The PANATA of Modern Advertising: Creativity with Purpose with Chrissy Roa

Advertising changes quickly. Platforms come and go, technology changes how campaigns are made, and relationships between brands and agencies continue to evolve. But some parts of the profession have remained remarkably consistent: know why the work matters, give it the attention it deserves, measure what it accomplishes, and keep learning.

In this episode of a DigitalPrimer, Ibarra Villaseran speaks with Chrissy Roa, Group Head for Marketing and Communications at Ayala Land Estates and 2025 President of the Philippine Association of National Advertisers (PANA).

The conversation traces Chrissy’s career from advertising agencies to education and eventually to Ayala Land. Along the way, it provides a useful perspective on purpose, commitment, performance, collaboration, and what today’s advertisers can learn from an earlier generation of marketing.

A Career That Started With Advertising

For Chrissy, advertising wasn’t a career she happened to discover later in life. An aunt who worked in the industry provided an early example of what a career in advertising could look like.

Living in the same compound allowed her to see the work up close: not only the finished advertisements and write-ups, but also the effort behind them. What initially looked exciting eventually became something more substantial—a profession she genuinely wanted to pursue.

That decision eventually took her through agencies including Asachi, Lintas, McCann, Harrison, and Publicis.

One lesson from those early agency years stayed with her.

Her former boss at Asachi taught her that whatever it is you’re working on—whether that be a price card or a major advertising campaign—you put in the same 101% effort. Because you owe it to the client, you owe it to the brand, and, more importantly, you owe it to the consumer or the customer.

The principle was straightforward: there are no insignificant jobs simply because some deliverables are smaller than others. If something is worth doing, it deserves to be done properly.

It’s an old-school advertising lesson that remains relevant today.

Products Have a Job to Do

That same thinking shaped how Chrissy viewed the products and services she worked on.

A drink isn’t “just a drink.” Soap isn’t “just soap.” Every product or service exists to address a particular need or enable something for the customer.

That changes the advertiser’s responsibility.

The work isn’t simply about finding an interesting way to promote a product. It begins with understanding what the product actually does for the person buying it and what problem the communication needs to solve.

For younger marketers working with increasingly sophisticated platforms and tools, it’s an important reminder. The mechanics of advertising may become more complicated, but the basic question remains simple:

What is this supposed to do for the customer?

When Purpose Changes Direction

At the height of her advertising career with McCann Erickson, Chrissy stepped away from the industry for 11 years after her firstborn son was diagnosed with autism.

At the time, information and support were much harder to find. Internet access was only beginning to become widely available, and Chrissy recalls spending time in bookstores looking for information that could help her understand what her son needed.

Her research led her to question whether the available educational environment was appropriate for him. Autism is a spectrum, and she recognised that the needs of each child could be very different.

So she studied.

Through that process, she encountered the idea of mainstream education: bringing children with special needs into learning environments with typically developing children, helping them develop behaviours and social skills applicable to everyday life.

Eventually, that education became something tangible.

Chrissy helped establish South Kids International School in Parañaque, with her son among its first students. As he progressed, the school added grade levels. It eventually continued beyond her direct involvement before later developing into a services centre addressing more specialised needs.

From Building Brands to Building Lives

Chrissy describes the transition simply.

In advertising, the work involved building brands.

In education, it involved shaping minds and helping build children’s lives.

The distinction gave her a different understanding of what meaningful work could look like. The school was initially created to address her son’s needs, but its purpose eventually extended to other children and families facing similar circumstances.

That experience also reinforces one of the recurring ideas throughout the episode: purpose doesn’t necessarily begin as a corporate statement.

Sometimes it becomes apparent through the work itself.

From Education to Building Communities

Chrissy eventually returned to the corporate world, joining Ayala Land during the pandemic. Moving client-side—and specifically into real estate—was not something she had originally planned.

Over time, however, she found a connection between her previous experiences and her new role.

Property development could easily be described in purely commercial terms: selling lots, leasing offices, operating malls, and developing estates.

But Chrissy began looking at the work differently.

Every development also creates places where businesses operate, jobs are created, and communities form. The product may be property, but its effects extend to the people who eventually live, work, and conduct business there.

The progression in her career became clearer in retrospect:

Building brands. Shaping lives. Building communities.

Different professions, but a similar question underneath each one: what does the work ultimately enable for other people?

Rethinking the 4Ps for Today’s Advertiser

That thinking carried into Chrissy Roa’s role as PANA President for 2025.

Coming out of the pandemic, PANA adopted the theme of “New beginnings and new learnings.” From there, Chrissy introduced another way of thinking about the familiar 4Ps of marketing.

For the modern advertiser, she proposed:

Purpose. Passion. Performance. Progress.

The four ideas provide a useful sequence.

Purpose

Start by knowing why the work is being done.

Campaigns need objectives, but purpose goes further than a KPI. It provides direction for decisions and helps everyone involved understand what the work is trying to accomplish.

Without that clarity, activity can easily be mistaken for progress.

Passion

Chrissy connects passion with ownership and commitment.

This goes back to the lesson she learned early in her career: give the work proper attention regardless of whether the assignment is large or small.

Passion in this context isn’t about enthusiasm for its own sake. It is the willingness to take responsibility for the quality of the work.

Performance

Advertising still needs to produce results.

Creativity, effort, and purpose have to eventually translate into something that can be evaluated against the original objective.

This prevents purpose from becoming vague and creativity from becoming self-serving.

The work has a job to do.

Progress

Performance should lead somewhere.

Once an objective is achieved, the next question is what can be learned from it and what can be improved.

Progress therefore isn’t a final destination. It’s the result of repeating the cycle with better information than before.

PANATA: Putting the Advertiser’s Commitment Into Words

The conversation then moves to one of PANA’s major initiatives: the Advertisers Creed.

Chrissy explains that advertisers may already have their own values and professional commitments, but the Philippine industry did not previously have a common written creed.

PANA sought to formalize that commitment through what it calls PANATA, or a vow.

The intention is larger than creating another industry statement.

PANATA is meant to establish principles that can be carried across generations of advertisers and to reinforce the responsibilities that come with influencing consumers through communication.

That thinking also informs the PANATA Awards.

Creativity and Responsibility Should Work Together

Awards naturally recognise good creative work. But Chrissy argues that creativity should not be separated from responsibility.

A campaign should demonstrate creative quality while remaining consistent with the values and responsibilities expected of advertisers.

This creates a more useful standard than creativity alone.

The question becomes not simply:

Was the idea good?

But also:

Was the idea responsible, appropriate, and effective?

That balance between creativity and responsibility is central to how Chrissy describes PANATA.

Advertising Is a Multi-Skill Business

Another change to the PANATA Awards reflects how modern advertising is actually produced.

Campaigns aren’t created by one person or one discipline.

Strategy, accounts, creative, media, production, digital, clients, and other specialists all contribute different skills. PANA therefore expanded categories to recognise more of the people and disciplines responsible for bringing campaigns to market.

At the same time, the organisation sought to simplify the process of entering the awards.

It’s a small operational point, but one that fits the broader philosophy of the conversation.

If participation matters, unnecessary friction shouldn’t stand in the way.

What Happened to the Client-Agency Partnership?

One of the more interesting parts of the conversation comes when how agency-client relationships have changed.

Chrissy recalls an earlier advertising environment in which agency relationships could last for years.

Agencies weren’t simply executing the next project. They understood the client, participated in longer-term planning, and developed a sense of ownership over the brands they worked on.mTrust accumulated over time.

Today’s environment is different. Project-based relationships and frequent pitches give businesses more opportunities to try new partners and capabilities. There are benefits to that flexibility.

But something can also be lost. Constantly resetting relationships means repeatedly rebuilding context, trust, and working habits that previously developed over years.

She isn’t arguing that disagreements should disappear. In fact, disagreements are expected when people from different disciplines work together.

The more important question is whether everyone remains aligned around the same purpose.

Creative teams, accounts, strategists, clients, and other stakeholders may disagree on the route. A productive partnership gives them enough common ground to work through those differences without losing sight of where they’re trying to go.

Good Advertising Is Rarely a Solo Effort

That leads naturally to another point made during the discussion: awards are rarely won alone. The finished campaign may appear seamless to the audience, but behind it are numerous decisions and contributors.

Recognising that reality matters because modern advertising increasingly requires specialised skills. No individual needs to be the best at everything. What matters is whether those different skills can work together toward the same objective.

Collaboration, then, isn’t merely a pleasant cultural value. It’s part of how better work gets made.

Continuous Learning Still Matters

Toward the end of the conversation, Chrissy returns to education.

PANA’s General Membership Meetings aren’t only organizational gatherings. They are intended to give members useful information and practical lessons they can apply to their work.

For her, continuous learning remains necessary precisely because the profession keeps changing. Her preference for face-to-face meetings is also telling. Online meetings are useful and make participation easier, particularly when attending physically isn’t practical.

But she argues that something different happens when people actually show up. Conversations happen more naturally. Relationships develop. People exchange ideas outside the formal agenda. Technology can make communication more efficient. It doesn’t automatically make relationships better.

What Modern Marketers Can Take From the Conversation

The episode covers several chapters of one person’s career, but the ideas connecting them are surprisingly consistent.

Do the work properly, even when nobody considers it a major assignment. Understand what the product or service actually does for people. Know the purpose before deciding on the execution.

Give the work ownership. Measure whether it performed. Use what happened to make the next effort better. And recognise that good work usually depends on people with different skills being willing to work toward the same objective. Those principles aren’t particularly new. That’s partly the point.

Advertising has changed enormously since Chrissy entered the industry. Digital platforms, automation, data, AI, and changing agency relationships have altered how marketers work.

But new tools don’t automatically make old disciplines obsolete. Sometimes progress comes from knowing what should change—and knowing what shouldn’t.

Purpose Before Everything Else

Chrissy Roa’s redefined 4Ps provide a useful way to summarise the episode:

Purpose gives the work direction.

Passion gives it ownership.

Performance tells you whether it worked.

Progress asks what comes next.

The tools available to advertisers will continue changing. The channels will change. Consumer behaviour will change. Even the relationships between agencies and clients will continue to change.

The need for sound judgment, responsibility, commitment, and continuous learning is likely to remain.

For today’s marketer, that may be the more useful definition of creativity with purpose.