When the audience is the critic, part 1

The last couple of weeks, the Internets was again buzzing with commentaries, some constructive, some laced with vitriol, on the latest thing to capture the online crowd's rabid attention: the new slogan of the Department of Tourism. “Pilipinas Kay Ganda,” it seemed, didn't sit well with the social networking public. A week into its launch—which, confusingly enough, the DOT clarified was merely a trial run—the slogan and the planned campaign it would come packaged in was pulled out.

One of the unfortunate casualties was tourism undersecretary for planning and promotions Vicente Romano III, who resigned from his post out of delicadeza, as, in his own words, "I take the rejection of the brand by the people as a vote of 'no confidence' not just for the brand, but also for the person behind it."

Enteng Romano, if you can still remember, was the main force behind eLagda.com, which sought to gather one million electronic signatures to pressure Pres. Joseph Estrada to resign in 2003. That campaign wasn't a huge hit; it only managed to gather 100,000 signatures, which were nevertheless sent to Malacañang. It's a pity to lose someone as passionate and nationalistic as him in government, but a man's got to do what a man's got to do.

Interestingly, though, it was also Enteng who also started a collaborative effort—crowdsourcing, if you may—to help the DOT come up with ways to promote the country. Check out www.tourismpilipinas.com if you want to volunteer.

What I found really fascinating, as someone also surfing the social networks, is the power the crowd now wields against some political missteps. It wasn't anyone from the DOT who realized that the initial website of the DOT, www.beautifulpilipinas.com was one consonant away from a porn site. And it was one of the many netizens lost in the crowd of dissenting opinion who pointed out that the test logo, which did seem to be the official one at the time, was much too similar to the logo of Poland.

Enteng has since addressed that issue, partially because an ad agency was already at the receiving end of much of the blame. He explained that he had instructed Campaigns and Grey to take inspiration from the logo of other countries, especially Poland's, and apologized if people thought he had plagiarized.

The good that can be taken from this, however, is that it did raise the awareness and the participation of Filipinos in our country's tourism campaign. While Enteng's promotional idea failed to bloom, his effort has already taken root. There's the #helpDOT hashtag that is still alive on Twitter, Facebook, and other sites. The design company Team Manila has started a Flickr.com account (http://www.flickr.com/groups/philippine_tourism_public_photos) to pool photos of the Philippines from many volunteer photographers. There's the Facebook page DOT D.I.Y., which is another venue to collect ideas and contributions, like songs and videos, from the crowd. Other netizens have launched efforts (contests, even!) to come up with a new and better slogan.

My personal favorite is the Pilipinas Kay Ganda generator, a Facebook app which allowed you to create your own logo, with your own name. Somewhere in my Facebook wall, there's an image that says, “Althea Kay Ganda!”

The best things about this is that all those contributions are free! I believe that the DOT would do well to source from the crowd it serves, because it's the crowd that composes its main stakeholders. And if this isn't a lesson for the government on how Filipinos can turn a small wave into a tsunami, positive or negative, through social networking, I don't know what is.

To be continued.

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