Class A talents

This is hope.

Aside from being a learning facilitator for the academe and the corporate world, I was given the privilege to collaborate with unique individuals with certain abilities and run a talent management firm.

We supply talent, primarily, for the local advertising industry. And sometimes, for regional projects.

(As an aside, we have a talent testing himself with the demands of the current Starstruck show. Modesty aside, it seems that, through hard work, he has won the confidence of the Starstruck Council. And knowing him, the experience of being in the bottom two last Sunday, will only drive his engine to become better.)

I'm just, let's say "sad", for the lack of a better term, that when casting calls are made and the client specifies "Class A" talents, it usually means mestizas and mestizos. Worse, Brazilian models who only speak halting Tagalog.

Let me be clear - I have nothing against the men and women of South America. I just feel sad that when local advertisers and fellow Filipino want to position their products in the aspirational category, they will use mestizas, mestizos and Brazilians as the device to communicate the aspiration idea. Why? Maybe it's the advertiser's bias or simply the limitation of the creative mind in coming out of a new take on communicating "aspirational".

This is an honest and pure question - do we look upon ourselves, as a race, so low that our kayumanggi color will not be effective in communicating an aspirational concept?

Or are we so lazy to come up with a fresher idea to communicate an aspirational product? = )

I pray and I hope for creativity to strike in the creative minds of the creative directors that they come up with a 2010 take on communicating aspiration = )

"... why think like mere men?"