Data insights

We looked at the Philippines’ GDP (Growth Domestic Product) graphs, the charts best suited to tell the story of Philippine economic growth. And we found out that the percentage value always falls between 0 to 8, each year.

Meanwhile, we looked at a common Philippine pre-occupation - music. Music dominates the lives of the Filipino. We are just crazy about it - we sing everywhere, we sing anytime, we sing anywhere. It’s a part of our everyday lives. Music makes us happy, and we enjoy listening, dancing and singing to it, from the smallest karaoke joints to the world’s biggest stages.

Innovation

GDP Data = musical notes! Using the Filipinos’ love for music, we found a way to transform data into sound. Presenting: the Sounds of Progress!

Originality

Never before has economic data - so straightforward, clinical and utterly serious - crossed over into mainstream pop music! We created a full song from the GDP data gathered, with lyrics that told the story of the Philippine economic growth, and melody by one of the hottest pop music stars of today, Thyro Alfaro.

Data journey

It started with NEDA's numbers, graphs, and charts. For more than 30 years, they have been gathering data on the Philippine economy’s growth, but has never found an ideal venue to reach out to the people. They needed a creative device to enhance the data they have in their hands.

Implementation

From gathering all the data-the graphs,charts, and numbers, to the writing of the music, up to the production of the music video and the launch of the campaign, it took roughly 4 months.

Data integration

Integrating GDP data with music fell naturally into place. As soon as the numbers and the graphs were interpolated into musical scale and transposed into notes, the song almost wrote itself. The involvement of having Thyro Alfaro provided the necessary pop music hook to the campaign.

Application

The song was released with a music video - and treated as an actual pop song, not a commercial jingle. The song resonated well with the masses, especially with it being sung by Thryo, one of the hottest pop acts in Philippine music. The song was also made available for download, and released complete with a lyrics video, so viewers and listeners can sing along.

Data enhanced consumer experience

It was featured on a number of Tech Blogs eg Unbox.ph, where the effort was dubbed “sick creativity”.Major news sites featured the campaign.A United Nations publication featured the campaign in an exclusively distributed worldwide magazine.It garnered more than 1 million views in less than 10 days.It delivered high engagement rate of 32%.

Data driven behaviour change

“So amazing and inspiring…” “Great idea, great music” “I believe in the Filipino’s enthusiasm and dynamism”

Just some of the more than 2,000 shares and comments the song has received. The feel good, catchy music penetrated the common Filipinos’ hearts,and ultimately made them realize and understand the economic growth story that the country has been experiencing. Suddenly, it feels like the future isn’t so bleak after all.

Business impact

NEDA was able to clearly communicate its objectives well,and accomplished what it sought out to do. The song not only spawned a legion of Filipino followers,all singing to its catchy tune—the song even inspired a dance routine! A video featuring NEDA workers from all over the nation,all singing the same song of inspiration, all dancing to the same dance steps - a big step into a positive future for this country.

The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) is a government arm tasked to gather data on the economic growth of the Philippines. For the last 30 years, they have recorded some of the fastest growth spurts in the Philippine economy, providing enough support to show that the Philippine economy is indeed one of the fastest growers in the world. Information that has eluded the attention of the common Filipino, who has remained skeptical about the country’s future. Up until last year, all of this data has remained just that — in the form of complicated numbers, charts and graphs.

Data gathering

Gathering data for the task was not the least bit challenging - because NEDA has always been about data. Pages upon pages of graphs, charts, numbers are easily collected from the NEDA head office, compiled and sifted through, the most relevant of which were used for the campaign.

Data interpretation

Our audio production partners interpolated the GDP graphs into the musical scale: values were assigned to Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, and Do. From here, the notes themselves formed into melodies, basslines, chorus lines. All that’s left is to group them into verses, pre-choruses and the chorus to form the full song. Lyrics were added, highlighting the Philippine economy growth story.

Targeting

The full song was released online, with an accompanying music video that highlighted the process of gathering data and turning it into music. It featured music industry veterans who worked on the song, and Thyro, the lead singer and one of the hottest pop music icons of today.

1.From studying the historical Gross Domestic Product (GDP) data,NEDA’s Economic Managers saw trends and patterns of growth and development.Data showed that the Philippines is one of the fastest growing economies in the world, however,most Filipinos are not aware of this.How can they share this information to the Filipinos in a way that is interesting and relevant?

2.The challenge is to make it easier for the common Filipino to understand that the Philippine economy is something to be proud of.How do we cascade a seemingly impenetrable and intimidating barrage of numbers and information to that man on the street and inspire him on the upwards economic trend of his country?

3.The objective is to reach out to Filipinos and make them understand and appreciate the Philippine economy’s growth through ways that would pique the common interests of the people.How do we make them in tune with the country’s economic development?