UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES - DILIMAN

The Filipino Family as

represented in TV Ads
Scrutinizing television advertisement and
negotiation of its viewers

SUBMITTED BY:
Jessica J. Manipon
2007-20959
IV BS Economics

SUBMITTED TO:
Prof. Cleonicki Saroca
Sociology 113
17 March 2011
 With the presence of technology nowadays, the presence of media has never

been felt more strongly than in the present. Yet regardless of technology and time,

media has always been a reflection of society and therefore a vessel of all kinds of

representation of society. Advertisement, on the other hand, is a form of media that is

immensely popular yet taken for granted since they are very common, especially in

Filipino society. The image of the family is inevitably included in advertisements.

These images, however, represent a Filipino family that needs to be evaluated

especially in the perspective of a viewer of these advertisements. This paper examines

advertisements—specifically television advertisements—and how they represent the

Filipino family, without overlooking the active role of Filipino viewers. First, we look

at advertisements and how their primary role plays into its representation of society.

Second, we take on the role of the viewers and how we negotiate with the images and

representations of the Filipino family depicted by these television advertisements.

Let me start with why advertising was chosen for this paper out of all media

forms. For one, advertising has a unique function and that is to sell a product or

service. No other media forms have this primary role. The primary role of movies and

television shows, for example, is to entertain. According to Bovee, advertising “is the

nonpersonal communication of information usually paid for and usually persuasive

in nature about products, services or ideas by identified sponsors through the various

media” (1992, p.7). From the definition itself (which, I believe, is already self-

explanatory), the implications are that advertising is prevalent because it is low-cost

yet effective. Advertising is most definitely not separate to media when it is referred to

as a “state apparatus”, as Marx would argue, perpetuating the Marxist notion of “base

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and superstructure”. Indeed, without capitalism, advertising would not be as aggressive

or as rampant or would not even function the way it does now.

Advertising serves to create or increase the demand for their product, thus,

implicating what the consumers lack in their lives. For example, a whitening cream

would not be profitable if advertisements cannot create an impression to the public that

having a fair skin will make you feel better about yourself. To effectively sell a

product or service, television advertisements use endorsers, models and characters to

create a desire for the product they are selling. But a model alone cannot be enough; it

has to have an image to control how the audience perceives it. Stuart Hall would put

this as advertisements trying “to construct a position of knowledge or identification for

the viewer in relation to what has been depicted in the image” (INSERT YEAR).

While it is very important for the audience to identify themselves with the

image in an advertisement, it is important to remember that these ads need to sell their

product. Again, another example is a television advertisement for a house. If the

advertising agency were to use an unhappy and broken family shown to live in that

house, consumers do not like seeing that and therefore will not buy the house,

regardless if some consumers could identify and relate themselves to the image. That is

because this does not create a demand or desire for the product (which in this case is

the house). Who wants a broken family? But if there is a happy and bonded family

shown living in that house, then the audience is more likely to be drawn to that

advertisement.

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 A note-worthy characteristic of some advertisements lies in the product being

advertised itself. If the product has a greater competition in the market and has less

innovative features, the more it is likely to use the tactic of “identification” (indicated

in the paragraph before). Case in point is a laundry detergent versus a toothbrush.

There are varieties of laundry detergents and most of the time their features and

function are not so different from each other. So most likely, their advertisements use

Filipina mothers as endorsers (eg. Tide, Surf). On the other hand, if a toothbrush has

high-tech bristle design or an improved handle, their advertisements no longer needs a

famous artist as endorser since it can rely on its features to attract consumers (eg.

Colgate toothbrush).

Advertisements further reinforce through images when consumers become part

of market research statistic. It is imperative for companies to research about their

market to know the classification of consumers that use or don’t use their products.

This research is passed onto advertising agencies and these agencies use these data so

their commercials appeal to the market. This commercial, in turn, will be seen by the

audience and consumers, perhaps invoking them to buy the product. When these

consumers do buy the product, they become part of the statistic of the market

researchers, thus, completing the “cycle”.

Note that even up to this point of the paper, the viewers or the consumers have

been underestimated. The perspective that has been tackled so far is incomplete as the

most important factor in the representation of the family has not yet been emphasized.

The viewers or the consumers play a vital role on how these images are interpreted.

This paper will not do the same as other analysts that

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 tend to deny the role of the analyst (or any other reader) and of the
analyst's sociohistorical position when identifying "the" meaning of the text.
They tend to conceive of the text as static rather than dynamic, to reify
their own analytic categories as features of the text, to underestimate the
role of contexts both of production and reading, seeking instead context-
free universals in meaning.
(Livingstone as quoted in Currie, 1997, p.460)

Advertisements do not determine people’s behavior and practices. Consumers are

active participants in negotiating with what they see. They negotiate the images with

their own opinions and perceptions. Although the viewers’ negotiations are not

completely free of the hegemonic ideologies. Currie argues that “while these texts do

not ‘determine’ [people’s] practices, as a social discourse they mediate practices of

[family] among both [viewers] and [nonviewers]” (Currie, 1997, p. 460).

Advertisements or the media feeds on the daily perceptions and expectations of the

family to communicate with the audience. At the same time, the audience, with daily

perceptions and expectations in their own families, negotiate with the commercials.

Connecting this on the role of advertisements to sell a product or service, Carrie says

that,

the ways in which [individuals] read and talk about fashion magazines [or
in this case, television advertisements], for example, cannot be understood
in isolation from the production of commercial texts as the context of the
everyday practices of being [a family]. In our society this coordination
occurs through discourses that join women's individual practices to
multinational interests in the consumption of fashion and beauty products.
(1997, p. 461)

Thus, our individual’s interpretation of these commercials, however free we are to

make them, is still molded by the everyday perception of the family in society.

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 In order to show how advertisement reinforces norms and hegemonic ideologies,

I evaluated three television advertisements, constructing my own negotiations of these

commercials and considering myself as a valid consumer. The commercials I used

were broadly showed nationwide, produced and filmed by Filipinos and depicted

images of the Filipino family. I chose only three because of the limited time allotted

for the presentation. Each commercial was chosen for the variety of the images of the

family and of my own interpretations of them.

First commercial evaluated was the Ponds Age Miracle commercial entitled

“Car”1. Basically, the commercial tells that if consumers use their product, our male

partners and/or husbands will treat or perhaps love us better. My personal negotiation

is that this commercial is very upper to middle class and tells us that to be treated better

by our male partners, one only needs to be beautiful. Women go through more than just

applying cream to look “beautiful” and be treated better by their male partners. One

has to exercise, eat right and even become agreeable to their partners. Finally, this

commercial echoes the patriarchal domination in the Philippines, particularly the

notion that wives should please their husbands and be beautiful to achieve this.

The second commercial is Coca-cola with the concept “Buhay Coke Buksan

Mo”2. The commercial tells the viewers that drinking Coke brings the family together

and makes the family happy. A personal negotiation tells me that the family image

again belongs to upper to middle class. The image of the happy and complete family

can be unrealistic for many Filipino families that experience domestic violence and

1
Uploaded on YouTube July 11, 2007. To read the description of the commercial, see Appendix.
2
Uploaded on YouTube October 17, 2008. To read the description of the commercial, see Appendix.

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broken families. This is depicted to create a desire for the situation and the product.

The mother bringing home the Coke reinforces her hegemonic role as in-charge of

ensuring the family’s solidarity and unity.

Finally, the theme of the Argentina Corned Beef commercial entitled “Padala”

was an OFW family3. It portrays the message that Argentina Corned Beef will take

care of your family even if you are away. Clearly, the advertisement tries to identify

with the OFW family market which is a very large portion of the market. In negotiation

with this commercial, I personally thought that not in all times are the children fine or

content with their parents working abroad, unlike the boy in the commercial. The

commercial would have made a different impact if the overseas worker of the family is

a father because being a mother entails responsibilities and expectations for her to take

care and support her children even if she is away. Parreñas argues that “women are

expected to nurture the emotional well-being of people at home and at work” (2001,

p.364). In the face of geographical separation, this task becomes even harder for a

mother although the expectations do not lessen.

All three commercials show heteronormative relationships in families.

On a final note, it is not as if advertisements perpetuate hegemonic ideologies

consciously. When these advertisements are prepared, in general, advertisers do not

think of reinforcing patriarchy or stereotyping families or such. What they do think of

is selling the product. What we have to remember is that the norms and expectations of

families are so strong and “common” in our everyday activities that it perpetuates on

its own in media. However, more importantly, the viewers are not passive in all these.
3
Uploaded on YouTube August 12, 2008. To read the description of the commercial, see Appendix.

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We constantly bargain with the images we see with our own interpretations even if

these bargains are still bounded by structures. There are progressive movements in

media to break away from the hegemony and are starting to gain attention. In the case

of television commercials and advertisements, it would be more difficult to veer away

of what it already does presently. It could adapt though to whatever existing market

there is. But as long as the primary function to sell a product is there, controlled

meanings and identity calls will still be prevalent in advertisements, and the audience

will also still be constantly negotiating with what they perceive.

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References
Bovee, C. L. (1992). Marketing. Mcgraw-Hill Professional.

Currie, D. H. (1997). Decoding Femininity: Advertisements and Their Teenage

Readers. Gender & Society , 460-461.

Hall, S. (1997). Representation & the media. (p. 16). Media Education Foundation.

Parreñas, R. S. (2001). Mothering from a Distance: Emotions, Gender, and

Intergenerational Relations in Filipino. Feminist Studies , 364.

YouTube - Argentina Corned Beef - Padala. (2008, August 12). Retrieved March 8,
2011, from Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usk1MFSYiwY

YouTube - Buhay Coke, Buksan Mo. (2008, October 17). Retrieved March 8, 2011,
from YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UzrNWzQNLQ&feature=related

YouTube - Pond's Age Miracle "Car". (2007, July 11). Retrieved March 8, 2011, from
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boF3ADSodTI

Appendix
Pond’s Age Miracle – “Car”

Length: 0:30

The commercial starts with text on screen saying “7 days ago”. A car drives by

in a city setting. Then a close-up front view of the car is shown with a male on the

driver’s seat wearing a suit and woman on the passenger seat smiling. The woman goes

out of the car and she is seen wearing office attire.

Another text on screen is shown saying “7 days after”. The first few frames are

the same as the previous one, however, instead of the woman going out of the car. The

man goes out first to open the door for the woman. Woman gets an extreme close-up

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shot to show she is surprised by the gesture. As she gets out of the car, the man kisses

her on the cheek, and again the woman is seen surprised.

A female voiceover says, “Miracles can happen in seven days.” And the screen

fades into Pond’s Age Miracle bottles, and the voiceover continues to describe the

effects of the product which “visibly reduces age spots and wrinkles in just 7 days.”

Coca-cola – “Buhay Coke, Buksan Mo”

Length: 0:33

The commercial starts with a woman entering a house with arms full of

grocery. The camera pans the inside of the house showing a well-lit and stylishly

furnished room with a man wearing corporate attire on the sofa reading the newspaper

and a teenage girl on the other side of the sofa using her cellphone. Then the camera

does a close-up of a teenage boy talking on a cordless phone. He ignores his mother as

she enters the house.

The woman, now evidently is the mother, opens a bottle of Coke which lets out

a swishing sound. It catches the attention of the children in the family, and in this shot

we see a young boy also running towards the dining table along with the others.

An extreme close-up of a glass of Coke is shown while in the background, the

male—evidently the father—gleefully talks to his son. Another similar shot is next,

although this time, the mother and teenage daughter joyfully converse with each other.

This goes on until the screen fades into a text saying, “’Pag sa kainan sabay-sabay,

sama-sama habang buhay.” The family is then seen eating together happily around the

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dining table. The mother gets a close-up shot and is seen happy and satisfied while

looking at her family. Finally, a logo of Coke and the tagline finishes the commercial.

Argentina Corned Beef – “Padala”

Length: 0:33

A woman is seen sitting in the office pantry at night reading a letter. A

melodramatic piano music plays in the background. A voiceover of a young boy starts

with “Dear ‘Nay, salamat sa padala.” The woman gets a close-up and is seen smiling.

The voiceover continues, “Alam niyo, hanggang dibdib na ako ni Itay”. The screen

fades into a kid in the kitchen helping out with household chores, then fades back to

the woman reading the letter. The kid says his sister winning a math contest, and the

screen fades back to the situation in the house in which we see a clean and nicely

furnished kitchen with a male—the father image—a kid and an adolescent girl setting

up the table for breakfast.

A male voiceover ensues describing the product and its mineral content, and the

product is seen. Then it goes back to the kids eating breakfast. Images of the mom

reading and the kids in the house alternate on the screen. “Miss na kita ‘Nay,” the kid

continues. “Pero kahit asa London ka, parang nandito ka pa rin.” Finally, the screen

goes to an extreme close-up of the female—now established as the mother image

working abroad. She looks straight in the camera and smiles while the kid finishes his

voiceover with “Ang sarap mo kasing mag-alaga”. Then the product accompanies the

smiling face of the female on the last frame.

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