DTF: Dare The Future

By Lcid Crescent D. Fernandez

We have a well-worn spiel that our accounts executives at Prometheus use whenever they introduce our company: “the first and only award-winning full-service marketing agency and public relations firm in Western Visayas.” If it sounds rehearsed, that’s because it is: drilled into our teams, woven into the work we do as a banner of pride.

Being “the first and only” isn’t just a self-branded tagline or some line of marketing poetry we throw around. It’s a reality we are trying to shape and – for the longest time – have had to justify.

In the years since we set out on this venture – especially recently – we’ve often found ourselves in unfamiliar rooms, having to explain who we are again and again.

“You really flew in here for this?”

“There’s a marketing agency pala in Iloilo?”

No one believed that we even existed. It was strange to them that a full-service marketing agency and public relations firm could exist outside of Metro Manila.

With each new recognition and new rooms where we found ourselves “the first and only”, there crept in this odd, silent sense of dissonance. Like we weren’t supposed to be here. Like we snuck in. After all, we consistently kept being the first this, the only that:

• First Ilonggo to win the Marketing Leader of the Year Award
• First and only provincial agency to win at the Marketing Excellence Awards Philippines
• Only provincial agency at the 2024 Asia CEO Awards
• Only provincial agency at the 60th Anvil Awards

Most recently, we were the lone provincial agency at the PR Awards in Singapore, standing beside multinational giants with nine-digit budgets. Our campaign was executed with less than 1% of their resources.

I’ll admit: I had my excuses ready. It was this whispering, rehearsed, fearful excuse in the back of my mind:  Of course we won’t win. We can’t win. We’re small. We don’t have the money. We don’t belong.

But I caught myself.

Because that voice, that reflex, is the very thing we’ve spent years unlearning. That’s the voice that tells you your reality is fixed, your limits are set, and your fate is already predetermined. It’s the voice that kills the spark before it ever lights a fire.

And that’s not who we are anymore.

We didn’t get here because we waited for permission or perfect conditions. We got here because we believed something better was possible. And we dared to build it.

Our story has never been “we couldn’t because of something.”

Our story is and always has been: “We will despite anything”.

That’s the whole point of “Dare the Future.”

We choose to believe that excellence wasn’t reserved for the silvered capital cities or the vaulted resources of teams thousand-strong. Great ideas could rise from small bedroom offices, a shared work computer, and overnight, fast food-fueled brainstorming sessions for a 5AM pitch. That our so-called weakness of being “from the province” was actually our superpower.

Being an outsider lets you see things others miss. It sharpens your intuition, strengthens your resolve even past the point of exhaustion and burnout. It forces you to be crafty, wily, resourceful, and curious enough to do more with less. And in that claustrophobic necessity, in between the caffeinated dreams about our dreams, – that is where creativity is born: not the kind manufactured in boardrooms, but the kind carved out of late nights, wild gambles, and unwavering faith even in the absence of confidence.

You see, when you dare the future, you’re not just dreaming. You’re distorting reality ever so slightly, until it bends to fit the shape of your faith. That’s magic. Not the kind with rabbits in tophats and wands and abracadabra – but the gritty, quiet enchantment of resolve, of showing up, speaking up, and making do with what time and life we have despite it all.

We’ve already walked into rooms where we were the first and only. We walked out with our heads high, our hearts full, and our eyes transfixed on that horizon.

There’s always something more out there. We just have to go get it.

This is our story. This is how we #DareTheFuture.