The Philippines’ Department of Tourism (DOT) on Monday terminated a contract with a local ad agency, DDB Philippines, after it used stock footage from other countries in a promotional video for its new tourism campaign.
The video of almost 90 seconds was launched together with a new tourism slogan “Love The Philippines” last week.
While there was initial excitement over the new logo and video, people on the internet started pointing out that some scenes were footage from other countries.
The stock footage included rice terraces in Indonesia, a silhouette figure of a fisherman in Thailand, an airport runway in Switzerland, jumping dolphins from an unspecified location, and sand dunes in the United Arab Emirates.
In a statement, the tourism office said it “is in solidarity with our fellow Filipinos in expressing our outrage and extreme disappointment at the use of non-original/stock footage purporting to be scenes from the Philippines.”
The department cancelled its contract with DDB Philippines, the local company behind the ad, saying the firm’s “abject failure to comply with their obligation/s under the contract” was behind the cancellation.
DDB Philippines apologized in a statement on Sunday, saying the video was “intended to be a mood video to excite internal stakeholders about the campaign.”
It added that the company produced the video at its own expense and no public funds were used to release it.
“The use of foreign stock footage in a campaign promoting the Philippines is highly inappropriate, and contradictory to the DOT’s objectives,” the company said.
