Discipline, Citizens, and Tatak FPJ
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Transcript of Discipline, Citizens, and Tatak FPJ
Discipline, Citizens, and Tatak FPJ:
An Analysis of the Political Marketing Strategies of the 2013 & 2016 Campaigns of Grace Poe
By
Fil Garciano
BS Entrepreneurship
2nd Semester, AY 2015-2016
Introduction
Marketing creates value for a specific product or value, and the goal of the marketer is to
broadcast this value to a customer base where said customers will consume the product.
Marketing has a broad reach, and is used for various purposes. Marketing is able to generate
buzz for typical consumer products such as food, events, luxury items, clothing, and for other
types of products and services such as advocacies, schools, and even people themselves. The
latter example is extremely evident in the field of political marketing, the topic of this paper.
Karen de Asis, a strategic marketing expert who is also the Chief Brand Strategist of
MKS Marketing Consulting, as well as a veteran academic who has taught at the business
schools of the Ateneo de Manila University as well as at De La Salle University, differentiates
conventional marketing for businesses with political marketing in a simple statement: political
marketing seeks to create “preference for a person and not a product”, and generate “voting
intent rather than purchasing intent”.
This perfectly sums up the nature and goal of political marketing, that being packaging
and creating value for a specific person or political entity so that they may be given a position in
government. The only way to achieve this is to create buzz among customers, or in this case,
voters, and to transform this buzz into voting intent and thereafter actual votes. Here we see how
interconnected political marketing is with conventional marketing for business, making it
obvious that these two are no different in terms of goals, and therefore should not be different in
terms of strategy.
However, political marketing, especially political marketing here in the Philippines, lags
behind in terms of scientific strategies, maturity, and other advancements evident in the
corporate marketing culture of the private sector. De Asis herself, in her article entitled Political
Marketing that Sells and Sizzles, describes political marketing in the Philippines as governed by
“political folk wisdom”, and as “sorely lacking in marketing expertise”. The political marketing
strategies of many of the different politicos in the country are mostly centered around name
recall and memorability, with their television, print, and online ads, heavily emphasizing their
names and ballot numbers, incorporating them into catchy jingles and memorable catchphrases.
Though recall can be helpful, as what political marketing guru Greg Garcia mentions in many of
his articles, it is not enough to hold a successful campaign. Being too recall-centric in terms of
our political ads also leads to the stagnation of the field, which already sorely lacks in terms of
advancement and maturity. This is so evident, that De Asis details how creative absurdity had
become a trend, as shown by such unconventional ads as Sen. TG Guingona’s 2013 Campaign of
“Galit sa Buwaya” and its ads, complete with a cartoon crocodile being smashed by an angry
looking Guingona.
However, 2013’s senatorial first placer Sen. Grace Poe, who was ironically Guingona’s
running mate, had one of the most successful and most mature and well thought-of political
campaigns in Philippine electoral history according to several analysts. Her campaign went well
beyond political marketing norms, and proved to be extremely successful for then candidate Poe
who was lagging behind the surveys.
This paper attempts to scrutinize the condition of political marketing in the country and
provide an analysis of a healthy political marketing environment by looking at successful foreign
political campaigns, and provide insights on how to improve the state of political marketing in
the country by analyzing the successes of Sen. Poe’s 2013 campaign, and later on provide a brief
summary proposition for her 2016 Presidential Campaign based on these marketing principles.
A Mature Political Marketing Environment & the State of Filipino Campaigns
De Asis, in one of her articles on the Philippine Daily Inquirer, details what are required
for a mature political environment, using the 2008 Presidential Campaign of Pres. Barack Obama
and the 1997 New Labour Campaign of Tony Blair as bases for her analysis.
First on her list, and the basis for much of political marketing activity, is electoral market
research. Much as in the concept of primary market research or PMR in conventional marketing,
this is required to understand the customers (voters in political marketing) and relate their needs
and wants and relate it to the value, or even create value in relation to these needs and wants, for
the politician. This is done in order to focus on specific customer segments, or attempt to appeal
to broader or different segments, and understand the typical voter profile for the candidate’s
targeted marketing strategy. They do this by conducting focus group discussions and studies, as
well as other forms of mass surveys. Based on this data, candidates must understand how they
should relate to their chosen target voters and work on these as strengths. They can also ascertain
their weakness and opportunity areas based on these studies, and work on their branding and
their means of delivery. A key factor as well, especially for re-electionists or for those who have
previous experience in the public sphere, candidates, through their branding and various
speeches and ad appearances, must be able to bridge their previous work experience and their
value proposition and connect it with what research shows to be the pre-conceived notions of
their target segments. Campaign teams must therefore work well with the data that they gather,
and must be able to brand, package, and tweak their candidate’s ads and speeches to fit to these
notions all while keeping the candidate’s brand, to ensure the effectiveness of the candidate in
generating voter intent. For example, Change and Hope, the theme of Barack Obama’s 2008
Presidential Campaign, was, to the American voter, clearly relatable and consistent with
Obama’s image as a progressive senator and as a force for change both within the US
Government and even the Democratic Party.
As mentioned in the Introduction, many of the political campaign strategies of several
candidates are based on political folk wisdom rather than carefully crafted and scientific
strategies. This is largely because of an immature political marketing environment, proliferated
by the continuous success of candidates who employ such strategies and therefore give off the
false notions of the effectiveness of such marketing styles. Also, with any individual, service, or
product, that is being marketed, lack of research causes a fundamental disconnect between the
targeted voter or consumer with the branding and the value proposition of the entity being
marketed. This is evidenced by the case of Dick Gordon, veteran statesman and effective public
servant, who ran for President in 2010 and then Senator in 2013, losing on both occasions, and is
widely attributed to the former senator’s arrogant and unyielding style which turned off many of
the youth, a crucial part of his agenda, and therefore a key target segment. This could have been
mended or augmented by identifying particular soft points and pain points in his target segment
and thereafter working on said characteristics by employing social media strategies or other such
forms of work that could be used to balance out what was perceived to be “arrogance” and offset
it with a listening, engaging attitude that could have been exuded by a well-executed, research-
backed social media style of campaigning.
The next key factor as described by De Asis: which is mainly evidence for the voters that
the candidate is able to deliver. Again, this is heavily based on the candidate’s previous track
record, and how relatable this is to his branding, his platform, and the position he is seeking.
Though it is a drastic over-simplification of Filipino voting patterns to say that Filipinos vote
solely in terms of recall, and though there is strong evidence suggesting a sense of societal
collective nostalgia (what with former scandal-mired political families such as the Estradas or
the Marcoses still in prominent roles in politics), track record is indeed important to the Filipino
voter. This is primarily related to “brand trust”, as, to the voter, if a candidate was able to deliver
whatever he or she aimed to deliver in a previous post, he or she will then be in all likeliness be
able to deliver in this new position that is sought after.
The effectiveness of this concept of track record reliability and brand trust is evident in
Sec. Mar Roxas, who, in 2004, ran with the marketing brand of “Mr. Palengke”, running on his
previous experience as an effective Secretary of Agriculture. Relatively unknown at the time and
considered to be a neophyte candidate and an unlikely winner only seven months prior to the
elections, Roxas was able to become the number one senator of that year, amassing over 57% of
the vote, that is, 19 million votes, 4 million ahead of the next contender Senator Revilla. His ads
were also distinctly memorable, using popular songs at the time and depicting him in a series of
wet markets interacting with vendors and customers. In short, he effectively built on his
previous, identifiable track record, and used this to address a specific pain point of the Filipino
voter: reliability. Compare this to say, senatorial candidate and former Congresswoman Risa
Hontiveros, who had an excellent legislative track record and voting record on issues concerning
her target segment (women and the youth), she instead chose to focus on being “the progressive”
candidate, a type of branding too broad and too scattered and unidentifiable to her previous track
record, thereby generating dissonance among her voter segment.
Building on this concept of track record reliability, the candidate and his marketing team
must create a benefit statement, something more known to students of marketing as a value
proposition. Much like the conventional understanding of value propositions, it must be a benefit
statement that is targeted towards a specific segment, and the object marketed must live up to the
expectations they have set by broadcasting their value proposition. Their value proposition must
also be easily identifiable and readily evident upon accomplishment, as well as finding backing
in the candidate’s history and previous experience. As such, value propositions often act as the
campaign’s battle cry and platform, the statement that exudes the entire purpose of the candidate
and the whole idea behind the platform. To be assured of the viability of the value proposition,
the candidate must also be able to depict that he will be able to effectively live up to this value
proposition, much as how companies need to live up to the promises they deliver based on their
value prop. This is matched with another concept discussed by De Asis, which is enhancing
packaging, meaning that the candidate must embody the value proposition and totally represent
this benefit concept up until physical appearances.
For example, when Cong. Gilbert Remulla ran for the senate in 2010, he was widely
considered to have the perfect image for the perfect, young politician in a new age of Philippine
politics. He was educated in prestigious universities here and abroad, he had worked in CNN and
was at one point a very popular newsman on GMA 7. To top it all of, he is a very good-looking
individual and is very confident in front of audiences. However, he sorely lacked a clear and
coherent benefit statement and value proposition and therefore an understandable platform. To
many voters, the value proposition is a simple way of understanding a candidate’s platform and
beliefs, and the lack thereof is detrimental to the cause of generating voting intent among
electoral segments.
Lastly, De Asis claims that candidates must be able to create conversation value using his
speeches and campaign material. Citing Greg Garcia in an article about him by the Philippine
Daily Inquirer, conversation value is increasingly important especially in the advent of such a
tool as social media, where it must be used to “get users involved in political discussions” and
must “not be used as a microphone”. This means that there is a widely significant and very
accessible equalizing avenue for discussions regarding politics, and thus word of mouth becomes
a significant factor in campaigns once again. Word of mouth obviously requires significant
material to create buzz among the targeted voters, hence there must be many buzz-worthy
moments in a candidate’s events and speeches. There must also be a wide presence of sharable
publication materials that would be able to go viral on the web, and therefore reach a larger
number of people.
In the 2013 General Elections, an aspiring returning senator, former Sen. Ramon
Magsaysay, Jr., was considered by many pundits to be a viable senatorial choice, given his
previous experience working in the senate and his extensive public service background. Aside
from all that, he is the son and namesake of his famous father, Pres. Ramon Magsaysay, one of
the most popular presidents and historical figures in Philippine history. However, he placed 16th
overall during the senatorial elections and was therefore not elected, primarily because he failed
to penetrate the social media avenues of his desired voter segment, and was therefore unable to
beat other candidates in terms of word of mouth and conversation value. This can also be
attributed to a weak digital presence and TV presence, and attributed to his banking on the more
traditional political marketing techniques of targeting specific regional segments and using name
recall as a tool for garnering votes.
Grace Poe, Her Personal Background, and “Tatak FPJ”
Then senatorial candidate Grace Poe Llamanzares was very new in the political scene,
and was widely considered to be a new entrant in the field. She did, however, have prior
experience as Movie and Television Review and Classification Board or MTRCB Chairwoman,
and was very effective in restructuring what was once considered to be an ineffective and
unnecessary arm of the government. She was able to effectively implement structural changes to
the office, and she was able to bring about a new rating process and significant ad campaigns that
boosted awareness about television and movie audience appropriateness ratings.
That is, however, Grace Poe’s only prior engagement in the field of public service. She
was, however, prominent as President of FPJ Productions, restoring many of the old classics of
her father, Fernando Poe, Jr., and distributing them to many small local cinema outlets and the
major Filipino box office channels, thereby increasing income for the production house, which
still maintains many employees and a production warehouse and office in Quezon City. She is
also a graduate of political science from Boston College and was, at one point, a Development
Studies major at the University of the Philippines. She has also amassed significant campaigning
experience during her father’s presidential campaign in 2004.
Beyond all this, however, she is more widely known as the daughter of Filipino cinema
megastar Fernando Poe, Jr., or FPJ, and widely popular actress Susan Roces. FPJ’s “masa”
appeal and the huge scandal involving him being allegedly cheated out of the presidency by Pres.
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has embedded the FPJ brand in political history, and Grace Poe herself
is widely seen as connected and integral to the FPJ brand as the daughter of this prominent
power couple.
FPJ’s brand in itself is seen as a very popular one, considering his prominence in the
Filipino cinematic industry. The man himself is a brand of his own, with a signature look of
leather jackets, jeans, and a white shirt, and an Elvis-style haircut. His roles have also been
historically close to the most marginalized members of society, with him often appearing as
individuals who have been oppressed by the elite and seeking revenge for injustices he has
experienced. He embodies a perfect proletarian hero in his films, and represents someone that is
totally relatable to the everyday Filipino. In the words of his own grandson, Brian Poe
Llamanzares, Campaign Coordinating Executive of Sen. Grace Poe’s 2013 Senatorial Campaign,
FPJ “is the kind of guy you can have a San Miguel with”, hence his transcendent appeal with the
Filipino masses.
Grace Poe, in her own words, was by no means built to be a celebrity in the mold of her
parents, and was a typical Assumption alum who at one point taught pre-school children when
she migrated to the United States with her husband. However, immediately after the 2004 Hello
Garci Scandal, and after the death of FPJ, she was thrust into the media spotlight and thereafter
the Filipino collective psyche, with images of the Poe family first mourning a lost election and
then a lost father.
This had built her into the collective consciousness, and in 2010 was remembered by the
newly elected President Benigno Aquino III, thereafter appointing her to modernize the MTRCB.
She built her own brand along the mold of his father, and gathered massive media and show
business support using her father’s old cadres who at the time already held massive sway over
corporate media matters, thereby ensuring an effective transformation project for the MTRCB.
A Smart & Disciplined Campaign of the Consensus Candidate
When Grace Poe decided to run for a seat in the Senate, many of the survey agencies
placed her in the bottom 20s in preference polls based on survey respondents as soon as word got
out. She also had a relatively small budget to use for campaigning, including only P60 to P70
Million for television, print, and online ads, according to the Senator herself in an interview with
Kathlyn Dela Cruz of ABS-CBN News. Compared to the staggering ad expenses of such
candidates as Cynthia Villar, who spent nearly P200 Million, the campaign team of Grace Poe
had very little legroom to work with. She was also a neophyte, and quite the outsider in
traditional political circles in her own rite. However, Grace Poe’s campaign showed marketing
mantle and highly advanced and discipline political marketing techniques, fitting the descriptions
of De Asis in the first section of this research. This led her to become the number one Senator of
the 2013 Elections, a win from behind, with her amassing 20 million votes, above 50% of all
senatorial votes cast.
In an analysis by Camille Naredo, a senior political correspondent for ABS-CBN News,
the “magic” win as it was dubbed was primarily because of two factors: 1) she ran a smart and
disciplined campaign, and 2) she was the consensus candidate. These are stipulations that I tend
to agree with.
Her campaign was indeed smart and disciplined, and she was very much focused on her
relationship to her father FPJ. At first glance, this may be considered a very “traditional” move,
with such candidates as Sen. Pia Cayetano and then Sen. Noynoy Aquino using their famous
parents (Senator Rene Cayetano and Sen. and Pres. Cory Aquino) as campaign points in the 2004
and 2010 Elections, respectively. However, she was very disciplined in focusing her entire value
proposition and her branding and packaging into a single benefit statement that she is FPJ’s
daughter and she will continue her legacy. She does this by employing two different campaign
slogans at two different points of the campaign, “Anak ni FPJ” during the earlier stages of the
senatorial elections and then “Tatak FPJ” in the latter part. In these brief, benefit
statements/value propositions, she is able to capture the entire message behind her campaign:
that she will continue the FPJ legacy of the empowerment of masses and bringing governance
closer to the people (addressing the loyal FPJ mass-based segments) and campaigning for clean
elections and cleaner governance in general (addressing those who were affected by the sight of
the massive cheating scandal of 2004). She did not need to incessantly bombard the audience
with a long platform, as she was able to efficiently encapsulate all her political ideas (which were
already readily available on her social media accounts and her website) and all the sentiment
around her father in a single value proposition statement.
In debates, which she was very active in, she was able to show her mantle and thereby
destroy any notions that she was just a typical “traditional politician” who was banking on her
parents’ fame as popular figures. She was very active in these debates, and made a point of
attending almost all broadcast events, especially the ones held by prominent universities such as
the University of the Philippines and the Ateneo de Manila University, thereby embedding
within the minds of the powerful youth vote that she is ready to engage not only with the media
and the general public, but the youth as well, increasing her relevance and credibility as one of
the “smart” choices of candidates. This was held into contrast with Sen. Nancy Binay according
to an analysis of the situation by political pundit Malou Mangahas, with her saying that “both
had famous fathers, but Grace Poe was seen and heard and Nancy was not”, thereby giving
credence in the minds of the voters to the assumption that Poe is a viable choice.
Her performances in her public appearances, as well as her strong statements made on
issues that reached viral status because of all the sharing on social media, made her appear to be
very capable of living up to her benefit statements. Her previous track record and her perceived
newness in the political field also made it better, with many of the voters being predisposed to
voting for newer choices.
That being said, it is safe to say that her campaign had key elements of a good value
proposition and track record credibility, with her strong single minded benefit statements and
campaign battle cry, her living up to previous notions of herself as a brand, and her strong public
appearances that contributed to ensuring an aura of credibility and reliability in her as a public
figure.
Another important factor is, in her statements to the press and to the public, she did not
attempt to use her campaign slogan and benefit statement to address unrelated issues. For
example, in questions about the Reproductive Health Bill, she gave her own statement related to
her mantra of bringing governance closer to the people, but did not force the “Tatak FPJ” battle
cry at this instance or any other instance that had no relevance to the branding.
Also, to enhance her position, her political marketers opted for emphasizing her track
record credibility and her FPJ-centered branding by getting her mother, Susan Roces, to
campaign for her and actively appear alongside her in different sorties and campaign events.
To continue on Naredo’s observations, the second proximate reason behind Grace Poe
amassing that much popular support was that she was the consensus candidate. She ran as an
independent candidate, and, initially, she was a guest candidate of both major tickets, the
administration’s Team PNoy Coalition and the opposition’s United Nationalist Alliance or UNA
Coalition. She was then, however, dropped by UNA yet still remained as a guest of the Aquino-
backed coalition.
Her central political configuration is also widely because of the current political situation
post-2010, where both the administration and the opposition were a single, loosely organized
faction in the form of the Genuine Opposition against Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, touted as
FPJ’s rival. Hence, it was easy for both sides of the post-2010 political spectrum to side with
Grace Poe, given their common political heritage. Being in consensus meant that she was able to
enjoy the active and passive support of the political machineries of two mega coalitions, the
administration and Cojuangco-Aquino supported Team PNoy, with whom Poe had forged a good
working relationship with when she was MTRCB Chair under Pres. Aquino, and also the UNA
Coalition where lifelong family friend and FPJ’s best friend former President Joseph Estrada is
the political stalwart and man in charge. This also allowed her to increase her Total Addressable
Market, by being officially endorsed by two coalitions whose bases of support are entirely
different yet complementary, allowing her access to different regional bases and income
brackets. To quote political analyst Malou Tiquia, she was “the winning candidate on both
ballots”.
Both this unifying message and the unified political relationship wherein she enjoyed
multilateral support from across different political plains as a consensus candidate allowed for
her to be a clear, obvious, and straightforward candidate and therefore choice to become a
winning senator. However, one of the main clinchers and the main drivers as to why Grace Poe
became number one was also how she was able to actively engage her target segment, to be
discussed in the next section.
“Tao POE?”
As we have mentioned earlier, Poe’s campaign expenses only amounted to P60 to P70
Million, and were used for television ads, as well as print and online ads. Her television presence
was not as much as the Binays or the other candidates, but she had an effective campaign ad that
made use of puns on her last name of “Poe”, using the Filipino words of “po” and “opo”. She
used this form of wordplay in many forms of media, including on ads and on campaign
merchandise, as well as on social media through various hashtgas and whatnot all over Facebook
and on Twitter. Such puns were so humorous in nature, which they became trending and viral all
over social media websites, and thereafter reached a wider audience than those who were simply
just watching on television. In this age of social media, and the prevalence of “memes” on the
Internet as carriers of humor and social jokes and references, the name strategy employed by
Team Poe became a talking point among many users of Facebook and on Twitter, thereby
entering into everyday discussions. This emphasizes how the political marketing team carefully
crafted this marketing device and used it as a tool to generate conversation value, ridiculous as it
may seem on certain levels. Its effectiveness, however, is no doubt very helpful in creating social
media attention.
This works on the level of name recall, and, though as we have earlier mentioned, name
recall is definitely not the only thing that allows a candidate to win an election, it definitely aides
in generating enough media and social media buzz as traction to launch other significant and
hard-hitting marketing devices. This also gives way for instant recognition from among the
voters, and thereafter gives the voter ease in “knowing” the candidate. Such online media
presence, humorous marketing devices, and other such humanizing campaign ads, all contribute
to allowing the voter to transform their idea of the candidate from just an image or a distant
figure into a real person. Quoting Philippine Advertising Counselor veteran Louie Morales in an
Inquirer article, such techniques lets voters “feel that they know you”. This is crucial in terms of
political marketing as it allows voters to relate to the candidate even more, and therefore
stimulate voting intent among the individuals.
Such strong presence on social media and in day-to-day conversations emphasizes how
the political marketing team of Grace Poe highly values community engagement, which is
furthered by other such strategies in their employ. Such strategic moves are very much in line
with Poe’s style and value proposition, of being a people’s candidate, and is highly evidenced by
community-centered campaigning.
This is seen in the “lugawans” or soup kitchens (in reality, they were more local
community gatherings of Poe supporters in barangay and municipal multipurpose halls) that
were put up by community support systems of the Poe campaign. Such establishments were put
up in order to gather community donations for the campaign, and also acted as channels where
the national campaign can coordinate with grassroots campaigning outfits that usually manage
these lugawans and vice versa. Poe herself mentions that the “citizenry would take an active
role” in many of her campaigns, with various sorties she held in the provinces being
independently organized events, i.e., were not planned and only coordinated by the national
campaigning team. Here we see how she made it to the highest spot on the senatorial list without
having to partner up with dynastic political families with local strongholds under their political
influence, as her support base grew organically from community bases that were not artificially
installed by well-entrenched and long-standing political families. This is also how she surpassed
the fact that she held no strong regional base in herself, given that she does not have a “home”
province. Due to the wide community appeal, and how engaging her team was in encouraging
and partnering up with these efforts, she solidified local strongholds with minimal direct costs
and maximum effectiveness.
All in all, this highlights Poe and her team’s simple community campaign strategy: be
talked about by the people, talk to the people, and be talked to by the people.
The Road(blocks) to Malacañang
On September 16, 2015, in front of family and a large number of her supporters, Sen.
Grace Poe announced her intentions to run for the highest position in the land in 2016. For the
several months prior, she had been touted as a likely frontrunner and was a favorite for political
speculators for the 2016 General Elections, much due to her solid electoral performance in the
2013 Elections.
Aside from this, she also scores very highly in her performance approval ratings, mainly
because of her solid legislative performance and her continuous appearances in the media as a
progressive force in the Senate. She chaired the Senate’s Peace & Order Committee, and
presided over the Senate inquiry on the Mamasapano Incident, where 44 members of the Special
Action Force of the Philippine National Police (PNP-SAF) were led into a brutal ambush through
misguided orders along the chain of command. Rising national support for the SAF44 as they
were called, as well as growing anti-administration sentiment regarding the issue caused her to
be thrust once again into the mantle of the national spotlight, albeit tarnishing her rapport with
the Liberal administration, to an extent. She had also been the forerunner of the campaign for the
passage of the Freedom of Information Bill, a bill proposing the creations of several mediums
and avenues wherein the public will be able to see and scrutinize government transactions and
other government processes, all for the sake of ensuring a transparent and clean government.
These two factors allowed for even more media and social media attention, given that both of
these issues are concerns of the very active social media user segment.
Though amidst a myriad of supporters and claims of support, there have also been many
detractors and many advising her to not run for the Office of the President. Much of the initial
opposition to her running was grounded on the position that she should instead seek the Vice
Presidency instead of the Presidency, and she received offers from both sides of the political
spectrum once again, from the Liberal Party and its supporters and the United Nationalist
Alliance. The obvious bets of both sides, former Department of Interior and Local Government
Secretary Mar Roxas for the administration and majority opposition and UNA standard-bearer
Vice President Jejomar Binay, have wooed Grace Poe in an attempt to get her to run as their
Vice Presidents. However, Poe stood adamant and, for one reason or another, chose to remain
steadfast in her pursuit to seek the presidency.
Her decision pitted her against both sides of the political spectrum, and alienated her
from the machinery-rich support structures of both major coalitions. She thereafter decided on
remaining to be an independent candidate for the 2016 Elections, a contentious political move.
Her status as a political independent, and perhaps as an act of retribution from specific
power cliques within the major opposition parties, has left her susceptible to various attacks
based on her inexperience as a public officer and even her citizenship. The latter reason has
caused much stir within the media, with the most ill-intentioned political players and even some
respected figures such as former Senator Kit Tatad backing claims of disqualifying Senator Poe
based on her citizenship. Early on, many politicians, mostly from the UNA Coalition, questioned
the nature of Poe’s citizenship based on her status as a foundling and an adopted daughter of
Filipino parents. Absurd as it was, this gained significant media traction both on television and
online, with major news websites such as Rappler making this a key discussion point in the
weeks of its media relevance. This attack from UNA backfired on them, and caused them to drop
the allegations entirely, mainly due to the fact that it served to be in a way beneficial for Poe in
the sense that it humanized her even more in the eyes of the media and antagonized the attacking
politicians in the eyes of several women and youth groups, though not necessarily gaining points
for Poe.
The general issue, however, did not die down upon the retreat of the attacks from these
politicians. The issues regarding her citizenship evolved into an issue on migrant diaspora, as she
had immigrated to the United States and sought and attained US citizenship, at that point
revoking her Filipino citizenship in favor of her status as an American. This was a relatively
more advanced political attack, targeting nationalistic sentiment, though still soundly politically
immature. However, Poe’s team has yet, as of the writing of this paper, formulated any sound,
logical answers to this talking point.
Poe’s independence and refusal of the offers of both the administration and the UNA
Coalition has led her to be isolated, as we have mentioned, from nation-wide political
machineries that could target and enhance the reach and widen the extent of Poe’s support bases.
This has therefore led her to forge alliances with other independent power bases, such as her
recent forming of strategic partnerships with political families outside the typical scope of the
two major political coalitions. For example, she had chosen Senator Francis “Chiz” Escudero to
be her running mate, thereby gaining ample support from a core few members of the Nationalist
People’s Coalition or NPC as well as Escudero’s regional base of Sorsogon and Greater Bicol.
This was done to offset the demands of independent campaigning, and to compensate for
being outside the LP and UNA machinery. Another such example was when the Poe campaign
partnered with the Villafuerte family of Camarines Sur, a family mired in scandal and commonly
criticized to be exemplary of the dynastic pseudo-familial politics dominant in the countryside.
To summarize all her roadblocks, she is faced with issues regarding citizenship, she is
now currently aligned with a criticized subset of Philippine politics (traditional politicians, who
are touted to perform shabbily in the next elections given the rising anti-dynastic sentiment), and
summarily, she is alienated from the large political structures of the two major opposing parties.
Tatak FPJ 2016?
Grace Poe has already encountered several problems, as we have established in the
previous section. This was not helped by the scattered formulations in her recorded media
responses and press releases, especially now in a time wherein press statements may be easily
taken out of context, as what happened when she issued a statement in response to the Iglesia ni
Cristo (INC) EDSA Rallies.
Given that she now bears a not-so-stellar reputation, very much unlike her 2013
Elections, will Grace Poe Magic still remain unfazed and steadily sufficient to secure her for the
Office of the President of the Philippines?
To answer this question, we must first acknowledge that the circumstances surrounding
her run are very much different. To briefly review, she won and became top senator for the
following reasons: 1) she had a clear and concise benefit statement/value proposition, 2) she ran
a campaign and had a brand packaging consistent with her track record and her value
proposition, and 3) she actively engaged her target segments by releasing campaigns and ad
materials that had significant conversation value and she was able to infiltrate traditional and
online avenues via word of mouth.
Comparing her situation now, however, she no longer has a clear and concise benefit
statement, given that her initial premises of making government closer to the people and of
actively promoting and creating systems that will ensure clean and transparent government are
now at conflict with many of her political moves. She is now venturing in targeting too many
things without having a specific, consolidated agenda, with a benefit statement that is easily
replicable and with not much differentiation as other “progressive” candidates such as Roxas or
Binay. These principles are also inconsistent with her political moves. This includes partnering
with political dynasties in the provinces all in an attempt to compensate her lack of political
machineries. Such moves, though beneficial in a specific segment, drastically lowers the
credibility of her value prop.
And now, though she has made significant entries in conversation points – given her
status as a social media savvy politician that is relevant to the youth – many of the issues that
have been thrown at her have been negative in nature, and thus are not as engaging as her
previous social media talking points that she had in 2013, as most of the posts on her social
networking sites have become answers to questions instead of conversation points, with which
the latter is proven to be effective.
Conclusion
All in all, to be completely successful, Grace Poe must be adamant in keeping the Tatak
FPJ branding and must ally herself with the right people, and avoid situating herself with
established political dynasties that are contradictory to her image as a progressive candidate. She
must maintain this branding and this value proposition to be completely in line with her track
record and her previous experiences. She still, however, does stand a chance, especially if she
builds on her organic community support that she can tap into instead of the dynastic political
units.
To Conclude, Grace Poe must maintain her image and her value proposition, and
essentially follow her solid principled, community-driven political marketing strategy in order
for her to succeed, and in order for her to live up to everything that she promises.
References
Political marketing that sells? (n.d.) Retrieved October 3, 2015, from
http://karendeasis.com/v2/articles/political-marketing-that-sells-and-sizzles/
How campaign ads catapulted Grace Poe (n.d.) Retrieved October 11, 2015, from
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net.
How much did Grace Poe spend on her campaign? (n.d.) Retrieved October 10, 2015, from
http://www.abscbn-news.com
Wenceslao: Poe-Escudero Strategy (n.d.) Retrieved October 10, 2015, from
http://www.sunstar.com.ph