack has also been published on YouTube, with the brand also executing native email advertisements.
Sun Life Chief Marketing and Client Experience Officer Gilbert Simpao said the company released the bundle marketing campaign, having found that many Filipinos consider insurance as an overwhelming and expensive endeavor.
“This [insight] prompted Sun Life to highlight and offer the budget-friendly essential products to start their financial foundation with. These insurance and investment starter packs can suit different lifestyles and needs of Filipinos,” he said.
He added, “With the Celebrity Product Starter Packs, Filipinos will have a clearer starting point in their pursuit of their financial goals, especially now that everyone is striving to rise above the challenges presented by the pandemic.”
Manila, Philippines – We often think in the range of equivalents, that is, if something is big, we expect that all things toward it mirror the same gigantic force, but such is certainly not the case with JG Summit Holdings – one of the biggest conglomerates in the Philippines – which revealed that in bringing to life the company’s digital transformation, one of its most powerful weapons is “starting small.”
Two years ago, JG Summit fully jumped on its intention to shift to a digital experience when it declared that it aims to become the leading digital company in the Philippines. In the recently held UXPH ConferenceSaturday, a two-day conference for experience designers in the Philippines, the company’s SVP for digital transformation and corporate services Lisa Gokongwei-Cheng walked UX specialists through on how the firm successfully materialized its digitization, not just for its customers but for its employees as well.
If you’re a startup built in the heights of the current digital lifestyle, innovation in such area most probably comes second nature, for if it isn’t the business’ bread and butter, it’s one of its main operational pillars. But for a giant like JG Summit that was incorporated in the 50’s, to adopt digital transformation poses a bigger challenge.
JG Summit has over five business units emanating from different industries, such as airline company Cebu Pacific Air, commercial bank Robinsons Bank (RBank), and F&B Universal Robina Corporation (URC). According to Cheng, the biggest question for the company to answer is, “How do you innovate within a traditional, successful, and large conglomerate?”
Cheng said the question emerges because of resistors – businesses who can’t seem to see the ROI of taking a 360 degree turn to digital, because with their eyebrows raised, they tend to think, “Why fix it, if it ain’t broken?”
“At the beginning, none of the business units wanted to work with us. It would cost too much, it would disrupt their business as usual,” shared Cheng in the conference’s session Lessons in Digital Transformation in a Corporate Setting.
With much persistence, the company eventually found its willing guinea pig, its property development unit – Robinsons Land Corporation (RLC).
The digitization initiative with RLC launched four projects in six months – a hotel property management system, a sellers portal, a buyers portal, and a malls directory.
As Cheng emphasized in her virtual talk, “start with small wins,” and through RLC’s leadership, President and CEO Frederick Go, the projects have been pioneered through the “lighthouse” mindset – which like a lighthouse, the first of JG Summit’s digital experiences are meant to light the way, “to guide ships,” or its other business units to fully harness technological innovation.
According to a blog post by JG Summit, Go said the main goal of the digitization project was to find the pain points among its stakeholders – customers, employees, and clients – and figure out how technology can offer as a solution. As identified, those were not being able to find a store in the mall, a room for a more simplified buyer and seller process for clients and sales agents within its residential division, and finding a way to enhance the customer experience for the guests of its hotel.
Of the buyers portal, for example, Go said, “ It helps automate our buyers’ most common interactions with us. We will make it easy for them to know when their next payments are due and monitor their receipts. The Buyers Portal allows them to view and update their account information, manage their payments, view and download the latest statement of accounts, and log requests and inquiries directly.”
In jumpstarting the “lighthouse” with RLC, JG summit had to take the baby step of working with one resource at the time – a single digital consultant.
“So we worked with our consultant, our one full-time resource for Robinsons land who worked with RLC employees on these projects, while they were also pursuing business as usual,” said Cheng.
Two years in from declaring its mission of digitization, JG Summit’s was a home run – successfully realizing its intent of digital transformation, with a slew of online portals and systems rolled out, following its pilot digital experiences with RLC.
For its commercial banking, RBank was able to develop the QuickR feature for its banking app, where the bank now offers a contactless alternative for sending and receiving money through a QR code.
URC’s global exports division, on the other hand, wanted to address their clients’ concerns with placing orders manually and solved it through the Global Export Order Management System (OMS). For SouthStar Drug, a division of JG Summit’s retail holdings, an e-commerce site has been established just right before the community quarantine was enacted in the country.
Meanwhile, for its guinea pig RLC, its team of just one consultant has now sprung to 10 key people in its digital transformation team, with 21 new projects under its belt. One of its recent – a portal for its condominium residents, myRLC Homeowner’s Portal, where residents’ requests such as work permits or gate passes have now been digitized.
Cheng said, “[It goes to show] that you can start with one project and a few resources. Don’t try to boil the ocean. We used the RLC example to show different parts of the conglomerate how it can be done. They are still trying to scale agile, but are on the right path.”
Concluding her talk at the conference, Cheng gave some powerful words, saying, “[Digital] transformation is not an end state, it’s a journey.”
She added, “We keep iterating our operational model as we learn. In a few months, we probably will learn a few more things, or realize that some of these [are] wrong. The point is to keep pivoting.”
Manila, Philippines – With increased online spending during the pandemic also comes a surge of online purchase complaints, and this has been evident in Southeast Asia market The Philippines, with the country’s Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) revealing that a total of 14,869 complaints have been made against online shops this year, according to a report by Philippine News Agency.
The complaints were made from the period of January to October this year, where according to DTI Undersecretary for Consumer Protection Group Ruth Castelo, nature of the complaints spanned violations of the Price Act, the quality of products, and deceptive, unfair, or unconscionable sales acts or practices.
Being the top e-commerce sites in the country, Shopee and Lazada were reported to account for the majority of complaints with a combined 6,907 number of flags.
Compared to the full year of 2019, complaints against Lazada grew three-fold from 1,014 to 3,475 complaints for the first 10 months of 2020. Meanwhile, those against Shopee increased over five times, from 607 complaints from the end of 2019, to a total of 3,432 complaints this year.
“Ninety percent of the total online complaints from October 2020 are against two of the more familiar platforms,” said Castelo.
She added the remaining complaints last month involved transactions on Facebook and other online platforms.
In early October, news about a scammed student astounded Filipinos, where a 20-year-old received rocks instead of his ordered laptop.
Manila, Philippines – The country’s Department of Trade and Industry has rolled out its new Christmas-themed web series on YouTube titled “PASA-LOVE” to highlight various local and regional products in the country.
The web series, which translates to “Share The Love,”is the department’s answer to promote the “Buy Local” campaign, especially as Filipino entrepreneurs are hugely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The “Buy Local” campaign aims to help these entrepreneurs stay afloat by patronizing their products.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Xg0dF_4RRo&t=90s
“A lot of our countrymen have lost their jobs and their businesses due to the pandemic. Thus, this is the perfect time to let them feel the real spirit of Christmas. Through simple patronization of locally-made products, we can share our love for the country, and show the real definition of unity. Buy local, give local this Christmas,” said Blesila A. Lantayona, DTI’s regional operations group undersecretary.
The “PASA-LOVE” web series premiered last November 3 and has currently released its fourth episode, where the department has already promoted food products from the Cordillera region, locally-made shoes, and sandals from Marikina City, and heritage crafts from the Western Visayas region. More episodes are set to be released on its YouTube channel.
We use cookies to improve your experience and to analyse our traffic. To find out more, please click here. By continuing to use our website, you accept our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
