PTiongson, Version 1995

I have a new team. And on the day I met them, they seemed to be one hell of a great team.

They all are younger than me - perhaps in their early to mid 20s.

They probably were still in their diapers when I was already marching towards the stage to get my high school diploma.

And before they hear it from other sources - ex-colleagues, ex-bosses, former business partners - let me clarify now a few things that was me back then in 1995 when I was a freshie in the world of media planning and buying.

1. I was fashion-challenged back then.

I once showed up in a presentation (my first presentation) to a client, McDonald's, in a blue long-sleeved barong. The boss demanded that I come in 'corporate attire' - and the big boss back then, was always in barong. So I guess, I should don a barong to the meeting.

Of course, I had a beating from my bosses back then. Barongs - specifically, blue barons - were the de facto uniforms of male bank tellers and executives - and eventually, it evolved to be the de facto uniform of bodyguards and security guards.

These days, I might still be fashion-challenged.

I really don't know.

2. On my first day at work, I didn't know how to work the fax machines, the photocopier, and the phones.

I had to ask my bosses how to send through a stack of broadcast orders to the leading TV stations and get them to show me how to do it. Back then, we had to dial the number, wait for someone to pick up, and say "fax tone, please" - before pressing the green button. And we had to wait for the confirmation slip and call the recipient to make sure that it's been received.

I also didn't know how to use the photocopying machine. My excuse was, well, in the library of the Ateneo, there were the "Xerox-girls" who would gladly "Xerox" copies of notes of missed classes and lectures and of chapters of Chemistry, Psychology, and Anatomy books that I refused to take home.

I also had to learn the hard way that in order to call IDD - say, the office in Singapore - I had to go through the operator, who was back then this nice lady but always very busy. (Imagine, she's doing this for everyone in the office!)

3. I was a Quattro-kid.

I was an Excel and Win32 kid in the university. I also wrote SPSS scripts and ran SPSS without a glitch in college for my thesis. But in the office of the ad company called Basic Advertising, we used Quattro. So I had to dump all the things I knew about Excel and Win32 to learn Quattro (which used "@" instead of "=" to start a formula).

And oh, we had "hard copies" of broadcast, telecast, and print orders. And we had dot-matrix printers. In order for us to create readable copies of these orders, we had to follow strict templates on Quattro to make sure that the things that we want aired are legibly printed on the printed templates. We had to be really careful with feeding in the order-forms.

These days, though, I can write Excel VBA subs and functions. I can also write simple C++ programs and use cryptic programs on CRAN-R, a stat program.

4. There were two systems in the Philippines for monitoring TV ads and for monitoring ratings. And we had to manually reconcile the two for our post-buys. I hated it. To the max. But it taught me patience.

To determine the actual rating of a TVC as it was aired, we had to run PMS - the Philippine Monitoring Service - and print the spots all out using, yes, the dot-matrix printer on computer paper. Sometimes, it takes overnight to print those - so I'd set the PC to do the runs then let it print out overnight. The worst case scenario - and it always happened back then - was paper-jams. We'd curse and curse - but then we'd do it all over again.

We then took those printout neatly folded - and entered each spot (its actual airing time, its channel, its program...) one by one into another system called Telescope so we could run the actual performance of those spots.

5. I traded, begged, fought for "hot properties" with others in the office.

Since I was handling a relatively big account, we had "hot properties" - that is, we had priority over smaller accounts on key programs on primetime TV. We got these hot properties by jumping in early - say, two weeks post the New Year - and start running our campaigns on these hot properties.

It was an unspoken rule to maintain your presence in those hot properties throughout the year - otherwise, another brand might just get my 'slot'.

So to maintain my "hot properties", I traded it with other teams. I would holler "I have a spot on <Home Along Da Riles> - anybody wants it?" or "I am on a two week hiatus - I need fillers of my hot properties". Because these were hot programs with high-ratings (and low CPRPs), I always had someone to fill them in.

Once in a while, though, some planners would conveniently 'forget' that I was lending them only 2 slots but would plan for 4 spots. That's when quarrels break out. I sometimes would give in - but since my responsibility is to the client, I would stand my ground.

My account also didn't have all the 'hot properties' covered. There were some that we passed on early in the year. But during launches, when we needed more GRPs or needed to do multiple spots in one break, I would beg, cajole, grovel for hot properties so I would meet my goals.

6. Whenever I had a full-color/centerspread booking on Manila Bulletin or Philippine Daily Inquirer, I didn't sleep well.

These press units were the most expensive press real estate. With my meager salary, it would have taken me 24 months to pay for just one misprinted or misimplemented full-colour centerspread.

So whenever I had a booking for a full-color centerspread, I would stay up late in the office, hanging out by the print-prod people, and sometimes, would trudge down to the newspaper printers myself to deliver the films and see for myself an initial run of the papers. My bosses never knew this - but my peers did. Because we all did the same.

7. I had lots of sabits (mishaps) because I was the epitome of order - or the absence thereof.

My table could only be described as Chaos. Not even organized chaos. Just plain Chaos. With a capital C.

And that's why I'd lose some media plans or booking orders.

I have since learned to develop a system - I learned it all in Vietnam with the help of my boss (who was doubly more chaotic than me) and the client services director (who was super neat and organized).

8. I have a weird accent.

My ex-bosses think it's the Ateneo ("Arrneoe") accent. I think it was because I was a promdi.

I still have a weird accent - which a linguist friend thinks is an amalgam of Filipino, American, and Singaporean-British accents. Which is weird.

My nieces and my nephews still laugh at my Tagalog - and my mom still thinks I should avoid by all means necessary speaking Ilocano.

I blame it all on my penchant for learning a little bit of different languages - but never mastering them. In college, it was Chinese Mandarin (required course, you see), French, and Italian. In Vietnam, Vietnamese (which I failed miserably). In Singapore, Chinese and Spanish.

I still do have a weird accent.

And it's definitely fake - in that it's not my 'real' accent. But unintentionally fake.

9. I love my clients' brands.
(Or at least, I try my best to learn to love my brands.)

When I was handling McDonald's, I only ate at McDonald's. When I was managing Star City, I didn't want to go to Star City - until I was reprimanded by the boss. When I was managing Pepsi, no Coke for me. When I was handling MasterCard, just pure, plain MasterCard for me and nothing else. When I was asked to fill in for Pond's for a bit, I switched to Pond's.

(I kinda drew the line for sanitary napkins for obvious reasons.)

Why? Because I was working my a** off on these brands. And if I didn't believed in them, all my work would have been in vain. Using a competitor's was - and is - to me anathema and heretical.

10. I love numbers - but I love more the stories that are hidden by these numbers.

I tried my first regression analysis on my first year in media planning for my first client. I was mentored and egged on by a professor at the AIM to pursue it. My bosses thought it was 'splitting hairs' and perhaps unnecessary since "sales cannot be explained solely by advertising efforts" - but appreciated it (I think).

In Ogilvy's Network, I tried to 'numerate' (quantify?) the 'quality' of programs that we were buying through several metrics - time-spent, standard deviation of minute-by-minute ratings, composition/overrepresentation of the targets.... And presented it to the client as an alternative to "GRP/OTS-based" buying.

In Vietnam, that was when I started to create more sophisticated models in predicting ratings - and understanding why Korean dramas were a hit in comparison to Japanese - and why certain Korean dramas were better than others. (The answer: How cute the couples were and how convoluted the stories were had significant impacts.)

In Singapore, that's when things became a little crazier - econometrics came into the picture, time series modeling, stochastic variables and risk-based analysis and budgeting...

11. Whilst numbers are good, I still believe that there are phenomena that cannot be ensnared by numbers.

My Philosophy 101/102 professor - Fr. Ferriols - taught me about the power of numbers and of science. And their limitations.

12. I write long emails.

I write long emails. My emails have been called novels, essays, diatribes... And I am still learning how to write shorter emails.

My presentations, however, are getting shorter and shorter. Anything beyond 30 slides makes me nervous. Anything beyond 60 makes me want to cry. Anything under 15 makes me want to jump for joy.

13. I have made at least one media vendor-partner cry, have had at least one shouting match with an outdoor vendor on the phone, have cried at least once in a meeting, and have been told by two different clients (from two different accounts), "Philip, read my lips".

Let's not get into the details. :D