RC COLA AD | Gigil scores another win for goofy soft drink ad

December 1, 2020 , 08:44 AM

By Manny Mogato, News5 editor-at-large

(December 1, 2020) – A start-up advertising agency has scored another big win as its new commercial of the least popular American soft drink brand created a splash online and emerged as the most talked about in recent times.

Days after Gigil’s RC Cola ad went viral, sales of the soft drink, the cheapest in the market, has increased beyond the company’s expectations as it became a hit among the Gen-Z crowd though most baby boomers frowned on the creepy, surreal, and out-of-this-world commercial.

Gigil’s ad was so effective that people started buying RC Cola in local stores as people became curious, confused, and amazed. Some netizens created memes and others try to explain what the ad means.

“It really connected to our target audience,” Jake Yrastorza, Gigil’s managing partner told “Wag Po” show at Cignal TV’s One PH news and public service channel.

“They’ve been posting and sharing. We really have our noses to the ground. Ano kami sa pop culture so when we presented it to the client, ganitong humor, ganitong absurd, magugustuhan to ng target audience.”

Gigil’s creative partner Herbert Hernandez said the executives of Royal Crown (RC) Cola were so brave to gamble on a goofy commercial that paid high rewards in the end.

“Yan ang sinasabi namin sa kliyente namin, mas magastos pa maging safe, walang papansin sa ad mo kung wala lang,” Hernandez said in the same show, which had convinced RC Cola Philippines to approve the campaign.

Gigil, which was set up only in 2017, already had a string of success in the advertising industry as its executives are not newcomers but award-winners behind some of the successful local advertising and marketing campaigns.

In fact, its Levi’s Christmas commercial won 3rd place in the most effective ad in Asia in Singapore behind New Zealand and Australia. It was the Philippines’ only winner at the annual Clio awards in 2019 for the same Levi’s “braille ad” getting a silver medal in the advertising world’s international competition. It also won honors in New York.

Levi’s sales increased by 16 percent in the Philippines during the Christmas holidays last year after the ad came out. Early numbers for RC Cola days after the ad went viral on social media are also encouraging.

For the RC Cola ad, it used the same Filipino emotional appeal when the commercial with a scene common in most soap operas as the son confronting his mother, asking if he was an adopted child. But it had a goofy twist as his mother pulled out her head and revealed the soft drink.

Yrastorza said they knew their audience well based on research as well as the people inside Gigil, who are mostly GenX Z, really connect with the market.

“We check what others do, taste tests, etc but we looked for a niche campaign using comedy and humor,” he said.

“Then, we went back to who our target audience was and ano ba iniisip nila, mga GenX Z, mga millennials. Sa research namin, we’ve covered a very powerful insight and GenX Z at Millennials, when you talk to them, they don’t want to explain themselves. Kami nga ayaw explain commercial na ito, kasi if you look at the tagline ‘Basta, masarap lang talaga RC’, that’s all, there’s nothing to it, just fun commercial.”

Hernandez said there are many things you can’t explain, like drinking soft drinks. “There is no benefit taking it but there is no explanation why you like it, masarap lang,” he added.

He said the netizens have not seen it all. Gigil will soon launch a sequel to the ad.

“May lalabas pa excited kami sa susunod episode,” he said.

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