As Philippine businesses explore opportunities beyond the domestic market, overseas Filipinos are emerging as an increasingly important audience, influencing family spending, purchasing decisions, and everyday experiences back home. Recognizing this connection, PLDT Global and SM Cinema are working together through Ramdam, PLDT Global’s audience engagement and digital advertising platform, to reach Filipino communities around the world.
The collaboration marks one of the first major brand initiatives to use Ramdam to engage overseas Filipinos, demonstrating how businesses can build meaningful customer relationships beyond Philippine borders. Although living and working abroad, many Filipinos remain closely involved in their families’ lives and household decisions, creating opportunities for brands to connect with consumers whose influence extends beyond financial remittances.
Connecting Overseas Filipinos Through TinBo
At the center of the initiative is TinBo (Tindahan ni Bossing), PLDT Global’s digital marketplace that connects overseas Filipinos with essential goods, digital vouchers, and services for their loved ones in the Philippines. By turning everyday transactions into meaningful experiences, the platform helps brands build lasting relationships with Filipino consumers abroad.
TinBo also supports digital connectivity through its Smart Virtual Number (SVN), a cloud-based Philippine mobile number that allows overseas Filipinos to maintain access to communications, authentication services, and financial transactions requiring a local number.
Together, these services position TinBo as a digital touchpoint for Filipinos overseas, helping them stay connected to their families and everyday needs back home.
“Overseas Filipinos remain deeply connected to their families, communities, and the brands they trust back home. Their influence extends beyond remittances to everyday decisions and shared experiences, making them an increasingly important audience for businesses,” said Albert V. Villa-Real, President and CEO of PLDT Global. He added that Ramdam helps brands engage this audience through relevant experiences, with the SM Cinema collaboration demonstrating how customer relationships can be strengthened across borders.
Turning A Film Campaign Into A Meaningful Connection
The partnership first came to life through Love Knows No Distance, a campaign that encouraged overseas Filipinos to send heartfelt messages and gift cinema experiences to their loved ones in the Philippines through TinBo.
Anchored on the local release of the film Dear You, the initiative explored how cinema can bring families closer despite physical distance. The campaign also demonstrated how Ramdam can support brand engagement through experiences that resonate with overseas Filipino communities.
For Karen Zabaljauregui, SM Cinema SAVP, the collaboration went beyond conventional promotion by turning the film’s message into an actual opportunity for connection.
She explained that Dear You, which follows a grandson piecing together his family’s story through letters written across borders, reflects an experience familiar to many Filipino families. By connecting the film with TinBo’s existing role in facilitating conversations and transactions between Filipinos abroad and their loved ones, the campaign transformed a movie promotion into a shared experience.
Reaching A Growing Global Filipino Community
Ramdam, which stands for Real Audience Moments & Digital Advertising Management, was developed to help brands reach overseas Filipinos through contextual and purpose-driven engagement. Through PLDT Global’s digital ecosystem, businesses can create meaningful touchpoints that strengthen connections between Filipinos abroad and their families at home.
Today, TinBo serves more than half a million Filipinos across the Middle East, North America, Europe, and Asia, giving brands an opportunity to reach overseas communities through a platform integrated into their everyday lives.
Through its collaboration with SM Cinema, PLDT Global highlights how businesses can move beyond traditional advertising by creating experiences that strengthen relationships with overseas Filipinos and reinforce their continuing connection to the families, communities, and brands they support back home.
