Ad firm leads advocacy on IP rights

CEBU, Philippines - Cebu-based advertising firm Campaigns Cebu (CAMP) leads an advocacy to promote Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) among advertising industry players here.

“When we offer our service to clients we promise professional results done in the professional way.   It’s doing business with standards at par with our Manila office. That’s what clients pay for, real full service done by trained professionals using international techniques and genuine equipment and software”, said Campaigns Cebu general manager and creative director Zen Pastoriza.

He said that Campaigns Cebu believes that properly recognizing intellectual property rights will uplift the standard of the advertising industry in Cebu and thereafter, strengthen the drive for industry growth. 

“Without the move to level the playing field in the industry to international standards, agencies in Cebu will not grow professionally and will remain small struggling shops trying to live off 2,000 peso design fees,” he said.

For over a decade, CAMP has redefined the meaning of client service as synonymous to business results accountability, creative excellence and professionalism, he said.             

The agency upholds being responsible for action undertaken and the work it produces during the course of its operations, Pastoriza said.

“As a true world class ad agency, Campaigns Cebu is proud to be a supporter of intellectual property rights,” he emphasized.

He said the agency is very conscious about giving due recognition to intellectual property (IP) owners in the creation of marketing materials and advertising from stock photography, music soundtrack, jingles, copywriting and even in the software for office productivity and creative design.         

Though it may be easy to just cut and paste downloaded images from the Internet, the agency urges clients to shoot original photos or buy images from image banks.

Likewise, it’s easier to use hit music for commercials, the agency writes its own lyrics and commissions a jingle maker, upholding IPR in the business is found to be an important corporate responsibility.  

And though just about everyone in the business uses pirated software, the agency uses original Operating Systems (OS) such as Windows 98/XP and MAC including installations of licensed software such as Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite/Photoshop, Macromedia Freehand, I Work and OSX, he added. 

According to Pastoriza, the agency has invested on original licensed software worth almost a million pesos.

Such a big investment for licensed software was not only for the sake of compliance to anti-piracy law but more importantly adherence to an international standard of professionalism.  

“It is sad to note that some advertising agencies and design shops alike may be so business-oriented to the extent of thinking solely of profit alone that they tend to neglect exercising adherence to intellectual property rights. They get away with ‘stealing’ millions worth of creative content and software. Instead of buying original adobe software worth P 50,000 per computer, they get a pirated copy for P150,”he said.           

Pastoriza joins millions of IPR advocates warning pirated-users that piracy is not far from stealing. —Ehda M. Dagooc