Presidential candidate Mar Roxas should fire his public relations (PR) people. His campaign video “Fast Forward Sa Daang Matuwid” is a perfect example of how not to do presidential campaign videos.
The colour yellow dominates the visual theme of the video. Rather than invite inclusiveness, the video screams exclusive — to anyone who subscribes to what the colour yellow represents, that is. We all know what the yellow colour stands for in Philippine politics. It’s everything to do with the Aquino-Cojuangco feudal clan. It is not the Philippines’ red-white-and-blue national colours. It’s a feudal colour.
The video is also a complete gloss-over of the Philippines’ underlying problems. The opening scene features an aerial view of one of Metro Manila’s more impressive skylines (probably that of either the Ortigas or Makati central business districts) near the horizon with a green leafy golf course on the foreground. It is a picture far from the real image of rusted tin roofs blanket by the familiar brown haze that hangs over the city most days that, in real life, dominate Metro Manila when viewed from above.
More astoundingly, the performers in the video, Billy Crawford, JayR, and Kris Lawrence all seem to be foreigners (or Filipinos who grew up or resided primarily abroad) who made it big in Philippine showbiz. Their singing and dancing is backdropped by an obviously affluent part of Metro Manila — most likely some tony condo cluster in Bonifacio Global City or some well-fortified exclusive enclave where unshowered people in tsinelas are not allowed.
Semi-Filipino celebs Billy Crawford, JayR, and Kris Lawrence flash the Loser Salute at the end of the video.
In short, as a means to attract votes, it gets all the essentials wrong. It fails to present a story to which the Filipino masses could relate to. It does not bring across a unifying message on account of the partisan colours its producers chose to thematically engulf its imagery with. It makes light of the real Philippine condition by painting an overly-positive vibe to the point of being patronising to its audience.
Since Filipinos are in the business of believing polls from which conclusions are derived from small sample sizes, it may be worth highlighting that as of this writing, the video garnered 5,448 thumbs-down votes and only 1,237 thumbs-up reviews on YouTube. This particular YouTube upload also has comments disabled.
That’s a massive fail for the producers and whoever conceptualised this work. Failed content, failed social media engagement, failed messaging. An overall failure in PR thinking.
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