Originally published online March 2011.

1. Branding the Philippines, or Polishing a Turd?
(February 2011)
About a week ago, EON Inc. (the in-country
affiliate of Edelman, a major global public
relations operator) produced a white paper
entitled Branding the Philippines: Championing
the Filipino. The paper is the result of “a recently
held Forum on Branding the Philippines led by
EON The Stakeholders Relations Firm and [the]
ECCP (European Chamber of Commerce of the
Philippines)” and attended by all the usual
suspects among the various business boosters and
chamber of commerce types around Manila. The
point of the “forum” was to hash out a branding strategy for the entire country, and the point
of publishing the early white paper version of the resulting recommendations was, as Paul Farol
over at Pinoy Buzz accurately divined, to subject the concept to a bit of crowd-sourcing,
probably not a bad idea in the wake of the regrettable Pilipinas Kay Ganda! fiasco.
The call for public input, however, comes across as a little disingenuous, especially coming from
one of Edelman’s minions. Anyone familiar with marketing and public relations has probably
heard of “astroturfing,” “flogging,” and “greenwashing,” which are three things that are against
the code of ethics of most public relations associations that Edelman seems to be especially
good at; as a matter of fact, Edelman is generally credited with inventing flogging (which stands
for “fake blog”). In all fairness, the present matter isn’t any of those things and should be
judged on its own merits – or lack thereof – but the reputation of the messenger is, shall we
say, a skepticism enhancer.
Coincidentally, EON (spelled as E.ON) is also the name of a completely unrelated UK energy
company represented by Edelman, drawing protests from environmentalists that escalated at
one point to naked demonstrators occupying the lobby of Edelman’s London offices. Again, it
doesn’t have anything at all to do with Branding the Philippines: Championing the Filipino… but
one could be forgiven for wondering, just a little, how brand-savvy the organization actually is if
they missed that one.
And if one is actually wondering about that, the question is answered pretty quickly by the 13
pages of sophomoric garbage EON has courageously offered for public consumption. First, the
paper addresses the need for a country brand:

2. “As the world becomes more competitive, people, organizations, companies, and
countries become more interconnected than ever. Economies battle to gain a bigger
share of investments, tourism, consumers, trade, and power. A country cannot leave its
reputation to chance. It must endeavor to develop itself into a country brand. Because
when all else is equal, a strong country brand makes the difference.
“The Philippines must be able to identify its key competitive advantage and leverage on
it. What differentiates it from the rest of the world? How does it want to be known?
What does it hope to be associated with? What would make its endeavors recognizable
and appreciated?”
As a broad concept, country branding is not a bad idea, but as a practical exercise it’s almost
impossible to accomplish. The very essence of branding is evocation – developing a specific,
memorable cue to value – and the more complex the product, the more difficult this becomes.
A brand for an entire country would be unmanageably polymorphous, containing far too many
elements in striving to evoke the presumed underlying value that the message would be lost.
The EON paper complains that, “While some Philippine promotional efforts resulted in isolated
successes, it has not generated a substantial and holistic impact given its sector-independent
approach.” Well, there’s a good reason for that – it’s because the sector-independent approach
works. Consider the example of nearby Malaysia, whose performance relative to marketing
effort routinely puts that of the Philippines in deep shade: visit the tourism website and you will
see “Malaysia, Truly Asia”; visit the website of the Malaysian Industrial Development Authority,
and it’s “Your Premier Investment Destination.” Different products, different value cues.
As far as EON and their stellar band of forum guests are concerned, however, the Philippines,
despite its size, diversity, and being home to the world’s 12th
-largest population, only has one
value proposition to offer the world:
“In determining the country’s competitive advantage, Filipinos do not need to look too far.
Filipinos are the brand. The Filipino is the Philippines’ best asset which can compete with any
value proposition of other countries.”
The report goes on to explain that Filipino traits can be described by the “Four C’s” which
“every Juan Dela Cruz can identify himself with”:
• Filipinos are caring.
• Filipinos are creative.
• Filipinos are collaborative.
• Filipinos are colorful.

3. So they are, but so what? Is that really what differentiates the Philippines from the rest of the
world? And is that really “what would make its endeavors recognizable and appreciated?”
I’m sure the breathtaking, borderline racist hubris of a “country brand” that conveys the
message that, “we, as a people, are better than you” – despite the evidence to the contrary of
most any objective measure – would certainly be recognizable, but I’d bet real money that it
would not be appreciated by any target audience.
In a way, though, I’d like to see them actually try it. It would be awesome – “Pilipinas, Kay
Ganda!” would look like the Upanishads compared to this. And given that the key
recommendation of the paper that “the Philippine government must establish a body under the
Office of the President whose mandate is to establish a compelling Philippine brand” is to be
presented to an Administration that has already shown an overweening fondness for forming
ad hoc bodies of dubious value, there’s probably a better than even chance of it happening. It
would be hilarious, if it didn’t mean that public resources would be wasted on it. Somehow, I
don’t think many people, except for the ones who, as Paul Farol put it, are doing a “thriving
business of selling people on the necessity of branding” are going to see the humor in that.