last march 8-11, rs south asia (philippines, singapore, malaysia & thailand) gathered together at phuket island, thailand for our fy07 business launch, no boundaries. this was quite a big event since this was the first time that all countries in the region gathered together in one event. there were some country level preparations that were done prior to the launch and being in the marketing department means bulk of the job was on us. i hated it, part of me was honestly wishing that this phuket event would not push through ( hey, i did not wish for another tsunami, okay ? )
1st night - gala dinner
few hours after our long trip (PH team had to take connecting flight from SG to phuket since we're quite a big group, no airline w/ direct flight to phuket could accommodate us), we bathed and prepared ourselves for the formal dinner. the girls were supposed to wear cocktail dress and the guys should wear coat & tie (hmmm, to be fair to all, no national costume should be worn...the filipino guys could have bragged about our very unique & elegant barong tagalog, tsk,tsk,tsk). i wore a blue green cocktail dress w/c i borrowed from my sister (thanks ate jhett!), my roommate cum fashion-guru, lyn braided my hair and provided me with accessories.again, thanks to my sponsors (hehehe!) .
1st night's highlights were the following:
a) RS PH grabbed the South Asia Sales Champion Award (congrats kaye!)
b) R
S PH grabbed 1st place in the Karaoke Competition (as expected, hehehe!). we were asked to have a representative to sing one slow song & one fast song...no boundaries, we can be as creatively crazy as we can...our Distributors Sales Channel Manager, Mickey represented PH. he sang "the way you look tonight" & "crazy little thing called love"...RS girls served as back-up dancers.
S PH grabbed 1st place in the Karaoke Competition (as expected, hehehe!). we were asked to have a representative to sing one slow song & one fast song...no boundaries, we can be as creatively crazy as we can...our Distributors Sales Channel Manager, Mickey represented PH. he sang "the way you look tonight" & "crazy little thing called love"...RS girls served as back-up dancers.c) lastly, our first taste of Thailand's gay community...i felt insulted...they were so pretty and sexy.
2nd day - seminar
this was the business launch proper. the annual briefing on catalogue changes & new highlights for the coming FY was given to us. the "best piggy bank" winners were also awarded, congrats Ronald for grabbing the award for ODS Category. i think and you can call me bias (i don't care!) that among all the countries, PH's piggy banks were creatively done. after lunch, we had break-up sessions for our country discussion which mostly revolved on sales. after the seminar, we had dinner and shopping...i enjoyed
dinner more (one un-girly trait of mine). since phuket is actually a tourist destination, most of the items are really expensive. some items being sold there can actually be bought in boracay,divisoria, greenhills, tiendesitas, st.francis square...basta tiangge for a cheaper price. the vendors there are not as friendly and as accommodating compared to filipino people. i don't know if it's just thai people's manner of speaking or in some ways, they were discriminating us because we're obviously asians unlike the majority of their visitors who are mostly europeans...hey, don't we both belong to third world countries? you should know how to empathize, huh?!
dinner more (one un-girly trait of mine). since phuket is actually a tourist destination, most of the items are really expensive. some items being sold there can actually be bought in boracay,divisoria, greenhills, tiendesitas, st.francis square...basta tiangge for a cheaper price. the vendors there are not as friendly and as accommodating compared to filipino people. i don't know if it's just thai people's manner of speaking or in some ways, they were discriminating us because we're obviously asians unlike the majority of their visitors who are mostly europeans...hey, don't we both belong to third world countries? you should know how to empathize, huh?!3rd day - sports & creative events
third day was mainly focused on recreation, a very competitive recreation at that.to select the over-all champion, 10% of the criteria will be coming from the day 1 videoke competition, 40% from sports competition (water polo, beach volleyball, soccer) & 50% on creative competition (print ad, tv ad, radio ad & fashion show). i think all countries equalled in sports events.
since i'm asthmatic, i wasn't able to join any of the sports events and i was stuck in modelling. can you imagine? with my height, i looked like someone modelling for pre-teen garments or someone joining little miss philippines, hehehe. we actually modelled clothings which we decorated with rs products (cables, wires, capacitors, resistors, etc...) i enjoyed decorating the clothes actually. it's one of the pre-launch activities i've done. others are also creative stuff like the print ad, radio ad, tv ad and of course dance practices for the videoke competition.we were actually applauded when we modelled (can you believe that?). we did professional cat walk which i've just learned few hours before the show. we weren't able to practice when we were in PH office.due to PH's limited resources (RS PH is the only country without a warehouse thus we have very limited products to showcase), malaysia was able to beat us.well, my honest opinion is that, they did not actually do a fashion show, they were trying so hard
to be funny...but i must admit they do have a good showcase of rs products..that made them win. in terms of the advertisements, ph's advertisements are the ones with professionally- conceptualized campaign but not done professionally i must admit, since all the shooting & editing were done in-house. in fairness, ours are the ones that you can consider commercials.. short yet concise, messages clearly sent through to the audience. i don't know if you can call a 3 minute- testimonial or music video a tv commercial? how about an almost 2 -minute 
radio contest? is that a radio commercial??? so there, since the so-called fashion show had so much impact, malaysia placed over-all champion, philippines as 1st runner- up & singapore as 2nd runner-up. i don't wanna sound bitter but for someone who majored in advertising, my fair judgement is that our team should have won... in our hearts, we know we didn't exert so much effort in terms of preparations unlike malaysia so it's really okay if they grabbed the prize, they've worked so hard for it, in that sense alone, they deserved the championship they've won.
to be funny...but i must admit they do have a good showcase of rs products..that made them win. in terms of the advertisements, ph's advertisements are the ones with professionally- conceptualized campaign but not done professionally i must admit, since all the shooting & editing were done in-house. in fairness, ours are the ones that you can consider commercials.. short yet concise, messages clearly sent through to the audience. i don't know if you can call a 3 minute- testimonial or music video a tv commercial? how about an almost 2 -minute radio contest? is that a radio commercial??? so there, since the so-called fashion show had so much impact, malaysia placed over-all champion, philippines as 1st runner- up & singapore as 2nd runner-up. i don't wanna sound bitter but for someone who majored in advertising, my fair judgement is that our team should have won... in our hearts, we know we didn't exert so much effort in terms of preparations unlike malaysia so it's really okay if they grabbed the prize, they've worked so hard for it, in that sense alone, they deserved the championship they've won. 
afer the program, we had the chance to do whatever we want so lynn and i toured the place and took more pictures.we had dinner in the sidewalk and believe me the food is equally sumptuous as the ones you can eat in fancy restaurants.i was able to dip in the pool when we went back to the hotel...night swimming at its best.
4th day - farewell
last day was spent in travelling back to manila. phuket is such a nice place, i would love to go back if given another chance.
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