There's been an unusual story developing this week in the Philippines relating to their marketing strategies for hospitality and tourism.
While it's a given that the pictures in a tourism marketing video should come from the country that is being promoted, that wasn't the case with the Philippines Tourism Ministry's new tourism campaign called “Love the Philippines.”
Some of the pictures in the campaign showed places in Indonesia, Brazil, United Arab Emirates and even Switzerland.
A Philippine blogger named Sass Rogando Sasot first flagged the issue and Agence France Presse then confirmed all of the other locations.
The Ministry immediately blamed the advertising agency involved: DDB Philippines.
On Sunday, the agency said it used “foreign stock footage” and called the action “an unfortunate oversight on our agency's part.”
By Monday, the Tourism Ministry fired the agency and is re-starting its re-branding campaign, a venture that officials originally said would cost nearly a million U.S. dollars.
