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Monday, October 10, 2005
Pals pay P22M for Glo ad blitz
By Vernon R. Totanes
Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism
SUPPORTERS of President Arroyo spent more than P22 million in advertisements in major Manila dailies in the period of just three-and-a-half months since the “Gloriagate” crisis began.
But was it money well spent?
Public relations and advertising experts on both sides of the political divide agree that it is unlikely the ads changed many people’s minds. They were mainly a show of strength.
Yoly Ong, group chairperson of the ad agency Campaigns & Grey, said the barrage of pro-Arroyo ads had “Malacañang written all over it.”
But Reli German, a member of the President’s ad hoc communications group, explained that while some of the government groups may have felt the need to express support for the beleaguered head of state, the administration did not orchestrate the advertising barrage.
Forty percent of the ads, which carried various messages of support for the President, came out in July, from the time of the resignation of the “Hyatt 10” members of the Arroyo Cabinet to the President’s State of the Nation Address.
The other peak ad period was the first half of September, in the heat of the impeachment debate in the House of Representatives.
In the end, not only did the administration trounce the opposition in the House, it also thrashed its rivals in the battle of the ads.
During the three-and-a-half month period surveyed for this report – June 1 to Sept. 15 – the opposition spent only P2 million on ads in the three biggest national dailies, the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the Philippine Star and the Manila Bulletin.
In effect, the President’s opponents shelled out less than P10 for every P100 of ad money paid out by the Arroyo camp. But did the Palace get the needed bang for the buck?
Ads failed
Ong, who is a veteran and multi-awarded advertising executive, had no doubt: it did not. “If we judge the ad using an advertiser’s objective, which is to influence minds, “ she said, “then the ads failed.”
She also observed that the pro-Arroyo ads were apparently orchestrated, well-funded and clearly not spontaneous. The anti-GMA ads, on the other hand, were spotty, not very coherent and contained “too much pontification,” which tended to turn people off.
Ong said she made her observations purely from “a professional communicator’s” viewpoint. She said neither she nor her ad agency was involved in the creation or placement of any of the ads.
German, a public relations guru who has taken part in presidential campaigns since the 1960s, conceded that some of the pro-GMA ads paid for by either government institutions or associations may have done “more harm than good.”
Like Ong, German’s company was not involved in composing or placing those ads.
‘Wrong’
One of the more “harmful” ads was the one that appeared in the Inquirer and Star on Aug. 25. It showed three photos of the President smiling with Armando C. Sanchez, the Batangas governor who has been accused of involvement in jueteng. The ad expressed support for Arroyo from the “government leaders” of Batangas.
Palace sources say that the President and her supporters were not pleased with the ad, as it showed her alongside an alleged jueteng lord at a time when the impeachment debate was raging in the House.
Media sources say that former Bulacan Congressman Wilfredo Villarama, a known Arroyo supporter, was the one charged by the Palace to orchestrate the barrage of pro-government ads. They say the President herself asked Villarama to ensure multiple advertisements were published.
But Villarama denied this, saying, “Hindi natin kaya ‘yon (I can’t do that). I have no role in government. I don’t see how I can be given that kind of an order.”
The sheer number of pro-GMA ads, however, is one indication that they cannot all be attributed to spontaneity.
Impact
From June to mid-September, approximately 174 ad pages, costing about P26 million, were bought from the three major Manila dailies by various groups and individuals. Of these, 86 percent were pro-Arroyo, six percent were neutral, and seven percent were anti-GMA.
This report classified as “anti” those ads that were placed by groups that called themselves “pro-truth.”
The ad that made the most impact, according to those interviewed for this article, was the one that graced the center spreads of all three newspapers on Sept. 8.
The ad contained the names and signatures of those whom political commentator Manuel L. Quezon III called “the nation’s social betters.”
The cost of placing this ad for just one day already totals more than half of what the anti-Arroyo groups spent from June to mid-September.
Altogether, from Aug. 16 to Sept. 13, the group responsible for the ads paid for a total of 20 ad pages worth more than P3 million.
The ad placements were signed by the “600 top independent women in civil society,” “business leaders and movers of the economy” and “concerned women of civil society.”
Anti-chaos
In all, they accounted for 12 percent of all the political ads for this period, making the group the top advertiser, outspending even all the advertisers who did not identify themselves.
The message of the ads was simply: “We prefer GMA to chaos.” After the vote on impeachment, the same groups issued a new ad with the message, “The House impeachment (sic) was transparent, fair and viewed over nationwide TV... The nation must move on.”
Evelyn Kilayko, former chair of the Concerned Women of the Philippines and a prominent figure of Manila society who took part in Edsa 1 and 2, is the group’s leader, although she prefers to be called its “recruiter.” She recounted that she and her friends thought of coming out with all the ads because they felt that their efforts were being ignored by the media.
This was why, after distributing their signed statements at the House of Representatives, they decided to “put our money where our mouths are” and bought ad space.
They would have wanted to publish more ads but they ran out of money. She also pointed out that the opposition did not really need to buy ad space because the media was on their side.
Strong-willed
Kilayko, who described herself as “a full-time concerned person,” said her group drafted the ads, collected the signatures and raised the money independently of Malacañang.
“It would be an insult to us, after calling ourselves top independent-not to mention strong-willed-women, if we can be influenced by Malacañang,” she said.
While Kilayko’s group was the biggest single spender among all the advertisers, the government institutions and associations collectively-among them, the League of Cities, League of Municipalities and League of Provinces-spent much more on pro-Arroyo ads.
Overpowered
One of the few groups that came out with full-page anti-Arroyo ads was a group of concerned Ateneo de Manila administrators, faculty members, staff and students. They decided to publish two full-page ads because, like Kilayko’s group, they felt the need to “put our money where our mouths are.”
The first ad, which asked the President to “step down,” appeared in July; while the second ad, which emphasized that the group would “exhaust all constitutional means to let the truth emerge,” came out in September.
A Jesuit priest described the Society of Jesus as “a house divided” when it came to calls for GMA’s resignation, and said that the official position of the religious order was to support the bishops’ neutral stand.
‘Hope sells’
A few ads that could not be readily classified as pro- or anti-Arroyo were also published.
Some of these were similar to some of the pro-GMA ads that mentioned the political crisis to call attention to their own agenda.
One of these ads was the Department of Education’s ad, which had “Quality education must be a Path out of this Crisis” as its most prominent line, but no hint as to how education might resolve the current crisis.
On July 24, GMA 7 network also placed an ad in all three newspapers entitled, “Panalangin para sa bayan” (Prayer for the nation), which seemed to be truly neutral except for the acronym the TV station shares with the president.
The Catholic Mass Media Association, for its part, issued the ad “Hope Sells,” which urged the media to “use its power to give us hope.”
Influence
Advertisers buy ad space because they have an objective.
But any advertiser’s objective would more precisely be, as Ong says, to “seek to influence minds.”
German said that the top independent women’s ads attracted “those on the periphery of making a decision,” while the government ads were probably just a show of loyalty and did not convince anyone.
Ong, on the other hand, asserted that the women’s ads were not effective because all they did, she said, was “succeed in promoting indifference” and reinforce the notion that GMA is “unpopular and unloved.”
Mercedes Soberano-Kau, a brand manager, wondered about the ads’ target market.
She asked, “If the advertisers wanted to influence the masses, why are they advertising in the broadsheets?” It is more likely, according to Kau, that advertisers sought to reach the middle class and opinion makers, or just settled for the medium they could afford. Kau added that it would be difficult to attribute a change in public opinion-or lack of it-to any of the ads.
Timing
Forty percent of the ads appeared in newspapers in July, when the so-called Hyatt 10 resigned and calls for the resignation of the President began to mount. September, however, with just 15 days covered by the study, accounted for 32 percent of all the ads.
In fact, the week of September 4-10 saw the publication of 40 pages of ads, or 23 percent of the total number of ads. Most of these were pro-Arroyo ads, with less than two pages of anti-GMA ads.
It was also during this week that the most ad pages were published on a single day: 14 pages on Sept. 6, the day before the House of Representatives voted 158-51 to adopt the report of the Committee on Justice.
All were pro-Arroyo.
(October 10, 2005 issue)
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