America’s Next Top Model’s Filipino-American producer Michael Carandang will be among the main presenters at the 21st National Retailers’ Conference and Stores Asia Expo (NRCE), trumpeted as the country’s biggest retail industry event, to be held from Aug. 9 to 10 at the SMX Convention Center in Pasay City.
“I’m thankful I was invited although at first I was hesitant to talk about marketing and branding to presidents and CEOs (chief executive officers) who probably know more about business than I do,” confessed Carandang during NRCE’s launch in Gateway Suites, Quezon City. “But I saw it as a challenge, an opportunity to talk about and look back at the designers who appeared in ANTM and what happened to them.”
The Emmy award-winning producer admitted that he learned what he knows about personal branding from the show’s host, supermodel Tyra Banks.
“In my talk, I’m going to share my experiences about Bench and Michael Cinco, how everything happened. It was actually all from instinct. I was thinking as a Filipino producer and also about giving media mileage to these Filipino designers and brands, to make them heard from 10 to tens of thousands. It’s also about what I learned from this experience and how can entrepreneurs use it for their companies,” he elaborated.
Carandang, responsible for bringing other Filipino designers Oliver Tolentino and Francis Libiran to ANTM, is also the producer of The Tyra Banks Show. He worked at ABS-CBN’s variety shows Magandang Tanghali Bayan and ASAP before becoming a production assistant at The Jerry Springer Show in the US, where he worked his way up to become the show’s producer.
According to him, there is a need to attend conferences like NRCE to improve the shopping experience in the Philippines, and as NRCE organizer Philippine Retailers Association (PRA) targets, to make it “more fun.”
“In the US, you sometimes go to the store not to buy, but to experience the store,” he pointed out. “In the Philippines, it’s easier to go to the store. But in the US, more people are shopping online because of the experience. You cannot get from the store what you can only get online and you get exactly what you paid for.”
“Retail is one of the biggest industries and employers in the world,” added Terry Waterhouse, director of design consultancy firm Redgoodss Ltd., on why it is important to learn more about the industry.
“There is a lack of evaluation in the retail industry because unlike in design wherein designers are continuously critiqued, to be retailers, one is supposed to be just intuitive,” he explained. He said this mentality should be straightened because to stay at the top of the heap, a retailer should innovate and continue reinventing.
“The world is changing. The youth want to be individual so personalization is very important,” he emphasized.
Waterhouse, who has worked with companies in over 20 countries including the Philippines’ Golden ABC and SM, will be talking about elevating customer experience through store design. He said one of today’s untapped potentials is going online.
“I still believe that nothing can replace the real retail experience but multi-channeling retailing is also beginning. It’s going to grow like when the computer was first introduced in the ’70s. There is a very narrow market but the potential it can do for the retailer is untapped,” he declared.
During the conference, Janette Toral, a social media guru and Digital Filipino e-book co-author, will elaborate on harnessing the power of digital marketing and online commerce for retail growth.
“I will talk about e-commerce and the evolving digital marketing, how to build a name for themselves in online retail and encourage more shoppers,” she said. She will be moderating a panel that includes representatives from two of the country’s top Web sites: Sulit.com and Multiply.
According to her, online stores are evolving like physical stores. “Online stores are becoming more individualized. It’s their way of saying they’re different. What makes them interesting is that their products are partly competing but are also partly enriching the shopping experience.”
JohnLu Koa, founder and CEO of deli chain The French Baker, will seat at the panel of the topic “Global brands in local shores: How local brands can compete and succeed vis-à-vis international brands.”
“For many global brands, what they will be bringing in will be nothing new, just probably their brand names, because local brands have started innovations of their own. It’s just up to us local brands to sell those innovations,” he narrated.
Retailing is actually a science, he said, so retailers need intelligent people to man it. “Retailers are the people who add value to your product, like finding a good chef for your restaurant. Especially now that the rent of retail spaces is going up, you are going to need a strategy or a way of doing things better.”
In the Philippines, businesses are usually family-owned, he said, and so he is thankful retailers like SM and Robinsons are professionalizing retail.
“Think small but act big” — that is his advice to those who want to succeed in retailing like him.
Evelyn Balmeo-Salire, PRA secretary general, encourages students and both aspiring and successful retailers to join the conference for P2,000 (subsidized rate) for students and P8,995 for retailers.
Through seminars like these, Eunice Gonzales, MarComm director of Robinsons Malls and head of PRA’s Public Relations committee, looks forward to a truly more fun shopping experience for the country’s expected four million tourist arrivals this year and 10 million in 2016.