PMO will re-activate itself in the coming two weeks and will once again survey the Philippine advertising and marketing landscape and bring all the action to you.

Until then, cheers!

- Ram

In its demise will rise TV5 which will sport a new look and will target the under-served 30 and below audience with new shows that will be a mix of reality, drama, variety, teens, cartoons and movies aimed at progressive Filipinos “who are open to change and are willing to try new things and experiences.”

TV5 is a result of a major blocktime agreement between Associated Broadcast Company headed by Antonio Cojuangco and MPB Primedia, Inc., the latter backed by Media Prima Berhad of Malaysia.

Commenting on the agreement, TV5 CEO Christopher Sy said:

“We realize that our target market is an active segment that may not have the time to try to follow something on a daily basis. As such, our schedule is based more on ‘appointment’ television with provisions for catch-up TV, allowing people the flexibility to watch our programs when it’s convenient for them.”

TV5 is hoping to attract a sizeable audience with its alternative offering and hopes to provide its youthful viewers with relevant shows.

The move by the pharma company was made to consolidate its consumer health care business under one agency and Boehringer Ingelheim decided that Euro RSCG was the agency to go with.

Euro RSCG Managing Director Norman Agatep believes that Boehringer Ingelheim chose his agency largely because of the strength of Euro RSCG’s strategic thinking, its creative execution, dedicated servicing and campaign results.

The German pharma recently moved its creative account for Pharmaton and Buscopan to Euro RSCG which was formerly handled by Ogivly & Mather and Leo Burnett, respectively. In 2007, it transferred from Ace Saatchi & Saatchi the Bisolvon and Dulcolax accounts to the Havas agency.

However, Boehringer Ingelheim awarded its US$4 million media account to Vizeum/Media Force, an Aegis Media company.

Petron, one of the country’s top three oil companies, has awarded its media AOR worth about US$10 million to Starcom Mediavest.

Other bidders for the account included Carat, OMD and Universal McCann.

Petron’s current media arm is Ace Saatchi & Saatchi who also handles Petron’s creative in conjunction with Leo Burnett and Lowe. There are talks however that Ace Saatchi & Saatchi might lose the Petron creative account as well.

Petron Advertising and Promotions Director Charmaine Canillas said:

“We chose Starcom because of greater efficiencies and practicality of its tools which led to an insightful strategy appropriate for our industry.”

Petron is one of the Philippines’ top 20 advertisers.

Prior to Tribal DDB, Lucas was part of DraftFCB Philippines where he was Client Services Director and New Business Director handling such accounts as Smart Philippines, San Miguel Mills, and Hope Cigarette.

Prior to DraftFCB, Lucas had stints with Batey Ads Philippines and Image Dimensions.

Jollibee Foods Corp. announced today that it has acquired 12% equity interest in Chow Fun Holdings LLC, a US-based restaurant operator, for the sum pof $950,000.

Chow Fun runs and manages Jinja Bar and Bistro, an Asian restaurant that has two outlets in New Mexico.

In a statement released, Jollibee explained that the objective for acquiring a stake in Chow Fun is in line with the company’s thrust to “enhance its capability in developing Asian food restaurant concepts for the mainstream consumers in the United States as part of its long-term strategy.”

Last month, the Philippine food giant also acquired a 70% stake in Taiwanese food business, Lao Dong, worth about US$1.4 million.

In the Philippines, Jollibee’s burgers and chicken regularly outperform global fast food giants McDonald’s and KFC.

BBDO Guerrero announced that Brandie Tan and Tin Sanchez have been welcomed back to the agency and have been appointed as Head of Art and Head of Copy respectively. The duo will report directly to the agency’s joint ECDs Simon Welsh and Joel Limchoc.

Tan came to BBDO in 2000 while Sanchez joined the agency in 2003 where they quickly impressed their bosses and their clients with their creative outputs, becoming partners in crime in terms of creative results. The two moved to JWT Manila in 2005 as Creative Directors where they furthered their creative success winning for the country its first ever Cannes Gold Lion last year. 2007 also saw the couple move to Lowe vietnam as joint ECDs.

Tan will take up the mantle of Head of Art once current head Joni Caparas relocates to Europe while Sanchez will take over the post vacated by Welsh when the former was promoted to joint ECD in May this year.

Before the movie, we had to first empty our bladders and I was amazingly surprised to find out that portion of the CR’s mirror was vandalized by what appeared to be red ink writing a message “Why so serious?”.

Of course, those who’ve been hit by online campaign for the latest movie installment of Batman knows that the line is muttered by Batman arch-nemesis the Joker (played by the late Heath Ledger) but so as not to create panic by unsuspecting people, below the message they pasted the Batman logo which was imprinted with “Dark Knight”.

My wife confirmed that there was a similar “message” inside the ladies CR.

Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to catch a snapshot. But good effort to the promoters of the flick as they made the movie “interactive”.

And it was a helluva good movie too!

Bonifacio Global City is currently being positioned as the Philippines’ next premier business destination thanks to its current infrastructure of corporate offices, high-rise and low-rise condo units, entertainment and recreational facilities, and commercial establishments.

AHA! is envisioned to be a community magazine to be distributed to people working and living in BGC.

Crush Philippines will be in charge of developing the magazine from concepts, stories, up to production with the aim of developing a readership in the BGC community.

“The energy of the development speaks of a true passion — of builders, management, residents and visitors,” said Crush Managing Director Marco Nieto. “Crush Philippines is latching on to this idea of passion for the new direction that it is taking Bonifacio Global City’s publication in.”

While FaceBook and MySpace, the most popular social networking sites in the Western hemisphere, are encountering challenges in terms of revenues, it looks like the two sites’ Chinese counterpart has reaped in the rewards.

China-based QQ reported an income of US$523 million, four times the reported revenue of FaceBook at US$150 million according to +8*. The popular social network site also absorbs a US$50 million loss while QQ netted an operating profit of US$224 million.

A massive chunk of QQ’s revenue last year came from virtual goods and games and 21% came from mobile services. This leaves about only 13% of the revenue coming from online ads which still comes as a hefty US$67 million.

QQ, which boasts about 300 million users (although many users have multiple accounts) has been dubbed the largest social networking, instant messaging and gaming platform in China.