Potboilers

Short stories as a literary form would probably be second only to poetry in terms of the number of pieces churned out by writers all over the world. The Decameron, the Canterbury Tales, the Thousand and One Nights are examples of early short story forms. In France the notable short story writers were Gustave Flaubert, Guy de Maupassant, Anatole France just to name a few flourished and were acclaimed masters of the genre during their time.

In America short story writing found impetus during the early twentieth century when magazines and other periodicals printed short stories as additional content as well as an added come-on to readers to patronize their publications. Short stories as a feature of popular magazines stayed on for quite a while but went on the wane towards the start of the seventies. Except for a few publications like the New Yorker short stories are now a rarity as a magazine feature.

Authors such as O’ Henry, Bret Harte, Eudora Welty, Carson McCullers, HH Munro (Saki} and others found it possible to earn a living writing short stories. Because of time (some had contracts which obligated them to churn out a short story every month) and financial pressures this gave rise to an unfortunately termed piece, the “potboilers”, which some authors succumbed to write because the genre had become a veritable source of reliable livelihood to the otherwise starving artists of the literary circles. It might be heretical of me to have mentioned the aforementioned luminaries in the same breath as “potboilers” but they, with so many others have produced at one time or another works that would be in this scurrilous category.

There was intense competition among the short story writers at that time. Competition was either bane or boon to literature. It was bad that it spawned more and more production of less worthy literary pieces but at the same time it also spurred the writing of more and better short stories. On balance the good effects far outweigh the bad ones. The “potboilers “ would have been justly swept under the rug to be readily forgotten while the brilliant ones, and there were many of them, have stayed on for posterity and benefited the future generation of literature lovers.

A Much Delayed Post

September 12, 2006

It is the day after the fifth anniversary of the infamous 9/11 event that brought down the twin towers of the World Trade Center five years ago.
Most television programs today and yesterday had some mention of the catastrophe which ended the lives of close to three thousand people in the city of New York. President Bush has appeared in several tv broadcasts some of whom hinted that this was an effort to prop his sagging political fortunes. He was shown placing a wreath in the site at the Pentagon where one of the renegade planes crashed into in commemoration of those whose lives were snuffed out by the disaster. I am probably a jaded spectator of the antics of politicians who take every opportunity to exploit media events and squeeze out brownie points no matter how sordid the events were. It is in bad taste, and yet these callous antics actually bring up the popularity ratings of those who have insensitively seized the opportunity. I am sure the assiduous image makers of these politicians would do post surveys to find out how much gains have been made by their clients after coming out in the media for photo ops and coverage of tragic and disastrous media events. And like vultures they become better at eating carrion with every tragedy exploited.

In blogsphere, bloggers were invited to write about the individual casualties and post them in their blogspots. Called Project 2996 a name of a victim has been assigned to bloggers to write something about the person in condolence or as a eulogy to the unfortunate victim.
One of the memorable blogs written was that of Quinn Cummings in the QC Report who honestly proclaimed his difficulty in writing about somebody he knows nothing about and so he, instead, wrote about the effect of this tragedy on those who were left behind, mainly their children. A praise on somebody who is completely unknown would have reeked of insincerity and hypocrisy, but blogger Quinn was able to capture the universal feeling of loss and create a compassionate empathy on the tragic effects on the children of the victims who would suffer and carry indelible scars long after the shock and the trauma of the incident had long passed.

Writers' Cramps

I can’t seem to get started today. This is the third time I have sat down in front of my laptop and I still have to put a line on the eagerly waiting page. Other things get into my mind. A few household chores intrude themselves and every time this happens I stand up to attend to them no matter how trivial or least urgent they were. The intrusions seem to be welcomed ones and I probably felt relieved each time I got to postpone filling up white space.

Do I really want to write or is it just one of those nurtured notions from my youth when I was pursuing a literature course? I had writing heroes then and have read most of the pieces of these Philippine literary lions…NVM Gonzalez, Nick Joaquin, Greg Brillantes and others. I longed to see my name in print but have never had a piece set on paper that I would consider worthy of sharing publicly. Will I always be reluctant to write? Instead of getting inspired by my heroes they may have given me some sort of inferiority complex, a feeling that I will never be good enough.

Instead of pursuing the muse I put all my efforts behind having a career in Advertising and Marketing. This I have done with some success and was able to provide my family with more than the basic wherewithal for existence. Now in retirement and tired of the frenetic race that I had just gotten out of, I searched my mind for things that I might want to do and writing came to mind. I haven’t done any writing except for the usual business stuff. I have written good business correspondence, excellent reports, rah-rah notes to my people and during my earlier career days, some creditable advertising copy. All these comprised my writing for more than forty years while pursuing commercial ends. Whether this would be enough reason for me to embark on a writing vocation is something I would have to resolve myself. On further thought, any contemplation to become a professional writer would be considered a delusion of a grand scale.

This notion of becoming a writer has always been a secret one. No encouragement can be expected from anyone because nobody knew that I aspired to be a writer nor were they aware if the talent existed in me.

Floodwaters of Sampaloc

I have seen health advisories on television that warned about wading through city floodwaters. The murky waters, according to the ad, is home to billions of germs that could cause one to have ailments ranging from the common cold to more serious ones such as bubonic plague from the urine and feces of rats, snail fever, and a variety of nasty skin afflictions.

City floodwaters is thick primal soup, a brew that brims with malevolent things more noxious than the concoctions that any of the hags from Endor can put together.

Growing up in Maria Cristina, a narrow eskinita in Sampaloc, a district in the city of Manila, one looked forward to typhoons that brought about flooding of the streets, an occasion to enjoy the long wet walks just wearing a pair of worn out rubber sandals. We would slosh from one street to another, my cousin Ric with a wooden toy boat in tow to carry interesting flotsam fished out from the muddy water, finding out which street had the highest waterline and just having a splashing and refreshing romp in the flood. Suspension of classes was a bonus and this gave us almost unlimited time to enjoy the watery pleasures from the aftermath of a typhoon.

Maria Cristina was a dead end street. The eskinita was cut off by an estero that flowed along a course parallel to Lealtad Street. The eskinita’s declivity was towards the estero so every time it flooded the water current flowed towards it.

The young men in the neighborhood hanging out in the Chinaman’s sari-sari store in the corner of Espana and Maria Cristina would float paper boats with large sails. On the sails they scribble the names of some of the girls in the eskinita and all sorts of amorous messages to the delight of the young ladies who were along the path of the armada of floating paper and at the end of the street, downstream.

During the floods the estero would have stronger currents than usual because of the elevated water line. The boys in the neighborhood would stand by the edge of the estero to witness a parade of all sorts of trash, dead animals and interesting debris coming from the public market.

One of the boys in the neighborhood was audacious enough to dive into the raging waters and swim with the current in the midst of the flotsam until reaching the pedestrian bridge in Dos Castillas Street. He would come running back through Espana and repeat the same feat for about three to four times. That boy never got sick and neither did we suffer any disease coming from our wading in the dirty waters of a city flood.

Despite the happy childhood memories I never allowed my children to wade into the city floods and much more vehemently my precious grandchildren. This is one pleasure they could forego.

He Should Be Writing

(*2005)

At the party to mark the first year of my daughter in law’s death I had the occasion to talk to my older brother Pete about our childhood summers in Cavite. My brother was the victim of a cerebral clot and half his body, his right side, had been paralyzed for quite a few years now. He could have recovered from it were it not for an accident that broke his right hipbone. Although he continued to undergo physical therapy sessions regularly it now took a bit more effort and this impeded his progress towards recovery.

He loved to play mahjong. Mahjong was a game that he really excelled in even as a young boy. In his situation it became a central activity for him. He derived a lot of enjoyment from this since he had a good batting average of wins over losses at the same time this was his way of socializing and keeping abreast with the goings on in the family and in the world even if it was just within the 3x3 confines of the mahjong table.

There was a regular quorum of which I was an occasional member. The quorum broke up when one of the regulars quit because of unkind of remarks that were being frequently thrown at her for playing ever so slowly and ever so badly. She was careless and often made wrong throws in the course of the game to the consternation of the other players. In mahjong there are quite a few common sense rules that one has to follow. A player who transgresses these upsets and derails the expected progression of the game and this rile up the serious players.

The quorum was a veritable tinderbox. At sixty-two I was the youngest in the group. Everyone, myself, included were grumpy, impatient at the same time very sensitive and easy to take offense. Although the group had existed for quite a while, the creeping up of age will doom it to dissolution. Without his cherished mahjong sessions Pete would spend most of his time in front of the TV set. He was close to turning into a “couch potato” or perhaps more appropriately a “couch grouch”.

It was during the after dinner conversation that I intimated to him that I have started to put into paper my life experiences. I had lots of free time in my hands and this was great way of using them. They say that an idle mind is the workshop of the devil and I was not about to have the horned one fit me in his infernal lathe. He showed interest when I suggested that, he too, take up writing especially about our childhood days in Cavite. He warmed up to the topic and became a veritable treasure trove of anecdotes and events. In his condition he had seldom shown any excitement during conversations but he was a different Pete as he narrated his boyhood adventures in Wawa. They flowed out copiously from his lips. He not only talked with a lot of verve but he also had a lot to tell. I am hopeful that he would pursue this. He has a facility for language and would have a vocabulary that can match that of any ivy leaguer. He would make a top class raconteur because he had a lot more exciting and colorful experiences….much more than what I or that of my other brothers had ever lived through.

Writing It Like It Is

I am now a long way from the time I started my autobiography. The first draft has been completed and there are a few things that I need to revise and polish. I am thinking about paying an editor who can go through my manuscripts, clean up the fuzzy edges and to make it less egocentric as autobiographers writing for the first time are wont to be. I would like to get away from the first person point of view but I guess this is what novice writers are damned to do in their early attempts.

It must have been the apprehension to offend other people that I tended to disguise the personalities and in most part not use names in my initial drafts. I asked a friend to go over it and asked him if it would make a difference if I put names in instead of just description of the characters. “Absolutely” he said. Names give life, a unique identity to the dramatis personae of your life story. In an autobiography characters have to come alive...be real.


Names helped me remember things more completely because in the course of the writing I do not lose track of the person’s humanness, I can also recall every nuance of his being as if he was present…in my face.

I knew that I had to get rid of the anxiety of offending people and be honest with the recounting of my experiences and to give an uncensored opinion of people and events. Honesty unshackles ones’ mind and allow for fluidity of thought and expression. Being guarded blocks out some of the creative opportunities for great prose.

I told myself that I am writing for myself and have no intention of having it on print. Besides I could always come up with a revised version should I decide on its publication? In the meantime, telling it like it is, is the dictum.

The Macopa Tree

In the whole neighborhood there was only one tree, the Macopa tree that we had at the side of our house. Actually, there were two within the neighborhood, the second one was the Aratiles tree that grew beside the open sewer canal at the end of the eskinita that was Maria Cristina. I suppose the Aratiles did not count as a tree as it was inaccessible to most of us kids and besides it lacked the stature of a real tree being a small and scraggly outgrowth in the banks of a filthy and fetid open sewer canal.

My tree, the Macopa, was the tallest natural living structure in my little world. The highest perch I could manage atop the tree was at about roof level of our house where I would have a good view of the apartment across our house. From my perch I could go to the roof of the adjacent house. I sometimes do this during kite season but always without my mom’s knowledge as she would never allow me to go out on a limb literally. It was fun doing and it always added to the pleasure when done surreptitiously.

Ownership of the Macopa tree gave me privileges that other kids didn’t have. Trees were a special treat to children especially in Sampaloc.. The other kids would curry my favor so that I would allow them to play in its shade, climb the lower branches and when in season, with my consent, pick a plump and bright red ripe Macopa fruit from a low lying branch.

There was one boy in the neighborhood, a real difficult kid, a wild one who did what he wanted with out any regard nor respect for other peoples’ property. While he seemed intractable, the things that he did seemed so natural coming from the innocence that his mien exuded. He would be the kid whom you will find in somebody else’s kitchen helping himself with the cookie jar or a taking a bite of a fruit that was left on the kitchen counter. He was also the one kid who would climb the Macopa tree at any time it pleased him.

One time, when I looked out of the window fronting the tree I was surprised to see him atop the highest branch, my private perch, and was munching Macopa some of which were still unripe. While it irked me that my tree, my precious private domain has been trespassed, I could not show that much anger with the interloper since he was hardly six years old, about four years younger than I was. Instead of a show of displeasure I shouted the caution that he might fall from the branches and hurt himself together with the threat to tell on him to his mom when she came home from work. Those threats did not stop him at all. He brazenly ignored all these and even defiantly made faces at me from my perch as I watched helplessly from the window. When he had his fill and his pockets full of the Macopa fruit he clambered down from the tree, scaled the wall and ran home. His interloping happens at least twice a month and more frequent when the fruit is in season.

A day in the month of April, the Macopa tree was radiant as it showed off its bright red fruits like Yule balls in a Christmas tree. Now this little boy who was named Binggoy was on the street beside the wall of our house and was looking at the marvelous display of the Macopa tree. You could almost guess what was going through the mind of this little brat. I knew that the moment I turn my back Binggoy would no sooner be clambering up the wall and scaling the branches of the Macopa tree and busy himself with harvesting the fruits taking as much as he could fill in his pockets and in his tucked in t-shirt. I was looking at him from our balcony. I had prepared for this event and was picturing in my mind how the grease that I dabbed on the barred gate would smear on his clothes and how his hands would find difficulty in grasping the bars made slippery by the grease. If the obstacles do not discourage him his greasy hands will be a challenge when climbing the tree. The day before I went to the jeepney parking lot at the end of the eskinita with an empty pomade bottle and paid twenty centavos for a pat of used grease to the mechanic. Binggoy knew that I was watching his every move and so he feigned disinterest on the tree and played with marbles at our cemented sidewalk. This went on for several minutes. He must have sensed that some thing was afoot. Normally he would just climb up the wall unmindful of my presence. He remained in the cemented sidewalk bouncing the marbles on the wall with monotonous cadence. Bounce and catch, bounce and catch, bounce and catch…in unerring rhythm at the countless times of bouncing and catching. My impatience was now getting into me. In my mind I was egging him to move on… “Let’s go kid…scale that wall…go, go, go!” Still he wouldn’t stop bouncing and catching as if saying “…no, I won’t give you the satisfaction of seeing me play along with whatever devilish scheme you have in store for me.”

It occurred to me that if I turned away he might just go and do what he has been meaning to do, but no, I wanted to see him fail. I wanted him to be frustrated by his futile effort at climbing up my tree. A whole half hour had elapsed and each one’s strong resolve has resulted into an unbreakable stalemate until I heard my Mom call from the kitchen. I reluctantly turned around to leave the balcony in response to Mom’s call. A few seconds after I left the balcony I thought I heard a faint clang of the gate. I knew then that he had made a dash for the tree. This was followed by a loud sickening thud. It was unmistakably a sound made by a high fall on the ground. There was commotion outside the gate. I could hear frantic shouts of the children in front of our house and the loud creaking of the iron gate as it was hurriedly opened.

Not daring to go back to the balcony I ran to my room and stayed there for a long time feeling sorry for what has happened and afraid of being blamed for the incident. It was only at the call for Angelus that made me leave the room. There wasn’t any news about what had happened. Nobody came at our door to tell us of the incident at the Macopa tree.

I saw Binggoy the following day with a swollen and bruised forearm but looking spritely and impish as before. He was again in front of the Macopa tree eying the low hanging red fruit with much interest. It was a relief seeing him that way. I had worst fears about his fall from the tree. To help assuage my guilt as well as being thankful for the relief, I went down and handed him four big luscious red Macopa fruits which I had asked our maid to pick early that morning. He seemed surprise at such generosity but hurriedly took the red bunch and ran home.

Kites

I cannot forget the time when Ric, my cousin, fell through the roof of Mr. Fernando’s house. Ric was the son of a rich uncle. The youngest of seven children and born more than ten years after the sixth child he was the apple of the eye of almost everybody in the family. His mother so doted on her “nino bonito” always made sure that when he goes to our house she would pack all his clothes, toothbrush, soap, his vitamins and an ample amount of snack foods even if he was only staying overnight. At home he didn’t have anybody his age to be around with and longed for the company of playmates. Every chance he got he would stay with us during weekends and for longer stretches during summer vacations.

One time he spent a few days with us and despite the usual admonitions from his mother to keep himself clean and to be sure to stay away from trouble by always heeding my mom’s caution about playing in the streets and god knows where else all these fell on deaf ears. I was sure that my aunt had a special word to my mom about how to look after my cousin.

As to be expected we found ourselves flying kites on the roof of the Fernando house. Mr. Fernando was the owner of a botica along Trabajo Street, right across the public market. It was October, a time when steady breezes flowed the whole afternoon. It was the season for kite flying.

The galvanized iron roof provided us with almost comfortable seats. It was late afternoon and the tin roof was no longer hot as it was a few hours ago. Both of us were flying the simplest of kites that was called “chape-chape”. This was a plainly designed kite with a long tail to steady its flight. One didn’t have to make this himself as they were sold quite cheaply in the public market. I think it was two for five centavos. The string, of course, was not included. We asked for or sometimes stole threads from my Mom’s sewing box and we would wound this up in milk cans so that we could easily let go of the string as the kite soared higher and higher in free flight.

We were really enjoying ourselves and were quite content that our kites were flying safely and steadily, avoiding the other kites that were closing in menacingly in search of a dogfight. A kite dogfight is not a head on confrontation of two kites but a series of skilful maneuvers to entangle the strings of another kite and quickly releasing it so that the string which has been barbed with finely ground glass can scrape against the opponent’s string creating a shearing motion ending up with the other kite’s string getting cut.

Our enjoyment went on for hours. The sky was a marvelous sight with multi-colored kites of different shapes and sizes dancing and fluttering in the steady breeze of an October afternoon. A dog fight was going on not too far from we were. The lofty duel was between a red kite with a star emblazoned on its body versus a kite with a wide wing span and tri-colored red white and green like the Italian flag. These designs were known as “tabo-tabo”. Unlike the “chape-chape” this kind of kite did not have a tail. It had a flat bottom making it look like a water dipper, hence the name “tabo-tabo”. Again, unlike the “chape-chape” the “tabo-tabo” does not remain at a stand still in flight. It keeps darting from left to right and soaring up and making sudden dives. It was an exciting kite to fly but it needed some expertise because it was in perpetual motion and one had to be vigilant to keep it from keeling over to the extreme. You could liken the “tabo-tabo” to a hawk and the “chape-chape” to a wimpy helpless dove.

The dogfight was quickly over. The kite with the star design won. With the string of the losing kite cut from its owner it hurtled uncontrollably while the winner, as if in a vainglorious gesture soared majestically announcing its moment of triumph.

The losing kite floated in the air for a while then plunged towards us. We watched interestedly as it settled at the far end of the roof where we were seated. Ric stood up and hurriedly went towards the fallen kite. As if in a struggle to free itself, the fallen kite fluttered wildly, pulling against its string that was snagged in the seams of the roof eaves.

There is some sort of a rule of the skies in kite flying. An “alagwa”, a kite that has lost its mooring becomes fair game to anybody who would be first to retrieve it. A finders’ keepers sort of thing.

Ric raced towards it. He was a hulk of a boy and as he lumbered towards the eaves where the kite was you could hear the grating crunch on the galvanized iron sheets each time his feet landed on the rusty and fragile thin metal. All of a sudden he was out of sight. The roof caved in and he fell through.

I cautiously walked towards hole in the roof where he disappeared. Although I was a lightweight I still had to be cautious treading on the thin galvanized iron sheets as most of them have been weakened by rust.

I could see Ric from the hole he made in the roof. He was lying unconscious on the cement floor beside a cement sink. I quickly backtracked and went down from where we climbed up earlier. It took me sometime to get down. With shaking knees, I held on to each rough cranny in the crudely cemented hollow block wall that led down to the overhanging branches of a guava tree. With a bit of daring, I pushed away from the wall and grabbed a branch. The branch bended from my weight and slowly laid me down to the ground.

It seemed that somebody had alerted the older folks in the neighborhood about the incident. Mr. Dominguez, our next door neighbor was already at the scene when I got down. Ric was sprawled on the floor hardly moving. He had on an ominous pallor, a slate gray dullness in his face. Mr. Dominguez lifted Ric and hurriedly brought him to the North General Hospital on Espana Street just right across from Carola Street, two eskinitas away from Maria Cristina. Mr. Dominguez was a slight fellow and it was a wonder how he was able to lift Ric and rush him to the hospital at a trot.

My mother followed them to the hospital. I was not allowed to go out of the house. I was really worried sick seeing how deathly pale Ric was and also afraid for myself. Ric’s mom and mine would surely blame me to no end for the mishap.

52. Look Back In Joy

In ACNielsen and I suppose in other multinational companies, corporate plans are expressed succinctly in numbers. Revenue growth, margins, market shares, head-counts, productivity gains, collectible ages, employee satisfaction scores and more numbers efficiently tell the state of the business without emotional descriptions to muddle the account. What is not eloquently reported in our presentation of corporate reports and plans are the travails of the working men and women who were on almost infinite overtime hours, the relentless business building efforts that eat up on time that should have been spent with their families. Of course we allude to these in our presentations but these are in terms of effectiveness measurement scores, overtime rates, shorter turnaround of projects, productivity hikes and stepped up employee amelioration programs. These are not expressed in the manner told us by our associates… like missing their seven-year-old’s birthday party, not being there for a son’s graduation exercise, not being able to care for infirm parents, missing a favorite TV program for months now… not seeing the sunset on the way home. There are no sections in the supplied presentation templates that would include these. They are the real reasons why we achieve our business targets. How long can a company sustain ever increasing productivity levels? How much more can one spend on team building sessions and in reward and recognition programs to keep associates’ enthusiasm and energy to produce more? People’s physical and emotional stamina are less finite than monetary resource. There will come a point where no amount of coaxing, bucking and flogging can elicit a response from a tired and numbed work force. They would have joined the legions of men and women who numbly trudge to work everyday and to return home to lead lives of repressed and unexpressed hopelessness.

Suspension of pleasures when young is a good thing. It helps build character and sets one’s feet solidly on the ground. The time for assimilation of knowledge and honing of skills is when you are young. It is also the time for hard work because you are physically able. The reward of this is that you will not probably have to work as hard in your old age. Nobody dies of hard work except for those who, by circumstance, still have to do it when they are old and infirm. This was what I believed in throughout my working life but towards my retirement I found it difficult to give this advice to the young managers in the organization for I have been a witness to the distressing trade-offs that had to be endured.

How many opportunities for shoring up marital relationships did you miss out on? How much joy did you let pass by when your young children yearned to be with you before they went off to become teenagers? Were you able to experience the pleasure of assuring and guiding them when they faltered as young adults? And for yourself, did you allow your natural creative talents to become stillborn or stunted because it had to wait for you to find time to nurture them. It is sad to have opportunities for joy expire on you…any bit of joy.

This is no indictment on any particular organization. There are only a few companies who do not have a resolve towards business dominance. Career people latch on to and swear by company visions and become driven lemming-like in their pursuit. Their falling prey to it is instinctive…an unambiguous statement of the human condition.

Life is a paradox. You are able to achieve a dream only to find out that this has been a phantom purpose all along. There is no real success, only delightful moments to reminisce. Go ahead pursue a dream but delight in the trivial milestones…relish the scenery…the smell of roses along the way…only then can you look back in joy.


ooooENDoooo

51. ACNielsen, Philippines

Front: L Diaz, M Reyes, G Igaya,V Aleta  ,L Gaviola ,G Malong Back:C Sunico, F Torre, D Sparkes, Ed Roa, KN Tang, N Trivissono, N Bordador, M Connors, A Barredo, G Soeminio

The height of my career was when I was appointed Managing Director of ACNielsen, Philippines. This was the combined businesses of ACNielsen, Pulse and ACNielsen, Unisearch. ACNielsen, Philippines became the premiere market research company in the Philippines which had a gross revenue of close to seven hundred million pesos per annum. The parent concern is the Dutch communications conglomerate VNU who acquired ACNielsen in 2001. I guess I should have much satisfaction from this achievement. It was a distinctive honor to have been the Managing Director of the Philippine operations of the undisputed world leader in market research and a company that is by far the number one market research company in the local industry. However, there is much truth to the saying that the joy is not so much in the realization of your dreams but in the dreaming itself and in the pursuit of it. Talking about one’s achievements leaves you dry in the mouth and you feel a compulsion to dilute and downgrade them a bit…and rightly so. Most achievement of leaders are made possible by the dedication, sweat and competence of people below them whose names more often than not are left unmentioned in report documents and formal presentations. The most one can claim for himself is his luck of being available to lead a great team, a leader by default or by grace as it were, his ability to choose winners and to enjoin them to work for a common cause.

I had a great team and we had great support from the South East Asia Managing Director, Nonoy Niles. I inherited Nonoy’s management team to which I added two more directors coming from ACNielsen Unisearch. The team was composed of dedicated professionals who were exceptionally competent in their fields of endeavor. The ACNielsen, Philippines Management Committee had Chona Sunico, who prior to her appointment as Regional HR Director was the local HR Director. She was a wellspring of ideas and a mover. Chona was a recipient of the coveted ACNielsen Chairman’s Award, the highest recognition of personal contribution to global ACNielsen. She received her award for the various innovative concepts in HR that were subsequently adopted by all countries in the Asia Pacific region. Another member who was also a recipient of the Chairman’s Award was the Customized Research Director, Nena Barredo who was a veritable treasure trove of experiences on FMCG markets and had an unparalleled in-depth knowledge of local Unilever markets. Gladys de Veyra, a specialist with an unequaled experience in Retailer Research having been the Director of the oldest and biggest Retail Audit Service in the country. The director handling the Media Services division, Esther Capistrano, was the ever so gracious lady who had extensive contacts in the Media Industry earned through years of providing monitoring services to ad agencies and marketing clients. She was the owner of the erstwhile Philippine Monitoring Services that was subsequently bought by ACNielsen. Esther proved her grit and fortitude when she persevered with the Nielsen TV household meters despite losing industry support to AGB, the other company who won the bid. She shepherded what seemed to be a foolhardy effort of extending the service into a national one in the wake of the Greater Manila contract loss. In time she would become my successor as Managing Director of the company. Feddie Magpantay, Director of Customized Research in the Ortigas operations is a topnotch customized market researcher with more than twenty years experience tucked under her belt. Susan Macion succeeded Chona Sunico as HR Director of the local company and later on was instrumental in the launching of the Home (Consumer) Panel Service. Gerry Soleminio as Research Services Director ably supplied technical support. Ambo Reyes succeeded him upon his cross posting to ACNielsen Vietnam in a richly deserved promotion as the Director of technical services in a developing market. Ambo was recruited from the world’s leader on predictive research, an expert in the simulated test market system, Bases. The information technology expert in the team was Bing van Tooren who is a leading light in the local IT circuit having been president of the Computer Society of the Philippines. The money person in the group was Nonie Bordador, Finance Director par excellence. Her astuteness in fiscal management and her uncanny feel for pecuniary matters have helped us get through some dire straits during the difficult second half of the nineties. It was an all star selection that worked well with each other.

There have been significant events during the years of my leadership such as winning the South East Asia Managing Director of the year for two consecutive years. Team ACNielsen, Philippines was recognized as the example of a high performance team and I had the honor of presenting in an Asia Pacific conference in Sydney, Australia during the year they hosted the Olympic Games, the results of a five-year plan whose revenue and profit objectives were achieved in only three years. Over five years actual revenue growth was 160%; the operating income growth over the same period trebled with margins averaging almost 30% against the region’s average of a little over 10%. The Employee Satisfaction rating was the highest in global ACNielsen for a string of years. As Michael Jordan said in a Nike ad…”Greatness is achieved through repeatability”. We were proof that the concept of the Service Profit Chain works. Happy associates come up with excellent service that delight clients and consequently delighted clients make for repeat businesses. It was profitable for everyone. Clients improved their businesses, shareholders got their share price boost and the associates, including myself were rewarded by generous bonuses and stock option grants. During my time as Managing Director the Philippine company was earning so much that we could afford to hold ACNielsen, Philippines’ annual management meetings in New York and in another year, in London.

Achieving high performance was made possible by a clearly bannered vision and well-defined short and long term strategies which we urged the associates to own. We also had to make sure that internal systems work, that employees had state of the art facilities and that the work environment allowed them to be effective in their roles.

Much of the achievements were made possible by a truly talented and driven management team. Maintaining a high level performance required a close watch and unflagging nurturing of associates. Morale building was high in our agenda. We spent a minor fortune in team building workshops at all levels and excellence recognition programs. These were held with regularity. Ideas like the Notable Notes, a program that encouraged associates to recognize and appreciate the good work of each one in the company, was met with excitement and enthusiasm. On its first year the program generated an exchange of a little over 150,000 notes or an average of almost 350 expressions of appreciation passed on by each associate to another.

Despite the continuous downturn of the Philippine economy the team was able to achieve and sometimes over achieve the targets set by the regional management. The region’s executive committee was already inured to the sob stories by most countries in the region towards the second half of the nineties following the Asian economic meltdown. We just had to gloss over the economic environment section of our presentations because the impatience was showing in the regional managers’ gaping yawns, feet tapping and “yeah, yeah we know that already…get a move on” facial mien.

It was hateful to accept unreasonable targets. It translated to pushing our people twice again and then again with “stretch” targets. The remarkable thing about it was the targets were met all the time, at times even exceeding them. This only made our superiors all the more entrenched in their belief that we were overstating the economic woes of the market.

Business push was relentless and so was the enticement for scarce high flying researchers in a limited industry pool. I have heard of remarks in local research circles that referred to us as the “Evil Empire”. Was it because of our ravenous appetite for business and our dogged pursuit for winners amongst the researcher ranks in the industry?

Is the name calling unfair?

We were all business…just pursuing sacrosanct targets

Ed R, FS sec, N Bordador, C Sunico, Angie Niles, Mrs Rackshit, Alma R, Ms Blanco(museum owner), Mrs Bengtsson, Bengtsson, Nonoy Niles

50. Unisearch SRG

    

The day Unisearch the department became Unisearch the company seemed rather uneventful and a usual back-from-the-Christmas-holidays sort of day to most of the associates. We were all dragging our listless carcasses coming back from the frenetic yuletide celebrations. On the first working day of 1990 the Unisearch employees went zombielike to their posts to do what they have been doing as before. They found themselves in the same hallway with rows on rows of tabulator counters, the same cramped cubicles, the same disorderly desks and with the same faces flitting about just like on the day they left at the last day of office preceding their vacation leaves. I guess it was just during lunch break, when people had a chance to talk with each other, that they realized that they were no longer employees of PRC. It was a grand Christmas for most of us since we were handed our retirement money together with sizeable ex-gratia reparation resulting from the redundancy of our positions. All of us came back from the holidays to our respective desks receiving the same salaries and benefits as before as if nothing happened.



Abby Limqueco, Nicey del Rosario, Ed Roa, Dina Sambenito, Sarita Suria
Maybelle Alamil, A Barredo, Nellie Ang, Maan Labit



I was able to ask for an extension of our stay in our office location within the PRC compound for a few months more until we could find a suitable place to relocate. Almost within the week I assembled the group to inform them of the immediate plans as well as the mid term ones. In the same assembly I organized a committee to edit the Management manual, the documentation of the remuneration policies of the new company and the rules of employment that I drafted. During the first few months we had frequent management meetings mainly to discuss the draft operating procedures of the company, production schedules and new business development.

FR: Maybelle Monteclaro, Maan Labit, Bella Quintos Robleza, ABarredo, Sarita Suria, Ed Roa, J Soleminio,Beth Veracruz, Abby Limqueco, del Rosario, Dina Sambenito, Lina Diaz. BR: Pepito, Angie Cantilleps, Felna Torre, Norrie Reyes, Julie Valencia, Malou Vinzons, Palacios, Nellie Ang, Violy Aleta, Quinones,Lyna Iwakawa, Lito

 



Rey Alejandro & KN Tang



Bruce Randall, Ed Roa, KN Tang, Fr. Anton Pascual

 



Bruce Randall, Peter Weldon,Rey Alejandro, Obet Pagdanganan, KN Tang, Ed Roa, Nonoy Niles



After a little over two months we were able to find a place in Makati, a residential building that was part of Urdaneta Village, a posh subdivision that had its frontage on the main commercial avenue of Paseo de Roxas. It was a three-bedroom bungalow with a large living room and dining area, a big garage and a big front and back yard. I had the garage transformed into a group discussion room; the data processing group used the living room and dining room. We had the field staff by the entrance of the house close to the foyer that was used as the briefing area for the interviewers. The house interior was fitted with storage shelves and working desks. Two bedrooms were utilized as the account service/analysts working area. The other bedroom was occupied by the account service/analysts group even had a dressing room that we transformed into a small library. My office was the smallest bedroom situated between the two account service rooms. I found it amusing to have a bathtub in my comfort room. Newell Grenfell, the head of SRG at that time noted that this was an auspicious start. The first SRG office also started in a residential building in Malaysia. Newell was the managing director of the first SRG research company from which the network grew into Asia’s biggest.



Ed & Nonoy w/Menchu Esteban at FG
Dedette Gamboa at BG



Ed, Rosie & Alice Pascual









 







  









Newell, Rosie & Ed



Ed & Newell Grenfell

The SRG Regional Management was composed of Newell Grenfell, chairman; KN Tang, managed technical development; Peter Weldon, acted as some sort of Corporate Affairs person. Peter was an old Manila hand having stayed in the Philippines as an officer in JUSMAG for a few years. He married Ditas, a Filipina, who is the sister of Jay Jay Calero the President of J Walter Thompson. Peter often surprised my staff with his fluency in Tagalog. Peter was one person who invited comment because of his size; about six foot seven and widely girthed. One time Peter parked his bulky frame in front of a secretary’s desk. The secretary blurted out in the vernacular “dito pa ba sa harap ko pumarada itong malaking halimaw na ito?” which roughly translates… “Does this big ogre have to park his bulk in front of me?” To her embarrassment Peter retorted in very clear and unaccented Pilipino that he is a visitor and should be treated more kindly.

Survey Research Group MDs, Directors & Senior Managers in HK Conference

David Sinden was in charge of Finance while David Sparkes looked after the field operations for the region. Sparkes had positive contributions to our field operations through his frequent visits to train our field force. Others who acted as members of the regional management by virtue of their ownership of the country SRG units that they themselves managed were Yong Kim Seng of Malaysia, Betty Jamie Chung, of SRG Taiwan; Chris Andrews of SRG Thailand and Rosie Chew of Consumer Pulse in the Philippines.

Indon Exp ?, Chris Andrews, Jan Standaert, Ed

I began meeting the rest of the managing directors including those who would be heading SRG units in the near future when I attended the annual plans conference. I met the late David O’Neill, who was the head of SRG New Zealand, Roh Ick Sang owner of Hankook Research in Korea, David McCallum, MD of SRG Singapore who would later occupy a position in the Asia Pacific Executive Committee as head of Customized Research. His successor would be Hoe Chin Fee, a very able lady Managing Director. Then there was Farquhar Stirling who would succeed David Sparkes as head of SRG Indonesia, Alistair Gordon, who had a stint in Consumer Pulse as MD before Nonoy Niles was recruited from P&G to take over the Consumer Pulse head post. Alistair would become MD of Malaysia and then head of Research and Development for the region. There was Paul Hasegawa of SRG Japan and George Fields, an Australian educated Japanese who authored the book “From Bonsai to Levis”, considered a primer for western companies starting out a business in Japan. He was head of a small ad testing company, ASI, which was acquired by SRG. There was Titan Wang, the successor of Betty Jamie Chung for SRG Taiwan; Sunchai Anuman Rajadhon, who took over SRG Thailand after Chris Andrews (former research manager of Unilever Indonesia) retired. Sunchai was educated in the US, he studied at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology and had his doctorate degree in Stanford University and was a BMOC as one of the stalwarts of the school’s golf team. Jan Standaert, a Belgian was the head of the newly opened SRG Vietnam. He did not stay long and was succeeded by Linh Nguyen, an Australian educated Vietnamese who repatriated when the socialist government of Vietnam followed the footsteps of the People’s Republic of China in their laissez faire attitude towards capitalism. Louis Tong of Hongkong spearheaded the entry into the People’s Republic China as the first MD of SRG China. From Canada, there was Doug Calhoun, whose research company in Toronto was acquired by SRG. In the US we had a New York office run by Jerry Stafford.

Link Workshop

After having made the transfer to our new offices in Makati the committee and I completed and documented the operating policies procedures for the new company. I called for a general meeting to communicate these to our people. SRG as a network was still at the stage where member companies were operating with much autonomy. There were no standard network-wide policies for operational aspects. I was very much on my own in the governance of the fledgling company. In a few years this would change with the acquisition of SRG by ACNielsen. The autonomy suited me fine. It gave me a chance to put into practice my own thoughts on organizations and the management of businesses…imprinting my signature on the new company as it were. I had time to work out on my own the guiding principles of the company and introduced revisions from the Unilever based ones that further enhanced the efficiency of the operations and made it more suitable to the requirements of an independent company. I needed this much leeway to softly usher the employees into a

Ed, Jes Dinglasan & Alistair Gordon

new working environment.

The directors who started with the independent Unisearch were Nena Barredo who came with the spun-off organization, Feddie Magpantay, a come-backing research director who left Consumer Pulse but was persuaded to join Unisearch. Dedette Gamboa, who was a senior management member of Unisearch in Unilever did not join the group but stayed on in Unilever to become its research manager. Included in the ex-Unilever group were two managers, Peachie Badilla and Reena Murga. Later on they were lured back by Unilever. Since this happened in a little less than a year of our start up it caused a bit of a problem because we were not quick enough to develop successors to keep the service running smoothly. In this situation you can only complain so much. The poaching party was our biggest client.

One of the shocks that I had to weather as head of an independent company was the myriad of details that I had to personally attend to. In my previous position in a big organization I relied on the various service units to do all these for me. Legal departments take care of your business permits and other municipal requirements. Commercial departments would take care of the salaries, equipment acquisition and sundry purchases. Screening and hiring of personnel were all done for you by the HR department. The most difficult change was meeting the financial challenges day to day and over the mid and long term. As department head in Unilever I never had to worry about the finances at a micro level. The Commercial Division handled all the financial requirements of the unit. The requirements of a small company are similar to those of a big one except that in a big company you have service departments to handle all these. I now had to do all these by myself with the occasional help from the staff. This is a cautionary tale to executives retiring from big companies and setting up their own businesses. You will no longer have the almost infinite financial resources and no large service departments’ facilities at your bidding. No little bell to summon minions for help.

Unilever Xmas Costume Party

It was a lot of work but at the same time it was very fulfilling. This was what I dreamt about during my early years. I now have my own company to run. It was a modest sized company that had a projected annual revenue of 12 to 15 million pesos and a work force numbering less than forty regulars and about five hundred contractual workers engaged in fieldwork and data processing. The first six months of operations had me wrestling with cash requirements. Almost every payday was a time for scrambling for cash. My client visits were mostly about pursuit of bill payments. Without any working capital infusion coming from the main office in Hongkong it took time before we could build up the cash position to a comfortable level. I could have asked for funds from the region and undoubtedly they would have extended the needed money. It was difficult getting through the uncertain times but it was an important learning experience and it was good for the soul as well. It left an indelible lesson that businesses should heed. Eyes on the cash flow always.

On the approach of our first Christmas as an independent company one big problem that loomed was how we can provide a fourteenth month bonus, a benefit that was carried over from Unilever. In November I asked for a moratorium on new business activities so that we could concentrate on finishing the final reports of Unilever projects. When we were still with Unilever not much priority was given to the writing of final reports. Because of the urgency of marketing requirements, we were forced to churn project after project and after meeting on the top line reports we proceeded to start with another until we had built up a humongous backlog of unfinished final reports. In Unilever, after a project has been completed and presented, the final report did not have to be completed immediately since no further action will be taken after this has been presented to marketing and action standards have already been agreed upon. After culling and storing data either as part of the norm bank or in general reference files, a final report was deemed as just a document for posterity.

The backlog amounted to more than six million pesos. This was about a quarter of a year’s worth of projects. Now that we were a separate company our service is only deemed completed by Unilever with the submission of the final report. In the research business the proof of service performance is the final report, thus, all billings had to be accompanied by this document.

The research executive group burned the midnight oil for more than a month so that we could convert the final reports to enough cash and make good on the promised fourteenth month bonus. We were able to give everyone a fourteenth month bonus and at the same time the inventory of unfinished final reports was pared down considerably. During our Christmas party that year we had a mass of thanksgiving for having hurdled the first year as an independent company and to acknowledge the heroic effort of the research executive group to raise funds for the fourteenth month bonus by tackling the backlog of final reports.

We were able to achieve eighteen million pesos revenue on our first year. Even though we did not have a target in our first year the revenue far exceeded our expectations. However, we showed a loss but only after paying off almost a million pesos amortized for the Unisearch name. Also, we had a lot of start up costs and I was still finding my way through the initial experience of running a company. At the start of our operations I hired Avelyn Palacios as accountant. Like most CPAs who had a stint with SGV (Sycip, Gorres and Velayo CPAs) she was efficient and quite able in her job. However, she did not share the optimism that most of us from the original crew had. She probably couldn’t stand the constant financial pressure and by the end of the year submitted her resignation. She said that as the company accountant she had an intimate knowledge of the financial status of the company. She could not see how we could last another year with the kind of financial problems that buffeted us throughout our first year. I would have loved to show her our financial statements of later years.

Unisearch SRG had good Research Service directors. Nena and Feddie were topnotch customized researchers who provided our clients with good interpretations of research results and well thought of suggestions for marketing actions. They were well appreciated by Unilever and other clients. However, what we lacked was a strong technical backup in statistics and computer expertise in data processing. I learned from Dedette Gamboa who was research manager of PRC at that time that Gerry Soleminio, erstwhile Operations Research manager of PRC was in between jobs. Gerry did not have any research experience but I remember him from PRC days as one person who used to hang around Unisearch because he was fascinated with market research. The Operations research people are experts at modeling and in their work applied high-level statistical tools. He was particularly interested in the work we were doing for brand engineering and simulated test markets, STM (predictive research on marketing mixes). The technology came from Research International and from another company called Novaction.

Roger Brookin introduced to us Novaction’s Perceptor, a market mix predictive system. He made extensive use of this in Nippon Lever in Japan. Most predictive researches relied on the normative data banks that were kept by the company who owned the system. Research International owned the normative data for Sensor and Locator while Novaction maintained the normbank for Assessor and Perceptor. The results from the research needed to be modified by global experience as well as market, ethnic and product specific ones. This dependence on norms made these researches expensive to its clients and held hostage to the system. At the same time the role of the research agency in projects would be relegated to just the field and data processing aspects of the research. I felt, that in the long term, we needed to have a deeper understanding of these systems so that we can do basic and developmental research, build up a norm bank of local experience which may prove to be more efficient than the global ones because it may be applied directly to local projects as well as being worked on by local analysts who would have a more intimate familiarity with the markets being worked on than their foreign counterparts. This should lessen our dependence on foreign sources. It was also important for us to be able to challenge the interpretation of the analysts in Paris or London who at times were not quite spot-on with their analyses because they would sometimes fail to appreciate subtle nuances of the market. This kind of research does not make pretensions to exactness and certainty. It has always required analyst intervention and other soft inputs to see which of the several simulation trials fit the market under scrutiny.

Xmas Party at the Hotel Intercontinental

Gerry Soleminio, with his modeling experience, would be one person who could help in this area. I had to be patient since he would still have to gain experience in actual market research work to have a better grasp of what we were about. Where he could be of immediate help was in data processing. That was one of his strong suits. While Gerry was absorbing as much and as fast as he could we still needed outside help on the sampling design and procedure for our largest research service, Mixtrack, a continuous and national market tracking survey conducted for the major product groups of Unilever. We were also generating participation from non-Unilever clients in this service. Consultants would help us keep improving the sampling design of Mixtrack and also get useful advice for our other quantitative researches. I took on the services of Pete Makanas, who used to be a director of the NCSO (National Census and Statistics Office) and whose daughter, Jane Beltran, used to be our statistician in the mid-seventies. He helped us in the sampling design of MixTrack our continuous national survey on brand performance for most PRC products. Later I took on the consultancy services of Terry Solivas of UP Los Banos when Pete’s availability became scarce.

We struggled with Mixtrack but I had the conviction that for us to continue to get the majority of Unilever research budget we must maintain and continually enhance our national market tracking service. Other international companies have introduced creditable tracking systems and soon Unilever will show interest in them thus posing a threat to divert a substantial portion of their budget away from Unisearch. Market tracking is about twenty percent of Unilever’s research budget. The business guarantee with Unilever was only for three years. We urgently needed to set aright Mixtrack to stave off this threat.

In another front, SRG was progressing their bid for a management buyout from its principal owner. Pergamon Press, a UK conglomerate who owned SRG among other businesses. SRG was in the middle of negotiations for a management buyout when the news of the sudden demise of Robert Maxwell, owner of Pergamon Press, broke. Robert Maxwell died under mysterious circumstances in his yacht somewhere in the Mediterranean. What ensued was the parceling off of the businesses empire by the heirs to raise funds to cover liabilities and to steady the financial state of Pergamon Press. SRG pursued their bid for a buyout and because of Pergamon’s need to expedite the cash build up the deal was hastily consummated and at probably half of what SRG was willing to pay during the earlier negotiations. This was a big boost to the share price of SRG so much so that at the time of ACNielsen’s acquisition of SRG the share price was more than ten times its original value.

ACNielsen’s outbidding International Research Services or IRS also helped the share price increase. This coup was done in dramatic fashion. SRG had already agreed to the price IRS tendered. With the signing of the agreement already scheduled the ACNielsen representatives swooped down to SRG’s regional offices and made a counter offer that was difficult to refuse. There was rejoicing in SRG when the deal was finalized. It made instant millionaires of the original incorporators while the other smaller shareholders in the company made minor fortunes from the windfall.

ACNielsen introduced themselves to SRG in typical slam bang fashion only Americans can muster. Eager to impress as quickly as possible, all the senior executives of SRG, director and up, were invited to a grand presentation of the major initiatives in new products and other technological advancements of the new order. I could still picture the scene in my mind. The big ballroom of the KL Intercon Hotel was filled with the convening of all the senior managers of SRG in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Cristos Cotsakos, the ACNielsen Chairman at that time entered the presentation stage in an almost deus ex machina fashion. Instinctively, I searched for wire strings because he seemed like he floated on air alighting in the middle aisle to greet an enthralled audience. All the right production values were there, the lighting effects, the sounds and the professional histrionics of Cristos Cotsakos, Cristos Superstar.

I was asked to present Price Wise, a price test that seemed hi-tech enough to show to the new masters because the system had a modeling component. One of the Nielsen executives, an African American seemed to have looked at it as an intrusion into their grand show and showed his displeasure.

Their piece de resistance was the Nielsen Solution System, NSS. This was an integrated system which made use of data inputs coming from various Nielsen data resources to manage trade and market scenarios. Focusing on trade-market, and/or solely market and trade situations, the confluence of data will provide well informed judgments as bases for decisions. We were all impressed and hopeful for what seemed to be the “holy grail” of market research has been brought down to us wretched natives on this side of the world. Deservedly, the NSS presentation received a good response and in the open forum it seemed that all questions were sufficiently answered and apprehensions allayed. It was too good to be true. It prompted me to put forth the “put your money where your mouth is” challenge and Cristos without hesitation promised two million US dollars forthcoming within a six-month period to make it available in Asia Pacific. This promise was never made good. NSS never came. In a few months Cristos Cotsakos left Nielsen and went off to venture in a new frontier, the e business in the internet. This would make him a very rich man in no time at all. It would be unfair to hold Nick Trivisonno, the new ACNielsen chairman, accountable for the reneged promise. To his credit what ensued after his appointment were initiatives in management, administrative and technical fields that were received positively by the Asia Pacific units. Personally, I thought that the Cristos Cotsakos et al presentations felt like a barter trade of trinkets and beads as the conquistadores of old foisted to the poor devils of a new found land.

Shortly before the ACNielsen takeover, Bienvenido Niles, Jr., better known as Nonoy joined the company. He took over the post of Alistair Gordon who was the CEO of ACNielsen Pulse. Alistair was assigned to ACNielsen Malaysia to succeed Yong Kim Seng who was slated for retirement that year. Nonoy was coming from a successful market research career in Procter and Gamble, USA where he held the position of Regional Research Manager for Asia. His impact on ACNielsen Pulse was almost immediate. Revenue growth and margins on his first year achieved a palpable positive change. The staff responded well to his charismatic leadership style and recognized the astuteness of his business decisions.

Nonoy lead ACNielsen Pulse through a string of years of successful operations. The ACNielsen regional management was quick to recognize the mettle of this man and promoted him to Managing Director of South East Asia of which the Philippines was a part of. He made my job as Managing Director of the combined Pulse and Unisearch, ACNielsen Philippines, a lot easier when he left me with a strong and dynamic ACNielsen Pulse organization and business that meshed well with my equally successful and robust ACNielsen Unisearch organization.

Mike Connors was brought in to manage ACNielsen Asia Pacific. He was assisted by KN Tang in this responsibility. The new managers who went with him in Asia Pacific were Jim Cravens, for Legal who then later handled HR. Ford Dalmeyer would assume the legal counsel position vacated by Jim; Frank Martell for Finance but would succeed Mike Connors as head of Asia Pacific in time. Finance was handed over to Mike Barna when Frank became president of Asia Pacific.

Even earlier than the ACNielsen acquisition, Dedette Gamboa joined Unisearch after her stint as Research Manager of PRC. Dedette had strong beliefs that she unwaveringly stood by. I think she had a difference of opinion with the Marketing Director Ole van der Straaten, who shortly became president of PRC. I knew Dedette from way back and that between Ole and her I trusted her to be on the morally correct side. For reasons of my own, my regard for the then president of PRC was less than ideal. All of a sudden I found myself with three research directors in client service. We could afford it but extra effort to increase revenue had to be made to ensure that no negative effect on our bottom line was incurred.

Before Dedette arrived there were two research directors occupying a room. We had to squeeze in a third desk to accommodate Dedette. Among the directors Feddie was the meekest and I was just speculating that she ended up in the middle of the three-desk alignment without a window because the two other directors were both strong willed and might have insisted on having window seats. The arrangement was alright for a while but later on Feddie mentioned that she was getting distracted by the constant debates that went on between Dedette and Nena, add to that the even noisier arguments that ensued when I joined the fray. I think Feddie might have mentioned her predicament to Rosie Chew. Rosie called me up to tell me that she has a need for Feddie in Pulse. Anyway, she said, that I probably had one more director than I needed. I didn’t want to let go of Feddie because with the triumvirate I had the strongest customized team in the whole industry and I was confident that we would be able to get more market shares in the customized market with the star team that I had. I acceded to Rosie because the request came from a sister company, and that Feddie would probably be glad to get out of a “Scylla and Charybdis” situation and also would be happier to be back with her former group.

I couldn’t hang on to Dedette for long. We had our differences before on research issues and often debated them ad nauseum or until we both run out of air. This time she complained of the long hours that the client service group had to put in to meet the targets. She mentioned that the hard driving atmosphere in Unisearch was unfair not only to her but to the other employees as well. She expressed this sentiment openly and it was not doing the morale of the company any good. I finally agreed to her leaving us for MBL-Trends. Mercy Abad, according to her, had a more humane management style and was easy on the sales quotas imposed on her people. I guess she found her ideal working place. She is still with MBL-Trends up to this day.

With the loss of Dedette, Nena did a yeoman’s job handling both the demanding Unilever account and the fast growing non-Unilever sector. We needed another director to help out. We were able to get Nini Balderama, formerly from Colgate to join us as Assistant Director. Not used to the pace in Unisearch, she did not stay long. We had to be contented with hiring research managers but there was a scarcity even at this level. We did not lack Research Executive trainees. We continuously looked for young men and women who would have the potential to become career researchers.

The experienced researchers in Unisearch did not have time to train. They were always out servicing clients and time in the office was spent doing analysis, writing up reports and preparing presentations. In one particular year I was lucky to get Professor Ned Roberto to agree to handle the training of our research executives. He was recently retired as head of the Marketing Department in the Asian Institute of Management, AIM so I asked him if he could do this for me. Dr. Roberto is a very well respected researcher in both the industry and the academe. As expected Dr. Roberto did a superb training job and it solved my training requirements for that year.

Later on with the entry of more senior personnel training became less of a problem. It took awhile before we were able to get Rosanna Caballero and Ambo Reyes to join Unisearch. Rosanna came from San Miguel. In her earlier years she was with market research under Tony Concepcion the head of the San Miguel research group at that time. She then went into marketing management then opted for early retirement. Ambo was also from San Miguel research. He joined Bases, a simulated test market system then included in Frank Small”s portfolio, as an analyst and expert in the system. Ambo was taken into ACNielsen when Bases became affiliated with ACNielsen. I took him in when he expressed his desire to have a permanent locally based post since he was just about burned out from too much traveling. After about two years Rosanna left to join her family in Australia. It was timely that Agnes Tayao, an ACNielsen research director assigned in the UK, was looking for a Philippine posting when her parents needed her to be close at hand for they were on in years and fragile in health. Agnes was heaven sent. She was an experienced client service person and was used to the kind pace we had at Unisearch. She had made the rounds of international assignments in ACNielsen with the posting in the UK as the last.

One of the recurrent problems was the replenishment of research executives who seemed to have had enough of the job after a year. Very few manage to graduate into management. We lose them to other agencies, other career alternatives, pursuit of masteral degrees and we also lose them to other SRG units. It was the practice in SRG and in ACNielsen to post vacancies in the company bulletin board or in the e-mail. Our executives were much in demand in the region. This led to the depletion in the research executive and research manager ranks.

Research International or RI, the former research agency of Unilever soon became active in Asia. They were the preferred international research agency buyer at the time Unilever put up Unisearch for sale. At that time their investment priority was in Europe and so they passed up their chance to acquire Unisearch. They now bought a substantial share of the Philippine Survey Research Company or PSRC which was owned by Menchu Esteban. PSRC was getting steady business from Colgate. This was to be expected since P&G used Consumer Pulse and Unilever had Unisearch. Menchu used to be with Rosie Chew in Consumer Pulse but eventually set up her own. PSRC was one of the bigger players in the local industry but were not improving their share of the business as fast as they would want to. Like other local companies they must have felt that affiliation with big international agencies was the way forward. Even before the Research International affiliation they had a tie up with Nielsen Media in an unsuccessful bid at wresting the Television Measurement service from Media Pulse who had enjoyed a monopoly of the television ratings business for quite some time.

The PSRC-RI affiliation was the first serious threat to our hold on Unilever. We were past the three-year business guarantee with Unilever and were now vulnerable to encroachments from other research agencies. At about the same time Menchu’s son RJ had joined her research organization. RJ Esteban was an ex Unilever manager who would include in his network Unilever managers in marketing who could or would have a direct influence in market research decisions in the company. Menchu could not have asked for a better person to hand over the family business. RJ was an energetic and able market researcher and has found acceptance in the industry despite his youth and relatively short experience in market research. The RI connection plus the positive influence of RJ in the local market made for a formidable competitor in PSRC. The area where they had successful incursions was in the Unilever regional projects where we almost had nil participation. However, they had little success in product development tests despite the serious effort they made in dislodging this from Unisearch. A major inroad that RI was able to make was not through PSRC but through another Research International company called Millward Brown who had two products that were developed for Unilever in Europe and were now being rolled out in Asia. They had the Advanced Tracking Program or ATP and the Advertising Pretest system named Preview which we had to learn because Unilever required us to have the ability to run these systems. Being the most senior client service person in the company Nena Barredo was trained to be the ATP and Preview champion for Unisearch.

The race for an efficient market tracking system had started way back. We have persevered with Mixtrack which, for the lack development support had to trudge and improve bit by painful bit. Mixtrack had very good features and were tailor made for take up into the information systems of PRC, however, we had an ungainly delivery system which could deliver great analysis but was not too marketing user friendly. Our competitors were Stochastic of MBL-Trends a company started by Mercy Abad and Market Minds of TNS run by the late Darrah Estrada who was once a Consumer Pulse Director. While we think that Mixtrack features were far superior from them we did not have the elegant delivery systems that both products of competition had. Marketing guys loved to play around with the tracking data by themselves. In the case of Mixtrack the analysis was always with Unisearch assistance. The other drawback was Mixtrack was not an imported system. In a highly technical field such as market research homegrown technology has an image handicap.

SRG regional management recognized the importance of pursuing the development of a “Rolls Royce” market tracking system. Every SRG country unit would have one form of homegrown tracking system and would ardently push for their models during the regional meetings that were held for market tracking development workshops. Flag waving was often the culprit why regionally assembled working committees hit the shoals. I probably was as guilty as the others when it came to the enthusiasm by which I would present Mixtrack and would not brook any criticism on it. The meetings usually deteriorated into a quail hunt where anything on the rise was shot down. Nothing ever came out of these conferences. After squandering SRG money and executive time the network elders looked elsewhere for solutions. They found this in Research International’s Advanced Tracking program.

These were to be trying times for Unisearch. Sixty percent of our revenues came from Unilever and twenty percent of their research spending was on market tracking. Mixtrack was to be defended at all cost. SRG was able to get an agreement with RI to include ATP in their portfolio as a joint effort that would be mutually beneficial. Since Unilever was a client in all the Asian countries where SRG operated it was really a very promising deal. Added to ATP, an ad pre-testing product, Preview was included in the SRG portfolio. Preview, was developed for Unilever by Research International through the encouragement of David Laker who at that time was the head of Market Research in Unilever. This was going to be rough sailing for us in Unisearch. We were up against Research International and the ties that they had with Unilever in the UK remained very strong. These research systems were designed by RI for Unilever and would therefore be the recommended practice in Unilever markets. Since it was a region-wide directive we had to participate in the training programs that were organized for our people to learn the operations of these two products. My best chance of resisting the directive was on the basis of costs. At this time, the Asian economic meltdown was upon us and all companies in the region, Unilever included, were grappling with budgetary problems. RI’s quote was in US dollars and was about 40% more expensive than Mixtrack. Also, US dollars were hard to acquire locally at that time. Mixtrack was acceptable to Unilever, Philippines and has been long in use with the marketing people. In the meantime we were pressing Tang Yeong Kim, the head of SRG’s technology application unit to hasten his development of Trackscope, the delivery system that we were adopting for Mixtrack.

I needed allies within SRG to ensure Mixtrack’s existence. The opportunity to present and hopefully persuade my MD colleagues about Mixtrack was during the gaps in regional meetings. I found cooperation from Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and later Indonesia. They agreed for us to send trainors of the system to their countries. I sent Gerry Soleminio to deliver the training to these countries. What we found in common with the countries interested in Mixtrack was the unwillingness of the Unilever companies to pay for the kind pricing RI had for the service. The economic down turn in Asia have made, even Unilever companies price conscious. The pricing was in US dollars. At the time severe forex upward swings were being experienced. Mixtrack found willing ears to what it had to offer because of friendly prices. Mixtrack had evolved into a tracking system that was customized to respond to the requirements of PRC’s information system. These would probably be no different from what Unilever would require in Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. With Mixtrack, we were able to hold on to a sufficiently large amount of business. In the meantime, ACNielsen persevered with the development of a tracking system and finally came up with Winning Brands that had reaped a modicum of success thus far or from what I knew of it at the time of my retirement. Winning Brands was able to somewhat spare us from ATP and from a potentially injurious alliance with a global competitor in a big revenue service area like market tracking.