Slogans and Branding

The recent efforts of the Philippine Department of Tourism to revamp the marketing strategy of the hospitality industry, in view of attracting more tourist arrivals to the Philippine islands, which really is lagging behind Thailand and Indonesia in the Association of SouthEast Asian Nations or the ASEAN, has been met with a grain of salt and has not escaped the prying eye of public scrutiny.

It is worthwhile to make this comparison (between the two foreign countries as mentioned) because the Philippines have the same thing to offer to Western visitors in terms of the beauty of nature, the prestine beaches, the lush rainforests, and amazing food offerings.

This is not the first time the Philippines was rebranding itself to achieve these purposes, but there is no accurate data available to actually assess if the recent rebranding, "It's More Fun in the Philippines" has really improved the number of tourist arrivals, hopefully with a competent analysis that the different players needed to know if the newly minted slogan may have contributed to the success of the marketing campaign, so that stakeholders would know which part of the value chain actually translates to tangible results.

Awareness of the natural beauty of the Philippines is already there, anyway. The Southeast Asian region is simply equated to paradise. So what's behind the decision to change the face of Filipino tourism?

The controversy of the newly launched "Love the Philippines" slogan to supplant the previously adapted branding transcends more than just the obssession in sales analytics, but it includes allegations of plagiarism that accuses the main creative idea cloning the slogan of "Love Cyprus" from the distinct tourism campaign of the said country. This is important to note because whoever arrives first to that idea already owns the territory.

Branding is an important element on any service or product in order to give it the perception of "superior value" ahead of the competition, but branding is just one element of the marketing mix, and there are other market forces that actually influence the definition of value in building a saleable service, in this case the amount of tourism receipts.

The product itself is the most important marketing tool, because there is nothing more effective than the word-of-mouth advertising and the creation of contented and repeat customers. The main goal of any marketing effort is to create a certain value (in the minds of the customers) that actually embodies the attribution to the service they experienced in considering making the repeat sale.

The problems of Philippine tourism is not the lack of branding, but the neglected value chain actually turns off potential tourists for several reasons. The first and foremost is the under-developed and obsolete infrastructure like, for instance, the Airports. Tourism is very dependent on the level of comfort because the product in tourism and hospitality is the experience itself. The Philippines' natural beauty is unrivaled in the world, and, all things being held constant, it is truly outrageous to know why it is losing the majority of the tourism market to rivals Thailand and Indonesia.

There are also severe problems in the infrastructure that will transport tourists from one point to the actual tourist sites, especially the access to beaches. This may sound trivial, but transportation is an important element of the chain of value because people go on vacations to relax. Nobody wants to sit in regular boats or endure the traffic for hours.

The Department of Tourism should focus more on the rest of the marketing mix instead of spending money on rebranding because the Philippines' itself is a very beautiful destination. It is just a shame that the value creation is not there, which prompts most tourists to just go to Thailand instead.

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The editorial is sponsored by Swatch x Omega.