Taking huge opportunities can be scary if you’re a small team, but it can also be so worth it! Case in point: our Itch Creatives journey. What is now a full digital advertising agency was once a production house called OnMedia Creative Solutions, and it all changed because of a client and a great advertising mentor that led to the success of a big pitch—it was sulit.
Back in 2011, OnMedia comprised a small team that mainly provided AVPs, documentaries, and graphic design work for various clients such as the Ateneo de Manila University, the Foundation for Communication Initiatives (FOCI), and Adobo Magazine. At that time, sulit.com.ph was looking for agencies to join their pitch, so when they contacted Adobo’s Marketing Manager Apple Esplana-Manansala, she endorsed Sir Saz’s contact details—as the Managing Director of OnMedia—to their marketing team.
This opportunity was our first-ever invitation for an advertising pitch, and little did we know how huge it was going to be! According to Sir Saz, “originally, pumunta kami d’on nang ’di alam kung ano ba ’yong requirement nila, so when we were briefed, it was a whole campaign pala. Even PR was required!” The team was admittedly shocked by the scope of the campaign, which then fueled our motivation even more. “We didn’t know anything about PR or advertising,” Sir Saz adds. “Fortunately, we previously worked on a project with FOCI, whose president was (and still is) Ma’am Emily Abrera. She’s the former president of McCann too!” After reaching out to her about the pitch, Ma’am Emily gathered her former colleagues from McCann and contacts from media agencies.
The team consisted of well-known veterans in the field—Senior Art Director Bong Banal, Copywriter and Creative Director Kathleen Mojica, and of course Ma’am Emily herself. They also invited ZenithOptimedia (now just Zenith), the top media agency at the time, to help create the media plan. With a pool of great minds like this, Sir Saz and the team knew that our campaign pitch would be a tough one to beat!
“It was the first time that a digital company like sulit.com.ph wanted to advertise offline. Wala naman eh! So when we were sharing insights and identifying our value proposition, we wanted to communicate sulit.com.ph’s identity from the start. At that time, they were the best in their industry—the no.1 classified ads in the Philippines. Pinakamaraming naghahanap, pinakamaraming mahahanap. That’s the value proposition! That’s why the campaign concept that could capture that message was, ‘ano’ng hanap mo?’ Simple, malinaw, malinis, malakas, mabilis maintindihan. That line came from Ma’am Ems!” Sir Saz enthusiastically shared.
When the pitch finally came, Ma’am Emily decided to join the presentation to help deliver the pitch. And to make it even more striking, Sir Saz brought a whole iMac so the clients could fully appreciate the visuals of our concepts. An entire desktop! It’s safe to say that the clients were pleasantly surprised with the pitch that they gave, from concepts down to the execution. The positive reactions from the sulit.com.ph team fortified the confidence that Sir Saz, Ma’am Ems, and everyone on the team had. And soon enough, this confidence turned into rejoicing!
Ms. Me-Anne Bundalian, then Marketing Manager of sulit.com.ph, invited the team back to the office to personally announce our win, which coincidentally happened on Sir Saz’s birthday! First-ever advertising pitch, first win, and our first-ever big account—what a great set of birthday gifts indeed! “In fact, since there’s always a codename for big TVC projects, we decided to call it ‘Project Birthday’ because of that,” Sir Saz adds.
Since then, OnMedia has become more than a production house—from OnMedia Creative Solutions, we now have Itch Creatives that boasts a great roster of clients from various industries!
When we asked Sir Saz if there’s more that he’d like to share with Itches, he mentioned a quote from Richard Branson that he still lives by to this day, “if somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you’re not sure you can do it, say yes—then learn how to do it later!” To that, we say coo coo coo!