Sandy Prieto-Romualdez, CEO of the Inquirer Group of Companies, shares her insights on positivism during the CDN Conversations 3. At her right is the event’s moderator Bunny Pages, who is also the chairman and CEO of Pages Holdings Inc. at the Cebu City Marriott Hotel (CDN PHOTO/TONEE DESPOJO).
Inquirer Group CEO Prieto-Romualdez, Dentsu-Aspac CCO Ong share thoughts on positivism in CDN Conversations 3
Fueling positivism in one’s line of work should always be anchored in a company’s mission and vision.
This was the point raised by Inquirer Group of Companies (IGC) CEO Sandy Prieto-Romualdez during the CDN Conversations 3 which highlighted the power of positivity at the Cebu City Marriott Hotel yesterday afternoon.
“If you want to fuel positivism in what you do, you need to anchor that in your mission and vision. If there’s a disconnect or gap between your vision and brand values, you’re in a bit of trouble,” Romualdez said to an audience of more than 150 advertisers, marketing managers, advertising managers and CEOs of different businesses in Cebu.
Inquirer journey
She shared with the attendees the 30-year journey of the Inquirer Group as part of the mosquito press during the Martial Law era until now with over 22.7 million total integrated readership, viewership and listeners across all of its multimedia platforms.
As a leader in the mainstream media industry now, Romualdez shared that for the Inquirer Group, positivism is parallel to causing change in the society.
“For me, positivism is really driving things to the point where you do want action. And I think that is the dedication that we are committed to do and this is, in a way, our contribution,” she said.
And when there’s actual change effected in the community, she said that this should be applauded.
Romualdez recalled during the time of former president Joseph Estrada when advertisers pulled out from the Philippine Daily Inquirer upon his orders after the Inquirer ran several investigative stories against him.
For six months at that time, she said the company was losing but still continued its operations as they remained true to their vision and mission.
At one point during the end of her talk, Romualdez asked the attendees if they’ve felt that much has been done in the past 20 years legally, socially, politically and economically in the country. Notably, only a handful of hands were raised saying yes.
Much more hands raised when asked if they didn’t feel any change in the four aspects she mentioned.
Romualdez said she and the Inquirer Group agree with the same observations.
“For me, positivism is hopefully five years from now, when I have this survey again with you, more hands will be raised in yes rather than no,” she said.
Joey Ong, chief creative officer and managing director of Dentsu-Aspac/Dojo (left), talks about how to create advertisements and how advocacy and marketing go hand in hand during the CDN Conversations 3. Ong was the other speaker in the event. Businessman Bunny Pages was the event’s moderator (CDN PHOTO/ TONEE DESPOJO).
Alleged bias
She also answered questions about alleged bias of the Philippine Daily Inquirer (PDI) against the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte, which she denied.
She said that paper has bannered positive stories from the Duterte administration like his recent trip to China as well as the 7.1 percent improvement of the country’s economy.
“I want to disabuse your minds. Our editors, they don’t sit in the story conference and think of what they can write against Duterte. We have been quite conscious and we’ve been criticized for it. We have weekly assessment, we have content analysis,” Romualdez said.
In order to address criticisms like this, she said the PDI has invited communications secretary Martin Andanar to write a column for the paper.
But in terms of protecting human rights and democratic values, she said the Inquirer Group will feel strongly against it.
“We feel very strongly that the democratic values and respect for human rights are at the center of that. Definitely, you can count on Inquirer being a very strong institution that will call out against these abuses,” she added.
Dentsu-Aspac CCO Ong
Another speaker during yesterday’s CDN Conversations 3 was Joey Ong, chief creative officer (CCO) and managing director of Dentsu-Aspac and Dojo.
Ong, who created the ad called Greenpeace Trees that was recognized as the 6th best ad in the country and 17th most awarded ad in the world, showed several ways for ad agencies to help promote brands and companies.
He said that with a lot of negativity going on even on social media, he immediately agreed to do yesterday’s talk on the power of positivity despite being busy this time of the year.
Smart promoting
“Smart promoting is a combination of advocacy and marketing. For me, advertising and advocacies are like sisters. You sell but you also advocate,” he told attendees.
Ong showed several of his advertisement products which they did for some of their clients focusing on themes like human insight, inspiring success, promoting brand journey, and being happy with what you do, among others.
He said working around these themes can help improve ads by touching human emotions.
Asked about how he managed to create good advertisements, Ong highlighted the importance of research and immersing in the real world.
“For me, personally, I try to go out. I walk a lot, ride the bus and experience everything. It’s important to be really aware of what’s happening. I go to the grocery once a week to see new products. I talk to different types of people,” said the 37-year old Ong.