MANILA, Philippines - When I was in college, I never flipped the channel whenever the “Malaysia, Truly Asia” spot would come on during commercial breaks because I genuinely liked their slogan (I’m a sucker for rhymes). Also, the melody to which it’s sung to is lilting and lovely, and as a result, the slogan for Malaysia is some sort of standard that I base other tourism slogans on. There are probably better out there, but in my opinion, it encapsulates what a slogan should be: succinct, direct to the point, and catchy.
As a country that could seriously benefit from the revenue brought in by tourism, I often wished that we had something like that, but the word “Philippines” is such a mouthful, and pretty difficult to find rhymes for. With all due respect to Sen. Dick Gordon, former Department of Tourism Secretary, “WOW Philippines” had a pretty good run, but the slogan just never looked good on a souvenir T-shirt. (Probably because, and this just might be me, some words spelled in all capital letters come across as a little unnerving, like I’m being yelled at or something. Does that make sense or am I losing it?) It’s a small detail, but I think it matters. Also, the slogan sort of led a passive existence — it was something that we acknowledged, but never actively paid any interest or attention to, like a dormant volcano. Then again, “WOW Philippines” was around for such a long period of time that it was really beginning to feel like a well-worn jacket that, although comfortable and still presentable, just needed to be replaced.
And just when the dusty, decade-long reign of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo finally ended, in came the bright, yellow-bannered rise of President Noynoy Aquino. Perhaps it was the fact that GMA had been around for so long that the need for change was felt more urgently than ever. Whatever the reason, it brought about the “Pilipinas Kay Ganda” slogan, and all hell, in a matter of speaking, broke loose. Now I’m not going to harp on its flaws because that’s already been done plenty. What I would like to point out is the fact that since it just didn’t really appeal or make sense to a lot of us, it gave the DOT the attention that it badly needed. Under such hot public scrutiny, former DOT Secretary Alberto Lim threw up his hands in frustration and resigned.
I don’t like to point out other people’s failures, especially when they’re in full view of the public, but some pretty positive things arose from this particular failure. First, the appointment of widely regarded adman Mon Jimenez to the DOT and next, the unprecedented popularity of the “It’s More Fun in the Philippines” slogan. By now you’ve probably played a fair hand in propelling the #ItsMoreFunInThePhilippines and #1forFun hashtags to Twitter trending status, read more than your fair share of “It’s more fun…” memes, and if you’re witty, made a few of them yourself. As it turned out, it wasn’t unsubstantiated overconfidence when Sec. Jimenez proclaimed that our country was as marketable as a bucket of Chickenjoy, and considering his track record, we really had few reasons to doubt him.
On to the next
Now I hate to be the one to rain on the slogan parade, but on the flip side of this success are a couple of things that worry me. The first is the propagation of negative or smart-alecky “It’s more fun…” memes. I really don’t have a problem with the campy memes, like “Habal-habal. It’s more fun in the Philippines” because like it or not, extending the seating capacity of the lowly motorcycle to five passengers by slapping a wooden plank on it represents the Filipino culture of ingenuity and humor — even though it is kind of a safety hazard. But take, for instance, memes done in poor taste, like “Bus trips. More fun in the Philippines,” “Childhood. More fun in the Philippines,” and “Romance. More fun in the Philippines.” While these things are realities in our country, they’re really offensive, attract the wrong kind of attention, and definitely not something to make fun out of. If we’re making these kinds of impressions on potential tourists, how on earth are we going to draw in 10 million of them by 2016?
There’s also the matter of the slogan’s usage reaching saturation point. It seems as though every possible meme for “It’s more fun…” has been created and now, its shiny, happy newness has faded a little bit. As my friend Maui tweeted just three days after the campaign launch, “Wow, sawa na ko sa DOT campaign. Bilis. And I didn’t even make my own. Tsk.” Truth. Memes have shorter shelf lives than it girls. Well, maybe not the ones here (ooh, “Being an it girl. More fun in the Philippines!” Sorry, I couldn’t resist!).
It comes as a relief then that we here at Supreme have been told that the launch of the “It’s more fun in the Philippines” slogan is just the first step of the DOT’s tourism campaign. As to what the second step may be, it's all just hearsay at this point, but all the same, we'd rather not say. We don't want to steal the DOT's thunder. But if the slogan is anything to base our judgment on, we're definitely looking forward to more great ideas from Sec. Jimenez and his team.