010 The Great Adopt a School Reboot
Tarlac Congressman Jesli Lapus was just appointed secretary of education that August (2006). And one of the first things he wanted to do was to relaunch the Adopt A School Program, which provides companies with additional tax incentives for donations to public education.
With his vast experience in the private sector—Landbank president, Triumph Philippines managing director, among others—Lapus knew the marketing potential of a relaunch for this particular product, Adopt A School.
As far as the office of the secretary is concerned, it was all hands on deck for this effort. Naturally, our communications team was knee deep in this grand production.
We had help from friends in the private sector, particularly the League of Corporate Foundations (LCF), as well as the American and European chambers of commerce who were expected to bring in the big name donors to our relaunch, scheduled in about a month’s time.
While other teams were responsible for all the logistical concerns, our comms team was charged with handling messaging—everything from the secretary’s speech (which I wrote), the video presentation and other program highlights, the press releases and all media concerns.
One major concern then was the name, Adopt A School. Lapus wanted to change it to something more catchy (than what is, as he argued, just the name of the law that grants these tax incentives).
With the help of LCF, we got some of the best minds in public relations and advertising to come up with a few ideas—pro bono. They came up with around 10 names with corresponding logos.
Lapus didn’t like any of them. So we were back to square one as far as the name and logo are concerned.
Subsequently, we decided to just stick to the old name (Thankfully, Lapus agreed). We just needed to change the logo.
My comms unit partner in crime, Angelico Mercader, took on that task immediately. In a day or two, he’d have shown us a few drafts. He made known his preference, but said that it lacked a visual element and so he asked if I could come up with a tagline that he could include in the logo.
I did. Immediately. It was a no-brainer actually. As he stood there, I said: “Invest in our future today.”
We got our logo (and our tagline), which Lapus immediately approved.
The big launch event at the Shang hotel in Makati was a big success (at the very least, there were no major snafus). For the next few months, however, Lapus the marketing genius would require us to talk about Adopt A School continuously—through all of his speeches and our daily press releases. He wanted the message out and we delivered.
All in all, it was worth the effort (and the pain of inserting Adopt A School in all speeches and press releases). For the first five years of the program, prior to the relaunch, the education department received around 1.2 billion pesos in contributions from the private sector. After the relaunch, the department got some 4.3 billion pesos—in just one year.
I never doubted the secretary’s marketing and communications acumen since then.