| Marketing |
| Written by Marjorie Teresa R. Perez / AdMix / joyetteperez@yahoo.com |
| Monday, 07 December 2009 20:45 |
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As the personal-branding phenomenon works itself deeper into the fabric of modern life, it’s warping how we see each other, and how we see ourselves. Consumers have become enamored with reinventing themselves. The phenomenon comes hand in hand with our media-saturated culture, in which, to embrace a common understanding of success, we are encouraged to think of ourselves as akin to products more than as emotive human beings. Raymund Jude Guzman Aguilar, with 12 years of experience in advertising and marketing, became one of the most successful business personalities alive. He is currently president of Electronic Commerce Payments Inc., DAJ Property Holdings Corp., Recycle Plus Inc. and Gate Distribution Enterprise Inc., one of the dominant phone-card distributors in the Philippines, serving Philippine Seven Corp., S&R Price Club, WalterMart and other retail establishments. He was previously senior marketing manager of Merck, Sharpe and Dohme Philippines and Ginebra Inc./La Tondeña Distillers Inc. He has also held various senior marketing and advertising positions in McCann Erickson and Philippine Advertising Counsel (PAC-BBDO). He holds a master’s degree in business from the Asian Business Institute of Management, and is currently director of Payment One Inc. and Alliance Plus. “It wasn’t that I didn’t love advertising anymore—I wouldn’t have stuck at it for so long otherwise—but I craved a change,” Aguilar told this columnist. He chose a far other medium to advance his career coupled with his background in advertising. “I’d say that it was the hunger for new challenges that spurred the changes in my career path. With the experience gained and the education obtained, I felt more confident in leaving the corporate life and striking out on my own. Entrepreneurship is not for everyone. Many find gratification in corporate life. Some are inclined for public service. Others, myself, included, yearn for independence—to be able to plot our own course. It’s risky but well worth it,” he furthered. Aguilar encouraged entrepreneurs to better their professional and personal lives by thinking of themselves as brands. Applied to the individual, corporate requirements like developing mission statements and determining asset allocation became inspiring. People envisioned their own metamorphoses in a manner similar to a company rolling out a new logo. Aguilar’s concept is that we, too, can benefit from the tried-and-tested rules of salesmanship. At the end of the day, the word is you. We are the brands. But the point of personal branding is to be noticed and remembered, not to be yourself. Since his heyday in the advertising world, Aguilar developed and executed a fair amount of exciting nationwide brand activities with various deliverables like brand introduction, image enhancement and incremental sales. “We brought Marlboro closer to the masses with the nationwide cycling tour and provincial PBA games. We launched trimedia campaigns with point-of-sale bar promotions positioning SMB Super Dry as a young, upscale beverage brand. We developed and executed nationwide events that generated incremental sales for the Ginebra San Miguel brand that topped previous sales records soon after its implementation,” he enthused. The GSM trimedia ad campaign, he pointed out, that featured stranded sailors was highly successful. It pitted a local seahand against other seahands of various nationalities. The execution tickled the viewer’s funny bone while delivering the message that our very own local brand can compete/compare with the imported counterparts. “The ad campaign was able to identify the brand with its target market, uplift the brand’s image, generate high viewer recall and convert these positives to incremental sales.” It would stand to reason that Aguilar would be just as comfortable discussing successful branding as he is talking about personified brands, but while the two concepts mirror each other, they are nothing alike. Examining a corporation as if it were a person, we can imbue that company with a distinct personality and soul. Understood this way, it’s easier to imagine what a brand might feel, say, or do in a certain situation. While an intriguing experiment, such anthropomorphizing of a company offers a shallow and depressing understanding of humanity. Turn the same lens on individual and, as Aguilar puts it, “conceptualizing an individual as a product on a shelf and strategizing how best to market that product to the world.” As he sees it, the more a person can simplify who he is and what he does, the easier will be for others to understand, remember and—most important—buy his brand. “Ad life is addicting. It’s a youth elixir. The people, the culture, the creativity keep you young. One can never really lose his interest or passion—it just needs to be redirected. In my case, I pour the same passion and interest in Ecpay. The people in Ecpay are young and dynamic—full of energy and ideas. We encourage out-of-box thinking. Ecpay’s culture is the antithesis of the stodgy corporate stereotype.” As a result, Ecpay continues to break new ground. The company is currently moving toward the international payments market via different operating platforms. The growth potential is immense and the potential profits are handsome. “Ecpay’s existing services continue to grow as we expand our Biller and merchant network. To date our merchant network is nationwide with 3,500 outlets. Our target is to add 15 percent more by the first semester of 2010. Our biller network is increasing. As companies rationalize their collection costs and services, Ecpay’s reach and proven electronic system becomes an attractive alternative. Veco, Davao Light are our newest biller partners. The collections passing through our systems continue to grow with each passing month,” he explained. In person, Aguilar is cool and unruffled. He could be quite a celebrity himself, he projects an image of strength and a strong desire to win. “Working at Ecpay is different from an ad agency in that we chart our own path—taking matters into our own hands, creating new businesses, executing and ensuring their success. The work is more demanding but I believe the rewards are far greater.” Whereas in the past the entrepreneur’s mantra would be to look for a need and feel it, today at Ecpay, they create a need, develop it and fill it. In a fast-moving and competitive world, past success does not ensure future success. Just the opposite, past success often makes it more difficult to succeed in the future. If ever there was a truth that we should all contemplate, this is one. Just as corporations are learning that they must constantly strive to improve, not become complacent, and must adapt sensibly with the changes occurring around them, so must Ecpay. “Our biggest challenge is penetrating the international market. We understand that the international payments market comes with its own set of problems. Each country has its own set of rules and regulations, its own market nuances and preferred payment models. We have to approach each market differently while trying to standardize our operations. It is a contradiction but one Ecpay only knows too well,” Aguilar noted. Coming out of advertising, Aguilar’s eye is always on the bottom line, on the tangible, quantifiable facts. His process involves focusing on skills and simplifying how they’ve presented. All brands are known for something, not a thousand things. There’s simply no room for soul in an industry built on ego. In Photo: Raymund Jude Guzman Aguilar
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With major celebrities, it’s difficult to tell whether the product stops and the person begins. The brand equity of major celebrities (think Oprah) is inseparable from their personal lives, which are documented in breathless detail in the magazines lining supermarket checkout aisles around the world. Having jumped from products to celebrities, it was only a matter of time before branding trickled down to the average citizen.