A tourism video painting the Philippines as a glorious holiday destination was exposed for using random stock footage of tourist spots in Bali and Dubai

Amanda Goh
Updated ·3 min read
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  • A tourism video meant to promote the Philippines has been slammed for using stock footage of other countries.

  • The video — which is part of a $900,000 campaign — featured places in Brazil and Indonesia, among others.

  • DDB Philippines, the advertising agency behind the video, has since apologized for the mistake.

A video that's part of a tourism campaign to promote the Philippines as a holiday destination has drawn flak for using stock footage of other countries.

Filipino blogger Sass Rogando Sasot first pointed out on her Facebook page that at least five clips featured in the new "Love The Philippines" tourism video were of places outside of the country — including Indonesia, Thailand, and even the United Arab Emirates.

In the same post, Sasot compiled the scenes into a comparison video that identified the original sources of the foreign clips — all of which were available on stock footage websites.

Among them were scenes of rice terraces in Bali, a fisherman throwing a net into the water in Thailand, and a person driving over sand dunes in Dubai.

A subsequent check by AFP confirmed her findings, as reported by Channel News Asia. The video was part of the Philippines government's $900,000 "Love The Philippines" tourism campaign that was launched on June 27.

DDB Philippines, the ad agency behind the video, apologized on Sunday for the embarrassing blunder, local online paper SunStar Manila reported, citing a statement from the company.

"While the use of stock footage in mood videos is standard practice in the industry, the use of foreign stock footage was an unfortunate oversight on our agency's part," DDB Philippines said in the statement. "Proper screening and approval processes should have been strictly followed."

The agency added that the video was meant to be "a mood video to excite internal stakeholders about the campaign" and that "no public funds were released, or would be released, to fund the video," per the statement.

The video, which was originally uploaded onto Youtube, has since been taken down.

Tourism Secretary Christina Garcia Frasco also released a statement on Facebook on behalf of the Department of Tourism (DOT) of the Philippines.

"During the various meetings and consultations held relative to the tourism brand enhancement, the DOT, for its part, repeatedly sought confirmation from DDB on the originality and ownership of all materials contained in the AVPs and key visuals presented to the Department. In ALL these occasions, DDB repeatedly assured the DOT that the originality and ownership of all materials are in order," Frasco wrote in a post that was uploaded on Sunday.

"The DOT is currently conducting an exhaustive investigation to determine the veracity of, and to gather the full faculty of facts on, these allegations," she added.

Sasot, DDB Philippines, and the DOT did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Insider.

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