Business and Society
By BERNARDO M. VILLEGAS
August 2, 2009, 3:40pm
Without being blind to the pernicious way some businesses are using billboards to sell their products by exploiting the human body, especially of women, I would like to look at the brighter side of many positive messages being conveyed through billboards to millions of passengers along the main roads. I am referring to a healthy tendency of consumer firms to incorporate the nurturing of virtues and values into their advertising messages. Especially noticeable is the frequent emphasis on a united and happy family in a good number of advertising messages. Especially after having lived in a European country where family values are deteriorating rapidly through widespread divorce, live-in partnerships, abortions, and same-sex marriages, I am glad that the advertising and marketing professions in the Philippines are helping to focus on the value of the family as the solid foundation of society.
Especially worthy of mention are the focus of the Bank of Philippine Islands on the families of Overseas Filipino Workers, addressing the needs especially of the children who have been left behind by their parents; family-oriented messages of Nestle Philippines in its marketing of Cerelac; the family bonding theme of Coca-cola; the Botelya story of Johnson's Baby Oil; the Kainang Pamilya Mahalaga of Lucky Me; the focus on Dad by Unilever's Selecta Ice Cream; saving-the-Filipino family of Alveo-Verdana Homes; and the family-oriented savings campaigns of Prudential Life and Philippine Savings Bank. These companies are doing a great service to Philippine society by incorporating family-oriented values in their integrated marketing communication programs. May other enterprises follow their example.
Another cause for celebration is the recent decision of 20 operators of outdoor signages featuring "indecent" images to voluntarily dismantle their billboards in Metro Manila, following warning from the Department of Public Works and Highways. In a recent statement of DPWH assistant regional director for Metro Manila Armando Estrella, it was reported that operators of outdoor advertisements apparently "realized that many people were against indecent and immoral billboards. They were conscience-stricken and feared that the backlash in public opinion would affect the products they are endorsing." After DPWH Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. ordered a crackdown on illegal, unsafe, and "sexy" billboards, Estrella said that his office has been receiving complaints from concerned individuals, including parents. Some even called for a boycott of products which employed provocative images on its outdoor displays. Some 37 outdoor ads with images of models and celebrities in skimpy outfits were taken down either voluntarily by their operators or by members of DPWH's Oplan Baklas Billboards.
This happening reminds me of a recent article that appeared in the website www.mercatornet.com entitled Billboard Blight by an Australian educator, Bernard Toutounji. Criticizing a rancid advertising campaign in Sydney, he said:
"The biggest problem with these ads is not their crudeness; it is their utilitarian view of the human person and human sexuality. When we live with a utilitarian mindset, the human person becomes another object for our use or abuse. We see the classical examples of this throughout history in slavery, Nazism and abortion, but each one of us must be on constant alert for it in our own lives, especially in regard to exuality. Karol Wojtyla noted in his book Love and Responsibility that there are more opportunities within the sexual relationship than in most other situations of treating a person as an object of use sometimes without even realizing it." Billboards using practically naked human bodies to sell products are no better than the Nazis.
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For comments, my email address is bvillegas@uap.edu.ph.
