Experience engineering for a growing Iloilo

By Ted Aldwin Ong

Professionals in marketing and public relations recognize the importance of experience engineering, a specialized discipline dedicated to the strategic design of customer experiences that foster lasting impressions, trust, and brand loyalty.

My modest background in marketing, spanning fast food, health supplements, advertising, events, and media, fueled my interest in attending Ken Lerona’s Ilonggo Branded Experience Engineering Masterclass held on August 1, 2025.

The learning session was organized by the Iloilo Business Club in collaboration with Lerona’s firm, Cornelius Magnate Engagement & Consulting.

Prior to his return to Iloilo as a corporate executive in Manila, Ken and I had engaged in numerous conversations about our experiences on service quality across providers and the distinct nuances of the Ilonggo customer experience.

We often surmise that the Ilonggo market carries the enduring characteristics of brand loyalty and is hard to please, especially when it comes to food.

The masterclass somehow distilled the essence of those informal exchanges, and it offered a refresher on the foundational concepts of marketing and the core principles of public relations as Ken introduced valuable insights on experience engineering with experiential examples.

Experience engineering, together with design thinking, became fascinating subjects of study during the pandemic lockdown, a time when I had the opportunity to explore these ideas, concepts, and frameworks.

It was primarily fueled by my involvement in planning and activity design engagements with brilliant minds such as environmental planners Dr. Evan Arias, Francis Gentoral, Bing Lao, and the late Jigger Latoza.

Their passion for development theories, innovations, and new technology introduced me to experience engineering through discussions on the experience economy, based on the studies of B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore.

Meanwhile, our conversations on design thinking took me on a journey backward, from David Kelley, who popularized the methodology, to Herbert Simon, who first presented the idea.

Fast forward to today, Ken Lerona reintroduced the concept in the context of everyday business and service delivery, emphasizing that both large corporations and small-to-medium enterprises must go beyond simply offering products or providing services.

“It’s not a wham-bam-thank-you kind of thing,” he noted, instead, the services sector must now place equal importance on creating meaningful and memorable experiences for customers.

The concept shifts the focus by positioning customer experience as a key economic value—not merely an add-on or a matter of meeting service standards, but as a core component of what businesses truly offer.

It calls for the intentional design and engineering (or even re-engineering) of every touchpoint along the customer journey where people interact with the product, service, or service provider.

Experience engineering has become an imperative for Iloilo City, not only because it is a steadily growing urban economy, but more importantly, because it is predominantly service-based.

A striking 87% of the city’s economic output comes from the services sector, far outweighing the contributions of industry (10.3%) and agriculture and forestry (2.7%).

Further reinforcing this service-driven profile, micro enterprises dominate the business landscape, accounting for 91.04% of all registered businesses.

They are followed by small enterprises (4.74%), medium enterprises (1%), and large enterprises (just 0.25%).

This composition highlights that the local economy is largely powered by small-scale players, many of whom engage in high-intensity interactions with their customers and operate with limited resources.

The city’s key service sectors include wholesale and retail trade and accommodation and food services, each comprising 40% of overall business activity.

Other significant contributors are other services (12%), real estate activities (10%), and financial and insurance services (5%).

The numbers clearly show how important service delivery is to Iloilo’s growth and competitiveness.

In such an economy, customer experience becomes a determining factor in the future success or failure of a business.

That’s why intentional experience design isn’t just a nice extra—it’s a must.

While experience engineering is widely regarded as a modern business strategy rooted in global innovation practices, its true strength lies in how local businesses can adapt it to their own culture and context.

In Iloilo, this means embedding it into the way Ilonggos live, work, and interact.

Ken Lerona brought this message home to the packed hall of business leaders, urging them to anchor their customer experience strategies in deeply held Ilonggo values: pagtatap (respectful care), delicadeza (propriety), pag-ugyon (team harmony), and pagpasalamat (gracious gratitude).