AY '06-'07 2nd Sem English10 report final draft

Juan Gabriel L. de Leon

2006-07148

Mrs. Anna F. Sanchez

English 10 MHW

Philippine Culture and Advertisements Interact With Each Other

Advertisements that people see daily in the media use Filipino culture as a means of attracting more supporters and consumers, but rarely do people notice that these advertisements have shaped and are continuously molding their ways of life as Filipinos. Filipino culture is seen through what Justine Yapyuco, a student-writer, calls “cultural symbols” – any object, event, trait or idea that have become part of a certain society’s culture and identity (2, 4).

Yapyuco’s paper on “The Link Between Advertising and Culture” presents some of these evident cultural symbols: common traits like respect for the elderly, close family ties and hospitality; events like the heavily Spanish-influenced fiestas; and, according to Wikipedia, even staple foods like sinigang, adobo, and lechon all have been part of the Filipino tradition, and are being used to promote many products like Mister Donut’s pastries and Knorr’s food additives. Yapyuco noted that “advertising works by relating a product with an idea that we can relate to,” and “the better we can relate to an advertisement the better we understand why we need the product or service being advertised” (1-2; “Philippine Culture”).

All these, of course, are made possible through the popular forms of mass media, especially in billboards, radios, TVs, periodicals and the Internet. A study conducted by the Philippines’ National Statistics Office back in 2001 reported that 1.8 percent of the general population was not exposed to any form of media (“Exposure,” par. 31). Thus one could expect that as time progresses and technology develops, this ratio will decrease significantly and would all the more give “advertisers a sturdy foundation for creating product awareness” (Yapyuco, par. 1).

However, Yapyuco’s paper also suggests another thing: that these ads, in turn, also influence one’s culture. In his own words, he states “one can see advertisements as indirectly being hosts for the spreading of culturally defining trends along with other ideas spread through mass media” (4). Advertisements usually try to tickle the interests of its audience subtly, with the promoters hoping that their audiences would make associations with their personal interests and the product they are showing off, albeit sometimes through desperate means.

A vivid example of this is a BayanTel billboard which, according to its observer, portrayed “a semi-naked woman with a “pleased expression’” coupled with the words “SATISFACTION GUARANTEE,” which gives connotations of sex, yet does not in any way associate with the supposed advertised product, the BayanTel phone service. The woman who commented on the ad even concluded that “sex sells,” therefore its usage in the ad (“Billboard”).

Another example, presented by Yapyuco, is that of “Dove’s campaign for real beauty,” noting beforehand the plethora of beauty ads in shampoo commercials and NLEX billboards, which show white and beautifully curved women models as having the ideal, desirable and perfect bodies. Dove, with their lines of “extra sexy or extra large,” conveyed the message that beauty is “a relative thing,” attacking the Filipino’s modern notion of beauty as the formerly stated (4).
Josefina M. C. Santos, a media and culture analyst, suggests that the Filipino’s overly open attitude towards advertisements is due to an increasing trend towards globalization, saying that this “so-called increasing interdependence of societies and flows in capital, products, people and ideas across national borders has accentuated a global view of societies” (par. 2).

List of Works Cited

“Culture of the Philippines.” Wikipedia. 9 Feb. 2007. GNU Free Documentation License. 11 Feb. 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_Culture>.
“Exposure of Population to Mass Media.” National Statistics Office. 8 Mar. 2001. 4 Feb. 2007 <http://www.census.gov.ph/data/sectordata/fl94-expmmedia.html>.
Lardizabal-Dado, Noemi. “Bayantel Ad/Billboard: Sex in Advertising?” Touched by an Angel. 8 July 2006. 11 Feb. 2007 <http://aboutmyrecovery.com/2006/06/06/sex-in-advertising/>.
Santos, Josefina M. C. “Globalisation and tradition: Paradoxes in Philippine television and culture.” World Association for Christian Communication. 15 Feb. 2007 <http://www.wacc.org.uk/wacc/publications/media_development/archive/2001_3/globalisation_and_tradition_paradoxes_in_philippine_television_and_culture>.
Yapyuco, Justine T. “The Link Between Advertising and Culture.” Unpublished. Requirement for English 10: 2nd Semester AY 2006-2007.