‘WOW’ NOW NA!... Retain the Wow Philippines campaign!

The controversy on the Department of Tourism’s (DOT) junking of “WOW Philippines” in favor of “Pilipinas Kay Ganda” as the country’s slogan for its tourism efforts only reinforced what many Filipinos have been thinking all along – that this administration is vindictive, inept, immature, amateurish and shallow and would go to any length – even to the extent of doing things to the detriment of our country – just to get back at or taunt the past administration.

In the Yahoo article “DOT: ‘Pilipinas Kay Ganda’ only a concept”, DOT Secretary Alberto Lim said “WOW Philippines” was junked as it “has reportedly lost momentum after it was not used extensively by the Arroyo administration”. There they go again blaming the previous administration and hating everything that has to do with it. Can anything be more immature and shallow than that?


INEPT, VINDICTIVE

The previous DOT campaign – “WOW Philippines” – which, if I’m not mistaken, was former DOT Secretary Dick Gordon’s brainchild was an excellent concept. It was simple yet very catchy, easy to recall and, best of all, it captured what the Philippines is – a tourist destination so awesome that foreign tourists would most likely be moved to say “wow!” And “wow” is a very popular and universal expression of amazement and wonder generally understood by most.

So why junk it instead of revitalizing the campaign? Either Sec. Lim is not fit for the job as evidenced by his lack of advertising know-how which is very important in selling the Philippines, or – as others in the Pnoy administration is wont to do – simply wants to discard any traces of the Arroyo administration.


AMATEURISH, IMMATURE

After receiving flak from the people, Sec. Lim backtracked and said that ‘Pilipinas Kay Ganda’ was only a concept and it was not yet final. Who was he kidding? On Bandila on November 18 it was reported that the department spent more than one million pesos for research relative to the change in slogan and Campaigns & Grey was even tasked to create the new logo. The new slogan was reportedly presented to government stakeholders and the media. Yun ba sasabihin niyang concept pa lang?

This reminds me of the first boo-boo committed by this administration on the first full working day of the Aquino administration – the issuance of Memorandum Circular No. 1 that declared vacant the positions of all non-career appointees of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Palace officials took it back and reissued the order. Presidential Spokesperson Edwin Lacierda then refused to say that it had been taken back and that what had happened was a “blooper” and instead insisted that it was just a “fine-tuning of the language of the order.”

This and the DOT campaign controversy, to me, reflect this administration’s penchant to disown responsibility for its actions and coming up with lame excuses and alibis.
Going back to ‘Pilipinas Kay Ganda’, the slogan is reportedly the same as the name of a porn website, Sec. Lim said they didn’t know about it “kasi wala naman kaming alam sa mga porn websites na ‘yan”. Hello? Wasn’t it just reported that the DOT spent more than a million pesos in research? That much and the agency that did the research (which I suppose is also Campaigns & Grey) overlooked that simple detail? What a waste of taxpayers’ money then.

Further, tourism officials are said to have come up with "Kay Ganda" because it was the best adjective to describe how beautiful the Philippines is. Why couldn’t they be more creative?

Sec. Lim admitted that using the Filipino language is risky especially at a time when most countries are using the English language to make ideas easier to understand. Ganun naman pala, then why do it in the first place? He added that “it is risky but I'd rather take the risk if we want to get ahead. We need an edge dahil maliit lang ang budget natin compared to other countries like Thailand and Malaysia." I couldn’t understand what budget has got to do with coming up with a much better slogan.

Regarding the logo, Sec. Lim again disputed claims that DOT’s "Pilipinas Kay Ganda" typeface and logo were lifted from a tourism logo of Poland despite the very obvious imitation. One need not be intelligent to see that the former was patterned after Poland’s. It may not have been plagiarization in the strict sense of the word but still it smacks of inability to create an original work.


'PILIPINAS KAY GANDA' SCRAPPED

As of this writing – November 20, 2010, 10:24 pm – Pres. Aquino has scrapped the tourism slogan. Dapat lang!

The DOT should just continue with “WOW Philippines” or if it really wants a new one why not conduct a nationwide slogan and logo design contest. I’m sure there are many talented, imaginative and creative Filipinos out there who are capable of coming up with excellent and original works – something which cannot be said of whoever came up with the slogan “Pilipinas Kay Ganda” and its logo nor of the DOT honchos responsible for approving them.