At the dawn of every administration surfaces a new tourism campaign to showcase the Philippines. The Department of Tourism, along with its partner ad agency, come up with the slogan, logo, adverts, and what-have-you to make the country more appealing despite the looming threats of rebellion and drug wars.
This year’s “Experience the Philippines” campaign featured a blind Japanese retiree that experienced the Philippines. The film, titled Sights, was touching enough but bore a striking resemblance to last year’s South African tourism campaign which also revealed a blind man at the conclusion.
And with that, McCann, the ad agency responsible for the campaign, stressed that that there was no intention to plagiarize anyone’s work. Here’s their full response:
And with that, a slew of netizens’ reactions:
Despite the negative feedback, the DOT and McCann are set to release a series of commercials in the following weeks.
Read more:
Look at other tourism campaigns DOT allegedly copies over the years
