Following the Department of Tourism’s (DOT) statement regarding the use of stock footage in the promotional video for the “Love the Philippines” tourism campaign, advertising agency DDB Philippines issued an apology on Sunday, taking full responsibility for the issue.
“As DOT’s agency on record for the launch of this campaign, we take full responsibility over this matter,” the ad agency said in an apology letter to the DOT.
Earlier, Tourism Secretary Christina Frasco said that they were now conducting an “exhaustive investigation” regarding the usage of non-original clips in the audio-visual presentation shown in the launch event of the Love the Philippines campaign.
“As one of the many other forthcoming components of the launch of the enhanced tourism campaign, the DOT’s contracted agency, DDB Philippines, prepared and published an audio-visual presentation (AVP) which has recently been the subject of scrutiny on the alleged use of non-original shots in certain parts of the AVP,” Frasco said.
“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.
The stock videos include shots taken in Thailand, Indonesia, Switzerland, and the United Arab Emirates that are all sourced from a stock video website Storyblocks.
