Saturday, December 29, 2007 CCCI to focus on, establish brand
TO strengthen its position as the “voice” of Cebu’s business sector, the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI) will center on branding campaign next year.
“It is important that the chamber will know its positioning,” CCCI president Francis Monera said, adding that this will be the chamber’s priority program after it bagged the Hall of Fame award this year from the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Despite CCCI being “decades-old” in Cebu’s business community, Monera believes aggressive branding campaigns beginning in 2008 will help establish a good packaging for the chamber both in the Philippines and in the world.
The chamber has identified exporter Jay Yuvallos as the branding committee chairman.
The committee aims to help position CCCI as a model for all chambers of commerce in the country through the many successful community development undertakings it extended to its locality.
The branding committee will soon identify the steps to be undertaken to build a good CCCI packaging or branding.
The chamber is known as the organizer of internationally-known Cebu Business Month (CBM) and the proponent of the Cebu Economic Development Zone bill declaring the whole province as an economic zone, among others.
In line with its CCCI branding scheme, it will give extra attention to living up to its name as the model Business Support Organization in the country, the strengthening of CCCI sub-brands, like the CBM, and helping market Cebu as the premier tourism and investment site in the country.
“We don’t sell Cebu. We market Cebu. The art of marketing is through branding. Cebu is not a commodity, it is a brand,” Monera said.
Globalization
With the strong trend in globalization, he foresees a strong need for the chamber to continue its efforts of expanding its reach in the global market in order to trail-blaze through the international demands.
This year, the chamber started its international road show promoting Cebu to the world, initially in Asia, with emphasis on inviting business communities from different countries to visit Cebu during the CBM celebrations.
CCCI started its international promotion campaign in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, China and other countries.
It also started with aggressive trade mission initiatives primarily promoting close trade relations with countries, like Russia, Europe, and in Dally City in the United States.
Monera, whose term as president will end this year, vows to establish a good branding program for the chamber, so that the succeeding set of officers will be able to take care of the CCCI’s brand name and strengths.
As a service to its members, he said the chamber will make sure it has met their expectations in terms of support. (MMM)
