Ad Wars!

EARLY December 2009, we were already exposed to some political ads in the form of advocacy ads. First on the list is Sen. Manny Villar, who is running for the highest seat of office in the country.

My students back in my Advertising class posed a very tricky question, “sir, isn’t that a political ad?”. My answer was a straight NO. Surely, you would not agree with me. So here’s the explanation: there are several types of ads, I’ll give you 3 examples for now since there are so many – Political, Government, and Advocacy.

The Political ads show you the platforms of each of the persons running for a seat in government office, who they are and what they do.

The Government ads, on the other hand talks about the accomplishments and updates of the government or administration.

Advocacy is the trickiest of the three. It tells us of a vision, a way of looking at things in a new light. We see advocacy ads everywhere, on TV, when you go to the Discovery Channel or Animal Planet – we see advocacy ads about the environment, this is the most common example.

Here, the issue is whether the 2009 ads by the politicians, Manny Villar’s in particular, are indeed Political or Advocacy. In the case of Senator Villar, that was still an advocacy ad – if it were not, the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) would have banned those ads in violation of the election code.

The ad merely introduced who Villar is, where he came from, his vision and his success story. The funny thing is we all knew Villar is running for the presidency, so automatically we assume that his 2009 ads were political.

I even heard one of my friends say – “mudagan gyud ni sya ug presidente”. Therefore, we prejudged his ads back in 2009 as already political, no matter how you look at his 2009 ads – it was advocacy.

Villar’s 2010 ads however are, or has now become Political since there is now a clear sense of purpose of the ads, with people endorsing him too, like comedy king Dolphy and “Bitoy” a.k.a. Michael V., and of course the Villar jingle. Then, the battles begin.

Politicians started putting on Christmas Ads, to the point that Sen. Mar Roxas married long-time, on-and-off fiancé Korina Sanchez. Funny, isn’t it? My only question with that is – “why just marry now?”, you had several years before, so why only marry now?”.

The excuse is always “we’re busy with our careers.” Oh, come on! “Mr. Palengke”, Sen. Mar Roxas’ moniker, is true to his political statements back when he started his senatorial bid. He’s still using the market place as a backdrop, so that’s kind of good for his consistency. Giving up his presidential bid to Sen. Noy-noy Aquino, on the other hand, is neither valiant nor intellectually stimulating in my books.

Then, Noy-noy’s camp launch that “sulu” ad, the one that they had

a star-studded TV ad carrying torches and singing a song made by Ogie and Regine, but I’m sure nobody has memorized the lyrics to that song – especially with Regine singing it with high notes.

Now we see Noy-noy saying “Hindi ako magnanakaw”, uhm, senator, nobody is saying that you are and every politician won’t admit being a “magnanakaw” so try to get a new pick up line, it’s annoying to see that “good vs. evil” ads.

In contradiction to the high notes, here comes a jingle where the lyrics are clear, sang by kids off the street – my comment on this is simply… amazing. Our hats off to the brains behind the jingle, great lyrics – nice catchy tune, easy to recall, this reminded me of the time I composed the Liceo U Jingle – “take a step closer…” We’re expecting the ads to get crazy in the next few months.

So, let’s try to keep our sanity intact as we watch these political ads on TV competing with each other and competing along side the shampoo, soap, vitamins, and herbal capsule ads. Good luck watching those ads, and please don’t forget to VOTE WISELY, LIVE LIFE, ROCK ON!

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For comments, email me at: shaun_alejandrae_uy@yahoo.com