The 'unsung marketing heroes' behind popular lifestyle brands

MANILA, Philippines - Prestigious foreign brands from highly-industrialized countries have made it to the local households to become a part of the Filipino lifestyle.

These are practically seen and used everyday to everybody’s satisfaction, but hardly anyone cares to ask how such brands ever get here from across the ocean and become well-known and trusted enough to get into the Filipino homes. This can be considered as nothing less than a gigantic marketing effort of epic proportions.

This puzzle becomes even more intriguing when one realizes that the entire feat of making these brands popular is the work of a fully-owned Filipino firm that has transcended from a mere distributor to a full-fledged marketer, bringing foreign brands into one’s home and all the way to his personal life with all the trust, confidence and loyalty that it entails.

These brands are the likes of the US brand Coleman line of jugs and coolers that Filipinos fill up with cold water or food to take outside their homes. These go well with Coleman’s line of camping equipment whose popularity is, of course, not limited to the boy scouts and adventure seekers in the great outdoors.

And even without leaving the home, the US brand of Oster small kitchen and home appliances led by the unassuming Osterizer is a relief to see when one needs to make a fruit shake or blend a masterpiece culinary or beverage concoction.

Such high-quality home products can go deeper from the kitchen into the bathroom where the Silverdot brand of weighing scales and body fat analyzers are often used in quiet privacy.

With all the intimate relationships that Filipinos develop with those brands, the local company that made them well-known seems to be missing from the big picture.

Such is the case of fully-Filipino-owned Focus Global, Inc., whose marketing heroics is completely overshadowed by the popularity of the brands that it successfully promotes, including Coleman, and Oster, which have become widely-accepted on the local market for 20 years now since the company’s inception in 1991. Focus Global Inc. also started the company-owned Silverdot brand of weighing scales and body fat analyzers. 

It was then that those three brands were further introduced to the Philippine market by Focus Global Inc. through the Corporate Giveaways Expo, the country’s longest running annual trade show of its kind.

Now on its 24^th year and slated at the A Venue Hall of Antel Lifestyle City, Makati Avenue, Makati City on July 6-8, Corporate Giveaways Expo is the country’s premier buyers’ show on business gifts, premiums, promotional ideas and merchandise incentives.

More information on Corporate Giveaways can be obtained from event organizer World Expos and Concepts Inc. (tel. 8558341 to 44, email [email protected], or visit www.corporategiveawaysbuyershow.com).