At the Advertising Congress

I expected to experience a grueling long-trip to Subic yesterday, but was surprised to have a pleasant one despite of the fact that the driver was a tad bit reckless and arrogant (he should be taken off the streets!) and we were hailed by the MMDA for swerving (he got off by bribing him with PhP20! - BAD, BAD, BAD!).

Derek Callow, Regional Marketing Manager for SouthEast Asia of Google Inc., delivered a talk about the "Future of Internet" and cited mainly that marketers and advertisers should make sure that their campaigns should take an integrated online and offline approach. To learn more I'm doing a whole day hands-on workshop on December 11 in coordination with the Philippine Trade & Training Center.

Here are some photos from the event -

How to Survive

I remember a speaker say in a convention, "If you're business cannot be found online, then where the hell are you?" Surprisingly, not many local businesses still cannot be found online and that convention I attended was one of the marketing forums that was held about 5 years ago.

I've been in the online advertising industry for more than 5 years and the growth has been tremendously slow. Why? There are many reasons why, but I think the greatest obstacle to its growth is fear. Fear of the unknown and fear of trying things out. Technology after all could sometimes be intimidating.

I always tell those who attend my speaking engagements not to fear anything when it comes to technology. "You can always click on the "undo button" or reboot!" That's what my Kuya told me when he enrolled me in logo programming classes when I was ten years old. And I still follow that principle (why do you think I started blogging? to learn about all these new stuff available online! and it's FREE!).

"It's easy!" I told several marketing bigwigs I had lunch with during the National Marketing Convention when they asked me if I could teach them to blog (I haven't gotten around to organizing that bit for them though). Well, all you basically do is educate yourself (see some tools on the sidebar) and you'll be well on your way to becoming a wholistic marketer (print, radio, TV + web and mobile!).

Find out more by listening to my colleague, Derek Callow, Regional Marketing Manager - Southeast Asia, Google Inc. when he talks about the "Future of Internet" in the 20th Philippine Advertising Congress.

I also have a series of workshops for "Marketing Your Business Online" in partnership with the Philippine Trade Training Center and Yehey.com on the following dates:

November 16, 2007 (Friday)
November 27, 2007 (Tuesday)
December 10 & 11 (Monday & Tuesday)

Those who will attend will get PhP2,500 worth of Google Adwords coupons. For more details please call Jeffrey Gumasing of PTTC.

20th Philippine Advertising Congress

I still remember the first AdCon I attended. It was back in 2003 in Baguio. I'll never forget it coz I won PhP100,000 from the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Swerte? Actually it was the very first raffle I ever won. It was a thrilling experience indeed coz I wasn't really paying attention to the draw since I was having a migraine and fact is, I never really win in these things. So when I saw my number come up in the electronic tambiolo, I showed it to the VP-Sales of the company I was working for that time and she verified that it was my number. She started jumping up and down before I did. LOL.

Well, if you're interested, you can sign-up for the 20th Philippine Advertising Congress online.