Explaining the Disappearance of GMA’s Teleserye Episode Teasers

Notice something different on GMA these past few weeks?

Anyone who tuned in to Channel 7 should take a look at the commercial breaks during every program. There are the usual episode teasers, programming trailers and advisories, product advertisements, and for election season, political advertisements for national candidates.

But there is one aspect that is missing from these commercial breaks of late, and that is the episode teasers for all GMA teleseryes. So what happened to them?

As April got underway, GMA elected to stop airing episode teasers for their teleseryes, and instead create repetitive 10-second advisories for each program. Even in the network’s official YouTube page, the said episode teasers were nowhere to be found of late; their most recent upload was that of ‘Poor Señorita’ (see above), and that was two weeks ago.

The motive of GMA, it seems, is to save money, particularly since the upcoming national elections will require a heftier budget for GMA News coverage and teleseryes take a majority of the network’s overall production cost. While GMA appeared to have increased their income by 111%, as far as they were concerned, it was still not enough.

Remember, an episode teaser’s purpose is to preview the upcoming episode that will air on that day. But since GMA decided to remove this approach for their teleseryes, this left viewers without any information on what will happen to the upcoming episode of a particular series.

That said, with the lack of any promotional effort for their teleseryes, GMA’s continued decline is once again becoming evident. And it didn’t help that they are also a non-factor in the ratings and on social media.

It will be interesting to see how this latest conservative effort will pay off for GMA. With elections drawing near, GMA needs to step up their game, otherwise they might fall even further behind ABS-CBN and TV5 as far as technological resources go.

And yes, there’s still the new ‘Encantadia’ to worry about, so this is definitely now or never for GMA. Good luck.

AlDub Pa More, Commercial Style

The tandem of Alden Richards and Maine Mendoza is becoming increasingly bankable.

Not only are they helping ‘Eat Bulaga’ reach new levels of popularity, but they are also becoming more attractive to advertisers. The tandem’s well-received commercial plugs with McDonalds and TNT (Talk N’ Text) has led to even more endorsements as the year comes to an end.

These include commercials for the following products:

Bear Brand Adult Plus

Tide 6

Coca-Cola

Downy

Datu Puti

Hapee Toothpaste

Zonrox

Outside of AlDub, Alden and Maine also shot individual commercials for products such as Boardwalk and O+. Even Wally Bayola, Jose Manalo and Paolo Ballesteros (in character as Lola Nidora, Tinidora and Tidora respectively) have made an appearance in some of their commercials.

Not all parties are happy with their success. ABS-CBN, in particular, has some strict rules regarding commercials, which should explain why AlDub commercials there have been limited and at times edited by the network.

Of course, ABS-CBN did not want to risk losing viewers simply by accepting a split-screen duo that is more synonymous with rival GMA, TAPE Inc. and ‘Eat Bulaga’. They have their own bankable set of love teams, after all.

 

With the success of AlDub translating into higher revenue for the products they endorse, it is clear how transcendent the two have been to advertisers. But what about the big screen, as in ‘My Bebe Love: #KiligPaMore’?

Let’s wait and see if their impact on ‘Eat Bulaga’ and commercial endorsements will translate into box-office success this Christmas.

Colgate-Palmolive Ads Return to GMA

GMA and Colgate-Palmolive are back together.

Commercials for Colgate and Palmolive quietly resurfaced on the Kapuso network last Sunday, April 5. This marked the first time since 2010 that the consumer products giant made its presence felt on the Kapuso side.

It can be recalled that Colgate and Palmolive products first aired on GMA after some disagreements with long-time partner ABS-CBN regarding ad rates. A few months later, however, CP’s products moved back to ABS-CBN after sales of their products declined during the company’s stint with GMA.

It is unclear why Colgate-Palmolive decided to renew ties with GMA, but it is believed that the former’s endorsement deals with Kapuso stars Carla Abellana and Megan Young (examples below) were a key reason behind the company’s decision to air their ads on GMA.

Despite the return of Colgate and Palmolive ads on the Kapuso network, the former will continue to honor its pre-existing allegiance with ABS-CBN. Considering that there are also Kapamilya talents who endorse Colgate and Palmolive (e.g. Liza Soberano, KC Concepcion), it is only fair for CP to air their commercials on both networks.

Still, it is surprising to see Colgate and Palmolive ads resurface on GMA. After all, they have been so identified with ABS-CBN all these years that rival fans from other networks seem to have forgotten about their products.

But Colgate-Palmolive needs to sell and promote. And adding another network in GMA should help their cause.