Palawan Group taps media AOR to drive data-led growth at 40

The Palawan Group of Companies has appointed Havas Ortega as its media agency on record (AOR), in a move designed to sharpen data-led decision-making and support scalable growth across its expanding financial services ecosystem.

The appointment comes as the Palawan Group marks 40 years of service and accelerates expansion across its portfolio, which spans pawning, remittance, credit, insurance, jewellery retail, business-to-business services, and its digital wallet, PalawanPay.

With more than 3,500 branches nationwide, the Palawan Group has long relied on its physical footprint to reach millions of Filipinos. The partnership with Havas Ortega aims to complement that brick-and-mortar dominance with a sharpened digital strategy, building a scalable media model that strengthens return-on-investment discipline and clarifies decision-making across media investments.

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“The Palawan Group has always been built on trust, reliability, and long-term value creation – especially for our ‘Sukis’, the millions of Filipinos who choose us every day,” said Karlo Castro, president and CEO of the Palawan Group of Companies. “As we accelerate our expansion, we need a media partner that can help us sharpen decision-making, strengthen ROI discipline, and create a future-ready marketing foundation. Havas Ortega brings the right combination of local consumer understanding, strategic rigour, and performance-minded thinking to help us drive growth at scale.”

Bernard Kaibigan, CMO of Palawan Group of Companies, framed the appointment as a structural shift toward more disciplined, data-led marketing.

“Appointing Havas Ortega is a strategic step toward data-led, future-ready marketing,” he said. “We want our media choices to reflect real consumer behaviours and needs, while enabling disciplined decision-making. This partnership also gives us a strong operating rhythm – through tight feedback loops and a cadence aligned to business cycles – so we can move with agility as we scale. As we move forward, we are also investing in innovation, including exploring AI-enabled capabilities, to help strengthen how we serve our customers and communicate the value of our services,” he said.

Under the remit, Havas Ortega will oversee end-to-end media strategy, planning and investment management. The mandate is centred on aligning media choices with real consumer behaviour and business cycles, while balancing long-term trust-building with conversion-driven execution across the group’s brands.

“Our focus is to help Palawan Group build a modern, scalable media model – one that improves clarity and accountability in investment decisions while staying deeply connected to what Filipino consumers actually need and how they behave,” said Jos Ortega, chairman and CEO of Havas Ortega. “We’re excited by the opportunity over the next 12 to 24 months to help reset how media drives growth – responsibly, measurably, and at scale.”

The partnership will operate through tight feedback loops between business, marketing and agency teams, supported by a disciplined cadence aligned to business cycles. Cross-functional planning across marketing, digital, corporate and leadership teams is expected to strengthen accountability and responsiveness as the group scales its services nationwide.

Today, the Palawan Group is one of the country’s fastest-growing financial institutions and a market leader in pawning and remittance, supported by over 70,000 branches, Pera Padala outlets and PalawanPay Money Shops. Its services include Palawan Pawnshop, Palawan Express Pera Padala, Palawan ProtekTODO, Palawan Credit, Palawan for Business, and jewellery retail, alongside PalawanPay, which now serves 22 million Filipinos.

Operating under the supervision of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the group’s “bricktech” approach integrates physical branches with digital access – allowing customers to transact in-branch or via app – positioning the brand to compete in an increasingly hybrid financial services landscape.

For Havas Ortega, part of the global Havas network, the appointment further strengthens its foothold in the Philippine financial services sector, anchored by its Meaningful Brands philosophy and integrated media, creative and data capabilities.

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