A travel video designed to promote the Philippines used stock footage from other countries as landmarks in the country, Insider reports.
The ad, which is part of the $900,000 “Love the Philippines” campaign, featured rice terraces in Indonesia and dunes in Brazil, among others. It was possible to find out the substitution with the help of meticulous Internet users.
Filipino blogger Sass Rogando Sasot first pointed out on her Facebook page that at least five scenes from the video were filmed in locations outside the country. In the same post, Sasot compiled the scenes into a comparison video and credited the sources of the foreign clips, all of which were available on stock footage websites.
Among them were rice terraces in Bali, a fisherman throwing a net into the water in Thailand, and a man riding on dunes in Dubai. A follow-up review by AFP confirmed her findings, according to Channel News Asia. The video, which was originally uploaded to Youtube, has since been taken down.
Initially, the Department of Tourism (DOT) stated that there could be no mistake, and they requested proof of originality and ownership of all materials used in the video. However, the DOT was later forced to say that it had launched an investigation into the allegations.
Following the revelation, advertising agency DDB Philippines apologized for the “grossly inappropriate” images, local online newspaper SunStar Manila reported, citing the company’s statement.
“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. The use of foreign footage in a campaign to promote the Philippines is highly inappropriate and contrary to the goals of DOT,” the agency said in a statement.
The agency also added that no public funds were involved in funding the video. Tourism Minister Cristina Garcia Frasco also released a Facebook statement on behalf of the Department of Tourism (DOT) of the Philippines.
“During the meetings and consultations held about improving the tourism brand, DOT, for its part, repeatedly asked DDB to confirm the originality and ownership of all materials. In all these cases, DDB repeatedly assured DOT that they have ownership of all materials”, Frasco wrote in a post.