Buying into the Pinoy blue pill mindset

Given the dire economic straits we’re in, we need all the help we could get to pull ourselves out of this (bankruptcy) hole. A strong domestic market can be a significant source of revenue for the government, especially if Filipino-owned companies make healthy profits, instead of multinationals that eventually remit their profits to their mother companies abroad.

There’s a lot of hubbub over the impending release of a local version of the "blue pill" in the market. Pfizer, understandably, has made efforts to block the release of Unilab’s version of the Viagra through legal means. There are two principles fighting it out in this scenario: the right of the original developer to protect and control his product, and the right of the Filipino to affordable medical treatment, a contentious issue that gets a rise out of many consumerists.

"And the twain shall never meet." There seems to be a great divide between rich companies who are able to invest huge amounts of money in research and development (and thus, are able to come up with new products) and the poor developing markets, which may have the need for such products but would rather not pay for the cost of R&D. The Intellectual Property Rights issue over music, movies and consumer and pharmaceutical products, such as anti-cholesterol drugs and erection-inducing Viagra, will remain a bone of contention for a long time to come.

This controversy underscores a deeper issue about product manufacturing and marketing in the country. Much has been said about our appetite for anything imported. Check out your favorite supermarket stalls and notice the growing number of imported brands now being sold side-by-side with local ones. Evidently, imported products are patronized and, most likely, preferred by enough people for it to be a profitable sub-sector of the consumer products industry.

The campaign to push the "Buy Filipino" idea has had an extensive run in the tri-media; we see these "Buy Filipino" ads even in movie theaters. To be sure, this is a worthwhile and patriotic thing to do. The notion of enjoining citizens to patronize their own is not a concern for the Philippines alone. Even American companies have had to do some self-promotion of their own, particularly in the automobile industry, where foreign-made brands outsell all their domestic brands, except in the full-size pick-up truck category.

I feel it’s my duty to patronize our local products. I consume Purefoods corned beef, Oishi crackers, Hapee toothpaste, Bench undergarments, Julie’s bread and Figaro coffee. I consider myself a relatively well-informed citizen and I’d like to do my bit for my home and country. There are a lot of well-made goods out there that can compete favorably with imported brands – Splash, Jollibee, Rusty Lopez, and Jack & Jill, to name a few. One brand of soft drinks – Sarsi – is doing quite well on its own, and where available, I choose it over the others. Even its advertising campaign is pretty snazzy, enough to sway the finicky young buyers to its side. Local coffee brands like Great Taste and Cafe Puro are good stuff; they are just as aromatic and tasty as the best ones from abroad.

Local textiles and clothing brands like Penshoppe and Kamiseta are coming into their own. Ironically, many imported clothes are manufactured in the sweatshops of China as well as the Philippines. On big-ticket items, like television sets, refrigerators and air conditioners, local brands like Condura are already doing quite well. I suspect that its affordability gives it an edge over imported brands, although for real state-of-the-art items, you still have to rummage through the imported section to get your plasma TV, double-door ref and such. Of course, in this category, locally manufactured products carrying multinational brands are the order of the day; local brands play the price leader card.

Unfortunately, there are local products that don’t make the grade. The modern Filipino consumer is no longer the passive and uninformed buyer. They may have walked away with their purchase of a poorly-made electric fan in the past – and not registered a complaint – but they’re bound to make a ruckus if that happened in the present. The Filipino consumer is quickly becoming an educated and discerning market; shoddy craftsmanship and poorly planned products are going to be found out, and they will lose out.

Marikina is well-known for its shoe products. I grew up with classic Filipino shoe brands. They are stylish and of sterling quality, at least in design. But, if truth be told, my pair does not seem to be as comfortable as my other pairs of Florsheim and Kenneth Cole shoes. The leather is not as buttery as its imported (and much more expensive) counterpart, either. A friend forces himself to fork out for the outlandish ("out of this land?") price of a pair of Cole Haan shoes because there are no local brands that fit his size 12 feet! Paging Marikina product development offices: can’t we at least make some large-size pairs?

On the supermarket shelves for snack foods, compare the competing crackers that carry four-letter names, look identical (round and toasty brown) and even taste similar (a touch of saltiness and crispy). After biting into a piece of the imported cracker, the local one seems hard and unappealing. The local version lack that melt-in-your-mouth appeal. I may have biased taste buds, but the fact that these imported brands continue to flood our supermarkets is proof enough that I am not alone in making these choices.

In trying to spur Filipino consumers to choose local brands over imported ones, it is important to note that the reason they haven’t done so is because they are aware of better quality products made abroad. When these imports hit our market shelves, the family shopper naturally chooses the better products over inferior ones. In many cases, imported goods are, in fact, better.

Given that some of us prefer imported brands because of an "imported mindset," these would be a small portion of the 80 million potential buyers in this country. For the middle-class segment (around 20 to 30 million), the dilemma is choosing between a more expensive imported brand and a less expensive local one. This penny-pinching segment may be price-sensitive but when we talk about what’s good for the family and the kids, they will choose the brand they feel is better for them.

Once they resolve the legal issues (if they ever do) regarding the release of the capsule-shaped blue pill (as opposed to the triangle-shaped original blue pill), the sexually-active middle-aged Filipino male market will have the choice between an expensive, imported blue pill and a cheaper, local blue pill to cure his deflated libido and shrunken ego (within one hour). If the local version holds up against the imported one, it will be a boon to Pinoy machismo, which gets saved by a magical mantra of "sildenafil" and allow him to stretch his wallet power with more reasonable pricing. This may yet be another standing salute to the growing number of consumerist activists in the country.

Our local manufacturing and marketing companies need to wake up to the fact that they need to upgrade the quality of their products. Filipinos are pihikan buyers; they know distinction when they see it. If these companies want to survive and thrive in this country, they have to make sure that they make products that are as good as the imported ones. That will be the formula for making Pinoys buy Filipino. And there’s no magic blue pill that can make that happen in an hour or so.

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E-mail bongo@vasia.com or bongo@campaignsandgrey.net for comments, questions or suggestions. Thank you for communicating.