Philippines pulls tourism video for using stock footage of other countries, ends contract with agency
- Stock shots of Brazilian sand dunes, Indonesian rice terraces and locations in the UAE and Switzerland appeared in the ‘Love the Philippines’ advert
- The video, part of a US$880,000 new tourism campaign, has now been taken down. The agency that created it apologised for the ‘unfortunate oversight’
The Philippines’ Department of Tourism said on Monday that it was terminating a contract with a local ad agency after it used stock footage from other countries in a promotional video for its new tourism campaign.
The more than 90-second video 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.
02:04
Philippine tourism advert shows stock footage of Brazil, Indonesia and other countries
The video was “intended to be a mood video to excite internal stakeholders about the campaign,” the agency said. It added that the company produced the video at its own expense and no public funds were used to release it.
The Philippines’ Department of Tourism announced late on Saturday that it was investigating allegations that DDB’s video included “non-original shots”. The video was later removed from its Facebook page.
Popular Philippine blogger Sass Rogando Sasot had posted on Facebook that several images in the campaign video were from other countries.
