[Editor’s note: Out-of-home advertising is one of the industries most badly hit by the pandemic. So, now that the public is encouraged to stay at home, HDI Admix is pivoting to find more ways to be of service. Below is their press release.]

Over the years, HDI Admix has established itself as a maverick in the out-of-home advertising industry with unique large format and waiting shed executions that have captured the imagination of Filipinos all over NCR.

Yet it was difficult to fathom the impact COVID would have on its business. 

“When the Enhanced Community Quarantine was announced, business dried up overnight.  Clients started calling up to put their advertising campaigns on hold and it was a challenge for us to figure out what we needed to do to carry on with our business,” said Raoul Buencuchillo, vice president for sales. 

The leadership team made the key decision to support its clients while roping in its vendors and site owners to lend a helping hand.

“We are privileged to have established incredible relationships with our clients, vendors, and site owners through our commitment to doing things right by them,” Raoul continued. “We saw this challenge as an opportunity to get to know not just everyone we worked with better, but also one another within our company. We knew we could not just sit by and do nothing, waiting for this to pass. We always did things a little differently from others, and this was a great chance for us to think out of the box.”

For that, Admix launched a series of industry-first initiatives. “We wanted to help our clients and partners move forward amidst the pandemic, not just focus on surviving, so we started engaging with them to understand where they were in their business, how they were coping, and working with them on post-COVID strategies. We understand that when it comes to a crisis, the easiest thing to do is to hunker down and hope it blows over, but we wanted to take an active stand to make them knew that they had someone they could count on who had their best interests at heart,” said Raoul. That included deferring campaigns and holding off on billings. 

“We also encouraged our clients to let us know the initiatives they were taking on their end to support the country by offering our sites to upload their public service announcements and contributions on our LED billboards for free,” he added. HDI Admix also launched a “Stay at Home Now, #OutOfHomeSoon” campaign to promote the government’s call to fellow citizens to stay indoors to help the country win the battle against COVID-19.

Aside from that, HDI Admix also actively expressed encouragement and gratitude to our frontliners through various online and offline platforms. “We decided to use our platforms as a force for good by spreading positivity and cheer during the most challenging times, and we are proud to have done our part to encourage the community and keep their spirits up,” shared Raoul. 

Beyond that, HDI Admix also started a series of relevant and business-related webinars open to clients, partners, and the public. Their webinar series, THE NEW NORMAL, aims to educate business owners and leaders on how to better strategize and adapt to the changing times. The company is privileged to have a close working relationship with its clients and so they were happy to offer their insights on the practical business steps they were taking to cope with COVID-19. This gave other participants hope that they, too, could turn the situation around for themselves. To add, HDI Admix also polled their clients regularly to get up to date information on how things were going. These were shared openly among the community and strengthened everyone’s resolve.

HDI Admix is no stranger to adversity. 

Just last year, its key officers Darmo N. Castillo, Raoul L. Buencuchillo, Athena Gonzales, Pamela Maureen S. Fernando, and some others were wrongfully accused of qualified theft by Media Puzzle, Inc. (MPI) – a company that had the exclusive right to manage the advertising assets of MRT 3. At that time, HDI Admix had an existing Joint Venture Agreement (JVA) with MPI and was also the majority shareholder of the company. Unfortunately, an unscrupulous minority stockholder, who tried in vain to wrest control of the company, instigated patently harassment lawsuits against the company before various courts. 

HDI Admix was greatly inconvenienced in defending itself. However, justice prevailed, and the cases were dismissed by all the courts due to the ‘lack of essential elements of the crime of Qualified Theft’. “Essentially what this meant was that no crime was committed because the amount alleged to have been the subject of the theft actually represents income or revenue from the joint venture which is co-owned by HDI Admix, a JVA partner and majority shareholder of MPI,” explained HDI Corporate Legal Counsel Atty. Ma. Paz A. Llasos-Ortega.

Recently, HDI Admix and its sister companies HDI Stopovers and HDI Adventures were placed again in a challenging circumstance as issues regarding its license to operate emerged after the former directors and officers of HDI were indicted for the alleged violation of Anti-Dummy Law. 

The management clarified in its official statement that there is no truth in the claim that HDI Admix’s license was in danger of being revoked neither was it recommended by the Office of the City Prosecutor. The Securities and Exchange Commission has also suspended any proceedings that question the classification and corporate structure of HDI. Rest assured that HDI Admix continuously addresses its clients’ needs and delivers the best advertising services as it has always been doing in the past many years. 

Being in the business for 25 years, HDI Admix has learned to regard the challenges thrown its way as opportunities to evolve into a better organization. Be it COVID or legal issues, the company will find a way not just to survive but to thrive. 

“We owe it to the fact that HDI Admix has built a stellar reputation of delivering on its commitments, and is now trusted implicitly by its clients, vendors and site owners. No doubt with everything that has happened, we are much more cautious with the people we work with. But it also proves that we are resilient and will find a way out of this together,” shared Atty. Llasos-Ortega. 

To learn more about HDI Admix, visit their website https://www.hdiadmix.com/. – Rappler.com