VP candidate Leni Robredo ratings in the survey has defined her as competitive

Here is Blog Watch livestream video

Part 1

Part 2

by @wawam as originally posted at “Leni Robredo’s trek to the vice president position : part 1” at  the 2010presidentiables.wordpress.com

thank you to blogwatch.ph (@blogwatchdotph) for inviting us to sit in during the session with LP’s vice presidentiable Leni Robredo.

there is something to be said about Leni Robredo, a vice presidentiable who gives her time to a group of bloggers and netizens to talk about issues and allow them to know who she is as a candidate and as a person.

and Leni Robredo needs the exposure. last october 19, 2015, we wrote in this blog (tittle : 2 things Leni Robredo should do to win) that to win, she needs to address her low awareness on a national level. Robredo is known in Naga and to a certain degree in Metro Manila. but with her experience and work concentrated on a local level at Naga, she is hardly known nationally specially when compared to her competitors in the vice-presidential race who are all nationally elected senators. they all have a national political base and are known on a national level.

this meeting with the blogwatch.ph will help address the need we identified in October 2015.

excerpts:

survey results notwithstanding, Robredo has 2 huge but very basic marketing things that she needs to do to win:

1. address low awareness on a national level – robredo may be known in here hometown and to some degree in Metro Manila but she is hardly known in the rest of the country. that is a key issue as the position she is running for is national in scope, she needs the rest of the country to know who she is.
2. what is the Leni Robredo brand equity or brand positioning? together with the issue of low awareness, Robredo’s other big problem and this can be much bigger than the first is nobody knows what she stands for. what is her brand equity or brand positioning of Robredo?

read: https://2010presidentiables.wordpress.com/2015/10/19/2-things-leni-robredo-should-do-to-win/

since October, Robredo has gone to other parts of the country to get to know the people and to allow the people to know her. she has aired some advertising which based on
the monitoring was about P91M in 2015 and places her 11th highest ad spender among the national candidates and 3rd highest among vice-presidentiables. the ad spending may be not much, but it is a move in the right direction.

what is interesting is that during the blogwatch.ph discussion, she admitted she was surprised by the amount of money spent on her TV ads. she said she did not have money to spend for the ads and the money for sure did not come from her. her party, the LP had spent for the ads. according to her, senator bam aquino is the one managing her campaign and would know the details of the ad spending.

honestly, we do not remember what ad she aired during that time. but i remember it was not a remarkable ad. it was forgettable and too run of the mill.

in a scenario where there is very low brand awareness, ads like the one she aired, boring it may be, is a good thing. the ad for sure will add awareness and build some brand equity for her.

however, for whatever brand equity she has gotten from the ads, it is on shaky grounds as a non-remarkable ad that builds an equity means the equity is vulnerable to erosion specially when the other vice presidential candidates start airing their own ads during the campaign  period which started just a few days ago.

the survey results recently released show that Robredo’s campaign is doing very well. it also supports the points we raised on what Robredo needs to win the election – increase awareness and a brand equity definition.

a few days ago, we tweeted that Robredo should aim to get more interviews to get media exposure, for more people to hear and see her. in the times that we have seen her during interviews, we were continually and exponentially  impressed by her. we thought more voters getting this experience, the more she gains supporters.

the survey results are very good for Robredo. she was on a surge in the latest mid-December poll from SWS. from a very low 7% in September 2014, she gained a +16% points in December 2015, to 19% from 3%. more importantly her ranking jumped to a tie at 2nd with Marcos coming from 5th in September.

the surge in the surveys may have been driven  by the announcement of her candidacy and the endorsement from president Noynoy Aquino and the LP presidentiable Mar Roxas and the media attention given to her after the announcement. in other words, Robredo generated awareness and started to define her brand equity.

her ratings in the survey has defined her as competitive even when faced with incumbent senators who already have a national standing.

the question is can she sustain this upward trajectory in the coming weeks?

~~~ more to follow ~~~