A Case Study on Advocacy Advertising as Practiced in J. Walter Thompson Philippines

Abstract

This study attempted to determine how J. Walter Thompson (JWT) Philippines conceptualize and practice Advocacy Advertising. Garbett defined advocacy advertising as “any kind of paid public communication or message from an identified source and in a conventional medium of public advertising which presents information or a point of view bearing a publicly recognized controversial issue.” The main objective of this study was to define the concept advocacy advertising by identifying its elements, dimensions, and boundaries. And to be able to describe the practice of advocacy advertising in JWT by determining how advocacy ads are conceptualized and how they are actually produced. The design employed in this study was the one-shot design. It is a non-experimental design used in discerning the degree of applicability of the concept advocacy advertising in the organization. It is believed that since the study is conceptual in nature, a discussion of the topic without the use of numerical representation would be beneficial. The sampling procedure used was the Snowball sampling. This is a multistage technique, beginning with one or few people and spread out on the basis of links to the initial respondent. Data primarily came from the members of the Creative Department of JWT Philippines practicing advocacy advertising known through referral. A total of five members were asked questions regarding the subject matter; the VP for Creative (Also the Executive Creative Director), one Creative Director, one Associate Creative Director, and two Art Directors. The instrument used was the interview schedule. The first part concerned demographics and the second made up the sum and substance of the interview where 13 open-ended questions about advocacy advertising were asked to enable the interviewee to elaborate on their answers. The data were arranged in categories based on the sub-problems. Advocacy advertising in JWT was basically divided into six dimensions namely; Social, Creative, Image Building, Emotional, Prestige and Monetary, and Cathartic. These clusters were provided to categorize the elements of advocacy advertising that the respondents gave. The Creative Department was divided into teams that are tasked to get insights, formulate ideas and to create artworks out of the generated ideas, which is called the Creative Process. Next was the Internal Approval Stage, where the Creative and Art Directors present their artwork to the VP for Creative for approval. Also in this stage was the External Approval Stage where the Creative Department presents the ads to their clients for approval. And when the ads were approved, a full-blown ad will be produced. The study found that advocacy advertising #y JWT means initiatives or appeals that usually deal with social issues that are relevant to people and their concerns. There are several elements of advocacy advertising that were divided into six clusters to be able to categorize them. In JWT, there were three factors that serve as boundaries or limitations to their practice of advocacy advertising, they are religion, politics, and trends in advocacy advertising. The study also found that the actual advocacy advertising process include three stages; they are the Creative Process, the Internal and External Approval Stage, and a Full-blown Ad Production. Advocacy advertising though a foreign concept was very adaptive to the present situation in the Philippines. In JWT's Creative Department very few art and creative directors know about the textbook definition of advocacy advertising but still able to practice it. In JWT, the meaning of advocacy advertising has evolved into a more complex form. Nowadays it is equated with another concept, which is public service advertising. Public service advertising is mainly concerned with public welfare and interest. The following recommendations are given to JWT for their future used of advocacy advertising. First, is for them to try using advocacy advertising independently from public service advertising. Another suggestion is for JWT to try to allocate a budget that will be enough to bring outstanding advocacy campaigns to television for wider coverage. And for future researchers, a combination of qualitative and quantitative research design is suggested to bring this study to higher level of analysis. Furthermore, future researchers are challenged to make a comparative study of the nature and practices of advocacy advertising between two major advertising firms. Future researchers are also suggested to make a content analysis of the message content of advocacy ads done in the Philippines. The challenge here is whether the researcher will be able to categorize the topics accordingly.