Comm 130 HWX

AQUINO, Regina Coeli T.

2012-20247

Critical Paper #2

A test of TRUSTworthiness:
An analysis of Trust Contraceptives Yes to Choices! TV advertisement
The issue of reproductive health here in the Philippines seems unending. For many years, religious and
conservative groups wielded their influence over ordinary people and the Congress to repeatedly block the
enactment of a national reproductive health policy. It was only in December 2012, when the much contested
Reproductive Health Bill was finally signed into law. But in a cruel twist of fate, the Supreme Court temporarily
stopped the implementation of the law in March 2013 because the law is offensive to religion and fosters abortion
(Agreda, 2013). The restraining order was extended indefinitely in July 2013 (Avendao, 2013).
If such legislation on reproductive health had to go through so much, what obstacles does a reproductive
health advertisement have to take into consideration to convince a society that generally remains hesitant to discuss
sexuality?
DKT International is a US-based company which sells reproductive health products and services in 19
countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, including the Philippines (DKT International, n.d.). Recently, DKT
Philippines launched a new TV advertisement where celebrity couple Ariel Rivera and Gelli De Belen endorses
Trust contraceptives, a DKT brand specific to the Philippines. The ad operates on the tagline Yes to choices, yes to
Trust Quality Choices!
This paper will analyze the ads content and rhetoric using the Social Marketing Theory, and critique the
unsaid ideologies behind the ad using Marxist and feminist theories.
Dissecting the ad
The Trust ad runs for 30 seconds. Below is a dissection of the ads script and the accompanying visuals for
each line.
The ad opens with the question, Condoms at pills ba? A packet of condom enters the screen from the left,
then a blister pack of pills enters from the right.
We then see Rivera and de Belen snuggled on a couch in a living room. This is where De Belen says,
Pagdating sa reproductive health choices, marami nang napapa-yes! The dominant colors in this frame are blue
and white, similar to that of Trusts.

De Belen then enumerates the people who have said yes to reproductive health choices. These are: 1) mga
mag-ina, where we see a mother and her daughter adore a baby then hold up a placard which says Yes to PILLS;
2) magkatropa, where a group of boys playing basketball hold up a placard which says Yes to CONDOMS; 3)
mag-asawa, where a bride and groom ride a bridal car which bears the placard Yes to LUBRICANTS; 4)
magkumare, where three housewives who were hanging their freshly-laundered clothes carry the placard Yes to
INJECTABLES and Yes to IUD; and 5) at mag-best friends forever! where we see the celebrity couple again,
this time at a park, where a father and mother are playing with their child.
The camera zooms into a medium-close up shot of the couple, where Rivera speaks for the first time. He
says, At para makapili ka ng bagay sayo, narito ang Trust Quality Choices! and holds up a placard bearing the
logo of Trust.
He continues, Hanapin lang ang seal of Trust, ka-partner natin sa reproductive health for more than 20
years! We then see Trust condom brands such as Frenzy, Premiere, and Max displayed on the counter of a
pharmacy.
We see the celebrity couple again, with the Trust logo and the list of all of its offerings at the background.
Rivera says, Lahat ng ito, pwedeng pag-pilian!
Rivera and De Belen then say in unison, So now you can say yes to choices, and we see the condom and
pill from the opening of the ad become the letter o and i respectively in the word choices.
The ad ends with the line Yes to Trust quality choices! The couple occupies center-frame beside the
words Yes to Trust Quality Choices. Surrounding them is a collage of other people carrying the placards
previously shown in the ad.
On the surface: DKT International and social marketing
DKT Internationals business slogan is Social marketing for a better life (DKT International, n.d.). It
boasts that social marketing annually provides over 600 million condoms, 76 million oral contraceptive pills, 16
million injectable contraceptives, and over 1.5 million IUDs (para. 2) which provide safe and affordable options
for family planning and HIV prevention (para. 1).
Social marketing is a communication strategy used by sellers of products, services, and most importantly,
ideas that can bring about social change (Baran & Davis, 2012). DKT evidently applied the theory in the creation of
the Trust advertisement.

The companys method of inducing awareness is by broadcasting the Trust ad over television, a medium
that has a wide reach. The combination of audio and visual components in TV makes it a more attractive advertising
medium than radio and print. Ads can also be played repeatedly and at specific timeslots until the audience are
persuaded to avail the product (Stroebel, n.d.).
When Gelli de Belen enumerated the people who have said yes to reproductive health choices, it was clear
that the ad was targeting Filipinos who are 1) sexually active, aged 18 or older, 2) the single, dating, and married
audience, and 3) from the middle class because aside from condoms and pills, it promoted less well-known methods
of contraception such as injectables and intra-uterine device (IUD). The segmentation of the target market according
to gender will be discussed in the next section of this paper.
The ad also used images to stimulate interest and cultivate good impressions. DKT Philippines hitched on
the status of Ariel Rivera and Gelli de Belen as one of the strongest couples in Philippine show business. It seems to
imply that the relationships of people who practice safe sex last longer. On the other hand, the non-celebrity actors
and actresses in the commercial all had jubilant faces, indicating that they feel happy and safe with Trust
contraceptives. The ad also employed light, jolly musical score. The ad also maintained a light, conversational tone
not to serious, but not lowbrow.
The ads tagline Yes to choices, yes to Trust Quality Choices! highlights the ultimate value of Trust
contraceptives it is pro-choice. Although the last line champions the brand itself, the imparted message is
totalizing that using contraceptives in general enables one to have a responsible, satisfying sex whenever,
wherever, however, and with whomever he/she chooses to.
People have encountered this ad on other media, particularly on billboards, ensuring that Trusts message is
received from other channels. By selling its products in the market at affordable prices and by providing the
Philippine government with reproductive health products and trainings, DKT is able to translate its influence into
purchasing action, selling around 34 million condoms, 30 million pills, one million injectables, and 22,000 IUDs in
2012 (DKT International, 2013).
Beyond the surface: a Marxist and feminist critique
While it may seem on the surface that the ad is selling us contraceptives only, it also subtly prescribes how
the society should look like in sexual and socioeconomic terms.
The Trust ad tells us that women also have a choice in protecting their reproductive health. By advertising

contraceptives for both men and women, the ad counters the dominance of male condom TV ads which give the
impression that only men have the means to protect their reproductive health. It is unfortunate though that the Trust
ad did not deviate from the usual portrayal of women in passive roles in advertisements (Hamzeh, 2010). The female
characters in the ad are still bound to domestic work the mother and her daughter are taking care of a baby, and the
three housewives have just finished doing the laundry.
With the presence of the bride and groom, the father and mother in the park, and de Belen and Rivera,
heterosexual relationships are dominant in the ad. But I speculate that the ad also acknowledges homosexual
relationships, especially in the part where a group of boys playing basketball hold up a placard which says Yes to
CONDOMS. Usually, male condom ads portray heterosexual relationships where the male is sexually aggressive
and the female is a mere object of sexual desire (Hamzeh, 2010). In the creation of the Trust ad, it is very easy to
make the bride and groom advocate condom use, but the creators made five young, athletic boys do it instead. I
think that is an acknowledgment that some men are sexually intimate with their fellow men.
Lastly, the Trust ad reinforces the idea that a small family is better, especially in poor countries. In the
Philippine context, contraception is supported mainly because it controls overpopulation which is linked to
increasing poverty (Chua, 2011). But from a Marxist viewpoint, the issue of poverty stems not from overpopulation,
but from the uneven distribution of resources. A big population can even be advantageous, provided that
government rechannel public funds to education, healthcare, and the creation of industries. But as long as power and
resources remain in the hands of the greedy few, reducing the population will not alleviate the poverty of the
majority.

Through the Trust contraceptives Yes to Choices! TV advertisement, DKT did a commendable job for
breaking the Philippines conservative silence on discussions about sex, and advocating reproductive health,
especially for women. However, it still manifested some of the ills of advertising when it confined its female
characters in domestic roles, and when it promoted the ruling class ideology of population control without
advocating for social justice and security. DKT, and other self-proclaimed social marketers for that matter, must
cease to reinforce the inequalities in the present system, because it is only then that the people can trust that they are
truly for social change.

References:
Agreda, J. M. (2013, March 20). Supreme Court order on RH law welcomed. Sun Star. Retrieved from
http://www.sunstar.com.ph/baguio/local-news/2013/03/20/supreme-court-order-rh-law-welcomed-273964
Avendao, C. O. (2013, July 17). SC extends RH law TRO indefinitely. Inquirer.net. Retrieved from
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/445981/sc-extends-sqa-vs-rh-law
Baran, S. J. & Davis, D. K. (2012). Social Marketing Theory. In Mass Communication Theory: Foundations,
Ferment, and Future (6th ed.) (pp. 284-288) [PDF]. Retrieved from http://www.bookza.org
Chua, P. (2011). Condoms in the global economy. In Seidman, S., Fischer, N. & Meeks, C. (Eds.), Introducing the
New Sexuality Studies (2nd ed.) (pp. 509-513) [PDF]. Retrieved from http://www.bookza.org
DKT International. (2013). 2012 Contraceptive Social Marketing Statistics. Annual Report. Retrieved from
http://www.dktinternational.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/2012-Contraceptive-Marketing-Statistics.pdf
DKT International. (n.d.). Contraceptive Social Marketing. DKT International Family Planning and HIV
Prevention. Retrieved from http://www.dktinternational.org/contraceptive-social-marketing/contraceptivesocial-marketing/
Hamzeh, D. (2010). A Textual Analysis of Trojan Condoms: Depiction of Gender Roles. Unpublished manuscript.
Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/DaliaHamzeh/textual-analysis-of-trojan-condoms-advertisements
Stroebel, L. (n.d.). Advantages of Television Advertising. Radio Advertising, television advertising, Media
Planning.
advertising

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http://www.echoads.co.za/index.php/articles/65-advantages-of-television-