The Southeast Asian country’s tourism ministry has apologized after releasing a promotional video, using photos taken in Brazil, Indonesia, and Switzerland.
Quack in the promotion of tourism in the Philippines. The Ministry of Tourism had to withdraw a video supposed to promote tourism in this Southeast Asian country, it contained images of sites located in Indonesia, Brazil, the United Arab Emirates or Switzerland.
The advertising agency DDB Philippines, which produced the video, apologized on Sunday for the “totally inappropriate” images in it, showing for example rice terraces in Indonesia and sand dunes in Brazil or United Arab Emirates.
The video was part of the “Love the Philippines” promotion program, launched on June 27, which cost the government $900,000.
Rice fields located in Indonesia
It was a very popular Filipina blogger, Sass Rogando Sasot, who exposed the false advertisement.
“The paddy fields at 16 seconds in the Philippine Department of Tourism’s launch video for #LoveThePhilippines are NOT from the Philippines. They are paddy fields in Indonesia,” she wrote on Facebook on Saturday.
Analysis by AFP’s Fact Check team confirmed that the video included footage showing locations in Brazil, Indonesia, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates.
Images not “enough” verified
Apologizing, the DDB agency, which says it was the one who paid for the production of the video, admitted to having used stock photos, without having “checked carefully enough” the origin of the photos.
“The Ministry of Tourism stands in solidarity with our Filipino compatriots in expressing its extreme disappointment and outrage at the use of non-original images believed to have been taken in the Philippines,” the ministry said in a statement on Sunday. The Ministry of Tourism removed the video from its Facebook page.
He also assured that he had “repeatedly asked DDB to confirm that all the images used in the audio-visual presentations of the campaign were indeed original and their property”. “Each time, DDB assured us that this was indeed the case,” he added.
Source: BFM TV
