Brand refresh: PLDT, Smart usher in a new digital era

MANILA, Philippines – Abrand new logo, a brand new day.

The PLDT Building along Makati Avenue was lit up last week to showcase the new logos of PLDT Inc. and Smart Communications as the industry who’s who gathered at the nearby Rizal Ballroom of the Makati Shangri-La Hotel.

Call it the quintessential facelift of the digital age – lots of hype, fanfare, noise (online and offline) and a primal scream  from  the crowd as the ‘90s rock band Eraserheads, who last performed together in a concert about seven years ago,  dished out song after song in a surprise reunion concert.

“It’s not just the logo. The logo is a minor component,” PLDT Smart chairman and CEO Manuel Pangilinan told reporters, who were all straining to hear amid the blast from the stage and shrieking hyped-up crowd.

What changes are expected? “A lot,” he says. “Across the board – networks, service platforms, people, directions, etc. Our network’s got to improve, our services have to improve.”

A white paper published by Forbes in 2014 entitled “Refresh And Extend Your Brand” says it clearly: Companies doing brand refresh must extend the brand to create compelling experiences.

The PLDT Group’s new brand approach, the company explains in its news release, is anchored on a business shift to a new set of compelling data-driven services.

Since news of the sale of the telecommunications business of San Miguel Corporation (SMC) to PLDT and Globe Telecom – a move that the two telcos long clamored and lobbied for quite fiercely – was announced early this month, hopes were raised that this country would finally see some significant changes in the country’s digital infrastructure.

For PLDT’s  subscribers and enterprise customers, “compelling” only means one thing: true high-speed broadband at a lower cost.

How the 88-year-old conglomerate will make it happen is the story that it says would unfold in the next three years of a carefully planned “digital pivot.”  The cost: A cool P43-billion in capital expenditure for this year alone, and around $100 million more thrown in following the buyout of SMC’s telco business and for the  development and full utilization of the 700 Mhz frequency band.

A Brand-New Home

How the world’s biggest tech companies have turned their corporate headquarters into giant university-like campuses is part of the lore and the “wow” of Silicon Valley.

The PLDT Group wants to have its own campus that would place all its subsidiaries side by side with the headquarters – a community (we could only hope or surmise) with possible Valley-type ethos, dynamism, and a mindset focused on innovation and entrepreneurship.

“We haven’t decided on (the place) yet but I think we have an ongoing conversation to move out of Makati  to the South,” Pangilinan says, adding that while nothing has been finalized yet including the property and the full cost of the development, he estimates the cost of the buildings alone to be in the order of around P10 billion.

While the crowd was high on ‘90s Eraserheads hits Huling El Bimbo, Toyang, Pare Ko, and Pop Machine, among others, few probably noticed that a scale model of the proposed PLDT campus was on display near the entrance of the ballroom, though covered for most part of the evening.

In this scale model, the new red and green colors of PLDT and Smart, respectively, are very prominent. It has telco towers (of course), buildings – low- and medium-rises as well as high-rises, shopping areas, gas stations, and what looks like apartment complexes.

“Rather than allow ourselves to be disrupted by new technologies, we are disrupting ourselves,” Pangilinan says.

The ‘Digital Dividend’

It has taken 33 years for PLDT to change its iconic logo and it was a seminal changing of the guards in an era that was defined and continue to be defined by swift and never-ending changes.

What many are actually looking at now, aside from dramatic improvements in internet speed, is how the company will contribute to the so-called digital dividend, now that it has access to additional spectrum. That is, if it could pass the scrutiny of the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) that its purchase of 50 percent of the telco business of SMC is not anti-consumer.

A World Bank report released last month entitled “World Development Report 2016: Digital Dividends” reveals that the broader development benefits from using digital technologies  – the Internet, mobile phones, and all other tools to collect, store, analyze, and share information digitally – have lagged behind.

“Digital adoption will not be enough,” the report says, adding that to get the most out of the digital revolution, countries must “strengthen regulations that ensure competition among businesses, by adapting workers’ skills to the demands of the new economy, and by ensuring that institutions are accountable.”

It is this kind of institutional accountability that is expected of the likes of PLDT – beyond the hype, the fanfare, the new logos, and all the corporate speak on digital lifestyles and pivots.

After all, in its own words, it describes itself as a company with “a passion to innovate.”