Tag: Philippines

Manila, Philippines – Tealive, Southeast Asia’s leading lifestyle tea brand, has announced its market expansion to the Philippines, and has appointed Mike Dumaual as its general manager.

Born in 2017, Tealive has quickly grown to over 700 outlets worldwide. With the establishment of the brand’s first store in Manila, specifically at SM Jazz Mall in Makati, Tealive is ready to serve Filipinos with their own milk tea lineup, leading with Tealive’s signature Aren Palm Sugar Series.

In a statement to MARKETECH APAC, Dumaual said that in his role as Tealive’s country general manager, he will be focusing on store network expansion and brand development to aggressively grow the brand.

Dumaual was recently the marketing director of Mang Inasal, a barbecue fast food chain under the Jollibee Foods Corporation (JFC) portfolio. He told MARKETECH APAC that in his many years working in the QSR industry, trends have changed regarding how the industry moves.

“The biggest change would be the pivot from on-premise transactions (i..e, dine-in) to off-premise transactions (i..e, delivery, self pick-up, etc). So, for a business to survive, they have to be present in all channels,” he said.

Speaking about his appointment, Dumaual said, “I’m truly excited to lead Tealive’s grand entry into the Philippine market, knowing how milk tea-crazy this country is. The ambition is not just to make it a milk tea player but a major and respected F&B lifestyle brand that Filipinos will love.”

He also told MARKETECH APAC, “The opportunity is that customers can now decide anywhere on what to drink/eat, so the brand must be ready to take advantage of that opportunity by adopting an omnichannel approach that caters to the current needs of the market where speed and convenience are critical.”

Manila, Philippines – Live-streaming platform kumu in the Philippines has partnered with Komiket, the Filipino comics and art market, aimed at empowering the Philippine comics community globally. 

Komiket serves as an entry point for first-time comics creators, artists, and readers. It provides accessible markets for creators to showcase their work, discover and nurture new talent, and bridge Filipino comics to the rest of the world through the Philippine International Comics Festival (PICOF).

Through the partnership with kumu, Komiket will be able to bring the Filipino comics community together. Its artists can easily share their work with the entire kumunity, and enthusiasts can meet and interact with some of their favourite comic artists, as well as conversations on comics—from lighthearted ones to more important discussions—will have a space of their own. Beyond that, Komiket will be able to connect with young individuals with aspirations to become comic artists and provide them with the tools and guidance that they need to make their dreams a reality.

Moreover, kumu and Komiket will also be funding ₱500,000 worth of awards and publishing deals to comics creators in the Komiket community. All creators included in various genres published by Komiket in 2022 will be eligible, with the top prize being ₱150,000 in cash and a publishing deal with Komiket for both the Komiket Awards and the Kumu Kumunity’s Choice winners.

The partnership kicked off last 13 February 2022 on the @komiket kumu account with legendary comic artist Whilce Portacio announcing the launch of the Stone Omnibus, an epic revival of one of the 90’s top-selling indie comics. This entire series, which spans eight issues, will be bound together in an ultimate collector’s edition. 

Rexy Dorado, kumu’s co-founder and president, shared that local comics, or komiks in Filipino, have historically been one of the cradles of Filipino storytelling and imagination.

“In line with our goals to create the best platform for Filipino creators, we are excited to partner with Komiket, one of the leading organizations in the industry, to make Kumu the best place for fans and creators of Pinoy komiks,” said Dorado.

Kumu said that this is just the beginning of a promising partnership between two organisations rooted in community and culture. It aims to uplift Filipino creators, readers, and budding artists. 

Future streams will be announced on the @komiket channel in the kumu app.

Manila, Philippines – The Public Relations Society of the Philippines (PRSP), the country’s organisation for public relations professionals, has recently concluded its second leg of 2022’s Students’ PR Con, ‘Grand Prix Hack Sprint Edition’, the first virtual, interactive, and nationwide edition of the organisation’s Students’ PR Congress.

This year’s Grand Prix, which was fully virtual, has encouraged students from all over the country to submit a position paper about ‘The Great Resignation’, a current social issue being tackled across the world, provided by the initiative’s Platinum Sponsor JobStreet. 

Eight universities have successfully advanced as qualifiers for the second phase, the Hack Sprint, where the students were given 24 hours to develop their communications plan. These are De La Salle University – Dasmariñas, Far Eastern University, Holy Angel University in Angeles, Pampanga, Polytechnic University of the Philippines, San Beda University, and Saint Louis University in Baguio, as well as University of the Philippines – Los Baños, and the University of the Philippines – Manila. Out of these schools, five outstanding teams were identified to move forward to the final round – the Pitch Proper, where each team presented their plan to a select jury panel comprised of industry thought leaders and experts.

After a thorough evaluation, the University of the Philippines (UP) Manila emerged as the grand champion, followed by the University of the Philippines Los Baños and De La Salle University – Dasmariñas as first and second runners-up, respectively. San Beda University and Polytechnic University of the Philippines were amongst the top five finalists. 

The champion has received ₱30,000, while the first and second runners-up have received ₱20,000 and ₱10,000. The remaining teams in the top five have also received ₱5,000 for the team. 

Ferdinand Bondoy, the chairman of PRSP Students’ PR Con and Grand Prix, the board trustee of PRSP and Regional Integration, and the chief executive director of COMCO SEA, shared that this work given to him by PRSP is really close to his heart, as he was also a PR academic scholar of the Public Relations Society of the Philippines.

“That’s why we made the 2021 Students’ PR Con and Grand Prix Hack Sprint truly meaningful and special, even if it’s fully digital and virtual. It is with much honour and fulfilment that we’ve ended this event on a high note. Our sacrifices are all worth it,” said Bondoy.

Meanwhile, Norman Agatep, PRSP’s president and Grupp Agatep’s president and managing director, noted that PRSP is honoured to have this year’s Students’ PR Congress as the platform for students from all over the Philippines to learn new insights and perspectives about where their industry is headed. 

“May everyone use their learnings and experiences from both PR Con and Grand Prix as a tool to create and inspire positive change in more people, especially during this crucial period,” said Agatep.

Bondoy closed this year’s Students’ PR Congress with a challenge to the students, he noted, “I’m passing on the torch to you. As soon as you finish school, see you in the real world. And we invite you to join us in doing PR for good and making a difference in society.”

Manila, Philippines – AI and data company ADVANCE.AI has appointed Michael Calma, former country general manager at corporate IT training provider DDLS Philippines, to be its new country manager in the Philippines.

Calma brings with him over 20 years of experience in software development, systems integration, managed services, complex deal structuring, and social enterprises, as well as IT education. Aside from his previous role at DDLS Philippines, Calma has also held senior leadership roles at Dimension Data, MDI-Novare, and NEC, as well as co-founded two tech startups fresh out of college.

As the new country manager, Calma will be leading and growing ADVANCE.AI’s commercial business.

Commenting on his appointment, Calma said that he is very excited to join ADVANCE.AI at a time when Filipino consumers are shifting en masse to digital channels and services. 

He further shared banks and financial services enterprises need a trusted and reliable technology partner who can anticipate and address potential friction points across the end-to-end customer journey.

“We strive towards bayanihan (communal unity) with other technology providers, enterprises, and regulators towards accelerating a digitally empowered and financially inclusive Philippines,” said Calma.

Manila, Philippines – When you think of Valentine’s Day, most people think of sweet couples and their dates. But Philippine telco Globe had a different idea: for their newest campaign, they put the spotlight on pet friends, furry or otherwise, with special treats that they can enjoy with their humans. 

The campaign, called ‘#MayFurEverWithGlobe’, invites customers to create tribute posts for their pets on social media and help spread feel-good messages about pet love. In addition, the social media campaign gives customers a chance to win 2,000 Globe or TM Rewards points that may be converted into Lazada or Shopee credits to purchase pet supplies. Prizes also include a love offering to the animal welfare organisation Philippine Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) on behalf of their pets to help look after stray dogs and cats.

Yoly Crisanto, chief sustainability officer and SVP for corporate communications at Globe, said, “Our pets are a source of simple joys, and they have shown us pure love amid the stressful times of the pandemic. Through this campaign, we hope to remind people that they are not alone in their fight against stress and anxiety. They have sources of love around them, such as the unconditional love that pets provide.”

The campaign has been supported by local artists and celebrities such as Kiray Celis and Arianne Bautista, celebrity athlete and volleyball icon Aby Maraño, Myx VJ Ai Dela Cruz, YouTuber, and singer Claudine Co, among others.

Said campaign is part of the telco’s ‘#AtinAngSimpleJoys’ campaign, which promotes purposeful everyday hobbies that have been found to help alleviate stress and anxiety, common symptoms of mental health distress. ‘#AtinAngSimpleJoys’ also gave rise to last year’s viral challenge #PlantHappinessPH, which focused on the positive mental health effects of taking care of plants.

“As a company that genuinely cares for the well-being of its customers, Globe continues to introduce programs that encourage people to find simple joys in life. It believes that positive and meaningful relationships with people, plants, and animals can play a crucial role in maintaining a healthy mental state,” the company said in a press statement.

Philippines — Philippines-based customer loyalty program ZAP has partnered with algorithmic decisioning solutions Algonomy to adopt its customer data platform and customer journey orchestration solution, to provide ZAP merchants with customer insights and enabler better customer engagement. The agreement was assisted by True Digital Group (TDG), a digital transformation company that partnered with Algonomy to bring its solutions to the Philippines and the broader Southeast Asian market.

ZAP Philippines helps merchants launch their own customized loyalty program by offering merchants the option for a card or mobile-based loyalty program where they are able to customize their mechanics, build a database of members, and use data to create specific promotions for customers.

Through the new collaboration, ZAP will start offering customer-centric marketing campaigns across loyalty, CRM, on-demand & triggered journeys for their partner merchants. Through Algonomy’s machine learning algorithms and customer marketing automation, ZAP aims to bolster its capability to provide merchants with data-driven marketing campaigns that will drive brand loyalty, promo redemption rates, cross-sell conversion and ultimately increase revenue.

Dustin Cheng, CEO at ZAP Group Incorporated, said, “The investment in Algonomy’s Customer Data Platform and Customer Journey Orchestration gives us a strategic advantage in the market, helping our merchants launch data-driven marketing campaigns. Algonomy’s expertise in Algorithmic Decisioning Solutions and deep domain expertise played a key role in our decision to partner with them. We are excited about the possibilities this partnership brings in driving digital transformation for our clients.”

Amit Agarwal, senior vice president of sales for APAC and MEA at Algonomy, commented, “Creating customer loyalty is every retailer’s business objective. The one thing that can help retailers achieve this objective is insights-driven engagement across the customer journey. ZAP is evolving loyalty programs with deep customer insights and we are excited to help them help their merchants scale their business.”

Sulabh Dhanuka, head of International digital solutions at True Digital Group, said that bringing together ZAP’s innovative loyalty program with Algonomy’s world-class platforms highlights the power of the digital age in delivering greater value to retailers and their customers. Dhanuka added that TDG is committed to the Philippines market and that the company is excited to continue being at the forefront of Retail 4.0 in the country as highlighted by such deals and partnerships.

Manila, Philippines — As part of the Valentine’s Day celebrations, Canva Philippines has launched the #SayItSaCanva campaign, which brings users a series of love-themed templates and elements to help Filipinos express their love through creative content.

Canva’s campaign is still in line with the current challenges of the pandemic that gave people limited channels to show gestures of love. The newly released Valentine’s Day themed templates are meant to help Filipinos express their love in different formats whether that is through videos, presentations, social media posts, and more.

Yani Hornilla-Donato, the Philippines’ country manager for Canva, said that while the pandemic has affected our physical bonds, this doesn’t mean that it should also restrict us from sharing our love and appreciation for our loved ones.

“Canva’s mission is to empower the world to design, and we found this opportunity for Filipinos to express themselves in a creative and unique way through our engaging tools and resources; Canva wants people to share their stories and ‘Say It Sa Canva’. We want to enable Filipinos to share what’s in their heart, not just this February but all year-round with a diverse content library for all the milestones you want to commemorate and the feelings you want to celebrate,” Donato said.

All the special content for Valentine’s Day will be found in the Content Hub (public.canva.site/say-it-sa-canva) for the convenience of the platform users. The menu centre offers an array of unique content one for each beloved namely significant other, family, best friend, yourself, among others.

Canva’s campaign also features a timed design challenge where participants can choose a love letter template from the Content Hub, customize the design, and post it on their social media accounts with the hashtag #SayItSaCanva or comment it on Canva’s Facebook page. Interested participants can send their entries until 11:59 pm on 22 Feb and the top 30 designs will be announced by the end of the month.

Manila, Philippines – MARKETECH APAC, the digital media for the marketing and advertising industry in the APAC region, has recently inked a partnership with the Communication and Media program of Centro Escolar University (CEU), one of the highly respectable universities in the Philippines, to officially groom media and communications majors for the professional world through a special internship program. 

Joven Barceñas, the founder of MARKETECH APAC, and who is in fact, a proud alumnus of the university, has officially signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the university on 2 February, to onboard media and communications students into the company and have them foray into their professional experience. 

Present in the virtual signing are Ricky Rosales, program head for Communication and Media at CEU Manila; Marietta Alvarez, the program head for Communication and Media at CEU Malolos; and most especially, Dr. Maria Rita D. Lucas, the dean of the School of Education, Liberal Arts, Music and Social Work at CEU; and Dr. Ma. Cristina D. Padolina, CEU’s university president and chief academic officer.

Lucas said in the virtual event that the university is always glad to witness students come in full circle – from graduating to the university, establishing their own endeavours, and then coming back to their roots to give back the school that moulded them; just like what Barceñas has presently done.

“And then finally helping us with the goal that we have of forming and moulding our students to be quality and ethical communication practitioners,” said Lucas. 

Barceñas, who founded MARKETECH APAC in the middle of the pandemic in 2020, shared, “When I launched MARKETECH APAC in 2020, there were so many aspirations and dreams that I thought of and planned. And one of them is to reach out to my alma mater, Centro Escolar University and offer internship opportunities to Escolarians and be instrumental in their professional development as they prepare to embark on a new and exciting chapter of their lives.” 

“Today is an exciting moment for me as the founder of MARKETECH APAC as this partnership allows me to contribute to the skills development of the new generation of communication and media professionals in the country,” added Barceñas. 

Padolina, CEU’s university president, shared how she has seen the internship experience becoming a substantial credential in undergraduates’ curriculum vitae and therefore expects the new partnership with MARKETECH APAC to be more than just an academic requirement, but a genuine source of professional development for students. 

Padolina comments, “It’s very good to partner with somebody who is from CEU because we know that you know the philosophy of CEU, [and] you know the values that we want to cultivate. So we’re very confident that you would be able to give a very good experience to our students so that it’s not [just] something [that is] a line in their CV, but it really is a strong contribution to their entire experience and to what they bring to their profession.” 

Rosales, meanwhile, shared how timely the partnership is, especially since during this period, classes are still implemented virtually in the Philippines, which makes it much more challenging to deploy students for their internship program. 

“[We were asking] where will we partner during this time that we will have a virtual OJT (on-the-job training). We don’t want to you know, compromise our students with other companies that [don’t] have [a] purely online [setting] during this time,” said Rosales.

Manila, Philippines – Following the success of the hit South Korean TV series Squid Game, a new thriller series has been released by popular streaming service Netflix, titled All Of Us Are Dead, in January this year. The series, based on the webtoon Now At Our School, is a coming-of-age thriller series that revolves around the story of high school students who are caught up in a zombie infection in their school, forcing them to improvise school equipment to protect themselves from a hoard of zombies.

With the rising popularity of said series, as well as banking on the previous success of several South Korean TV series on the platform, Netflix Philippines launched its very first local campaign for this year, with the aid of independent creative agency GIGIL.

In an exclusive interview with MARKETECH APAC, Jeano Cruz, creative director and head of social at GIGIL, stated that the underlying thought for this local campaign is through a mix of the series’ survival theme, light moods during the episodes, and the fact that the characters are going through their adolescence. For the agency, this allowed them to implement more comedy and romance themes in between the suspense and thrill of a zombie apocalypse story.

Moreover, Cruz told MARKETECH APAC that part of the creative process for this campaign is to bank on the emotional attachment among Filipino adults: nostalgia during their high school days.

“We believed every Filipino adult could relate to one another because of what they went through in their formative years: from being in a high school barkada (buddy/friend), to studying the same lessons in high school, to experiencing the same student lives everyone else was experiencing across the country,” he stated.

The first blow: ‘Knowledge is weapon’

One of the first brand activations Netflix Philippines did was releasing a 2-minute film, centred around the humour of utilising your school knowledge to survive in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. The twist? The film is done in retro 90s fashion, and delivered like old educational shows such as ABS-CBN’s ‘Sineskwela’ that discussed science-related topics catered to kids.

Another interesting facet utilised in the film is the host of said film, a supposed cameo of the late Ka Ernie Baron, a well-beloved Filipino TV presenter, weatherman, and inventor. He is known for his show Knowledge Power, where he discusses educational topics about science, health, history among others.

The film, aptly called Knowledge is Weapon, begs the question of why is it that when we were in high school, we were taught concepts that we never really needed in everyday life. Turns out, it was all in ‘preparation’ for any impending zombie apocalypse.

“In back and forth sequences between All Of Us Are Dead and the program, we’re shown the things we can do to plan an effective survival strategy during this outbreak. Whether that may be using a diorama to plan an exit route, growing a mung bean to have a direct food supply, or using the ‘maglalatik’ dance (a Filipino folk dance) to effectively distract a zombie from using our crush as a meal—the application of our knowledge goes beyond the four walls of a classroom,” Cruz noted.

As part of that film activation, GIGIL’s campaign for Netflix Philippines was also accompanied by TikTok influencers demonstrating how they would apply their own high school learnings in a zombie apocalypse, a ZSAT or the Zombie Survival Assessment Test which tested the population’s survivability by how well they remembered high school lessons in the context of a zombie invasion, and an actual Zombie Survival Kit using only school supplies.

The second blow: Memeifying through billboard activations

Another facet of the All of Us Are Dead local campaign is through billboards promoting the series. The twist? GIGIL transformed the usual billboards that accompany a Netflix Philippines launch into meme billboards that carry with it a ‘core memory’ for every Filipino who went through high school.

Cruz further told MARKETECH APAC that they are always looking for ways to help their clients achieve their objectives. He added that their clients wanted All Of Us Are Dead to penetrate pop culture through executions that connect with audiences and help the title be talked about for days even after the series release on the streaming platform.

“It’s the first time anyone brand’s done this in the country. Our clients at Netflix allowed a language that was born online, memes, to live in the real world through their billboards nationwide. This allowed their All Of Us Are Dead campaign to connect to even more people who see these billboards everyday, and create a virtuous cycle where photos of the billboard are uploaded to social media and then people online talk about them more,” Cruz stated.

He further explains, “By using memes as billboards for the first time, we connected to Filipino audiences nationwide on a new emotional level because we’ve tapped into their ‘core memories’ about their high school lives.”

Speaking about their general work relationship with Netflix, Cruz noted, “We love working with our clients Daphne Ng, Cass Wong, and especially Stef Pajarito, a fellow Filipino at Netflix, who always pushes us to create never-been-done-before marketing campaigns in the Philippines that allow the Netflix brand to connect with Filipino audiences better. They are always bold in their directions and are collaborative with the agency in creating ideas that might otherwise be rejected in other companies. He would always tell us that sometimes our ideas are so stupid that’s why he loves it, and it’s his spirit that has given birth to viral campaigns by GIGIL for Netflix.”

Some of GIGIL’s past work for Netflix Philippines included promotions for series such as Trese, Squid Game, DOTA, To All The Boys I Loved Before, Red Notice, among others.

Manila, Philippines – The Department of Trade of Industry (DTI) in the Philippines has partnered with cross-border trade platform 1Export to introduce locally-made products from MSMEs to the global market. This is done through DTI’s ‘Go Lokal!’ program that targets local MSMEs to make their products more accessible to new markets.

The partnership also includes the utilisation of 1Export’s ‘Kalocal’, a platform where you can order export-ready Filipino products at wholesale prices. Said platform aims to help Filipino communities abroad who want to start their own business through importing and reselling products directly from local producers and manufacturers by offering competitive pricing for a wide variety of products – from heritage to novelty, from premium to popular and fast-moving brands.

For this year, DTI and 1Export will be launching the ‘’Go Lokal Surprise Box’ — a curated gift box containing Filipino products that will be made available, initially in the USA and Canada. Every product highlights a unique story of being proudly and passionately made by MSMEs in the Philippines.

“This promotional initiative will help MSMEs transition to cross-border trade as it provides the opportunity for the world to discover Filipino culture through artisanal handicrafts and delectable treats. This 2022, try Go Lokal products and join us in our journey to empower our local MSMEs,” DTI said in a press statement.

Since its inception in 2016, the ‘Go Lokal!’ program has partnered with 24 retailers, rolled out 154 stores nationwide, and assisted 859 MSMEs of which 385 have become regular suppliers of partner retailers. To date, the program has generated sales amounting to PHP 428m.