How to Innovate a Legacy Brand, According to the Senior Vice President of GMA Network Atty. Annette Gozon-Valdes

Amid a new wave of digitization, Atty. Annette Gozon-Valdes took matters into her own hands by reinventing one of the biggest legacy media brands in the country.

As one of the two biggest legacy media brands in the Philippines, GMA Network boasts many accolades—being the first Philippine TV network to receive the Peabody Award for Investigative Reporting in the 2000s, bagging the much-coveted Asian Television's Terrestrial Channel of the Year Award in 2003, maintaining the top spot in nationwide TV ratings in 2011, and more.

At the helm of this brand's success is Atty. Annette Gozon-Valdes. In keeping with the family legacy, she takes on the reins as the Senior Vice President of GMA Network and President and CEO of GMA Films, where she leads some of their fastest-growing projects and successfully spearheads the acquisition of the country's top celebrities and media personalities.

But amid a competitive and ever-changing playing field, what can Atty. Gozon-Valdes do, if not keep up with the times? Thus, the real challenge was to take the legacy brand that she was entrusted with, visualize, plan, and implement a full 180 that will allow the network to remain relevant to today's society—a time when more media platforms have become available, when digitization takes full reign, and fake news runs rampant.

With her sharp business acumen, intelligence, and qualities as a woman, Atty. Gozon-Valdes reinvented and inspired changes that brought life to the legacy brand. Here's how she did it.

From Law to Media: How Atty. Annette Gozon-Valdes Started in GMA

Atty. Gozon-Valdes has always been an achiever—evidenced by her many successes in school. Her formative years saw her as a valedictorian in both elementary and high school, cum laude at Ateneo de Manila University with a degree in Management Engineering, and valedictorian again when she earned her law degree at the University of the Philippines. In fact, in 1999, she went on to earn a master’s degree from Harvard Law!

But with a path dedicated to law, how did the attorney venture into media—a wholly different industry altogether? "Growing up, I was like half and half," she narrates. "My dad had always brainwashed me into wanting to become a lawyer, so as a child, I always said I will become a lawyer. But then, my mom, she’s a housewife. She always bought all these showbiz magazines before—Kislap, Modern Romances, [and] Extra Hot. All of them every week."

"She would ask me to also read those magazines and she was the one who taught me to look for my idols," she fondly reminisces. "So, she told me, 'Ah, okay, who’s your favorite? I’ll buy you an album, then you cut out the pictures, and put it in the album.' So I had training in showbiz, but it was more of an informal training."

If anything, this foreshadowed a career in media, as Atty. Gozon-Valdes first put her law degree into action. "Actually, I was practicing for just maybe two years at that time and then, my dad took over GMA," she reveals. "He was chairman of the board for so many years, but then around [the] year 2000, he became the CEO. So he wanted me to help him."

Soon after, Atty. Gozon-Valdes joined her father, first as the President of GMA Films in 2004. Three years after, she became the president of GMA Worldwide—the media division responsible for distributing GMA's shows to territories in Asia, North America, the Middle East, and Africa.

Putting What She Learned to Good Use

While some may wonder how law and media can go hand-in-hand, Atty. Gozon-Valdes has somehow made it work.

In fact, even with a position in media, the attorney's law background has served her well, particularly in negotiations. "We have a lot of contracts—especially with artists [and] our partners—so when we negotiate, I can already be the legal representative in that," Atty. Gozon-Valdes explains. "Also, I’m the SVP [Senior Vice President] of Legal and HR, so I think my dad appointed me to these posts because of my legal background."

Even more so, her expertise in law has been beneficial in shows, too! "Aside from that, if there’s a soap opera involving legal issues, they also consult me sometimes," she adds. "Well, sometimes, we inject some legal concepts into our soap operas. [In those cases], I can give them advice on how to go about those things—show [how] to inject them inside the dramas."

But above it all, her law degree shines the most in the news side of GMA. "I think the legal background is more useful for us, especially for my dad, in terms of news and public affairs. He’s very hands-on [with] news and public affairs, and that is where you need good and solid legal training," the attorney opines.

Finding Her Place as a Woman Leader

As an attorney thrust into the world of media, Atty. Gozon-Valdes had to make a name for herself—not just with her father as her boss, but also as a woman leader herself. The former did come with its challenges, but according to the attorney, she thrived where she was planted.

"It’s hard to have your dad as your boss because even when you go home, you never stop working," she laughs. "[But] I think he assigned me immediately to certain areas—especially in programming—so that’s where I really developed myself. That’s why until now, I’m very involved in programming and concept creation, especially for dramas."

As for her place and role as a woman leader? “Personally, I never saw gender as an obstacle to doing anything. I think that being a female, we can leverage our specific traits that distinguish males from females and use them as weapons in terms of business," Atty. Gozon-Valdes points out.

"For example, women have more empathy, so [we] can use that. Women are multitaskers, so we get more work done at the same time. And I think women have better intuition, and that’s very important for business, especially in media,” she adds.

The attorney even goes on to dispel the stereotype of media being a male-dominated workplace. "But, you know, I’m very lucky ‘cause, in media, I think there are equal amounts of female and male leaders. So, it’s an industry where gender is really not an issue."

If anything, she uses these qualities as a woman to her advantage—given that she knows what women want and how to address it through the content of the programs. "The bulk of our viewers are really females. That’s [the] majority. Housewives [and] older females," she says simply. "So I feel that females in media, especially when they’re into content creation, it’s an advantage for us because we know how women feel—how women think."

Creating Content That Speaks to Her Audience

Taking what she has learned from her audience, Atty. Gozon-Valdes devoted her time to the creation of soap operas—the kind of gripping dramas that have people eagerly anticipating what's next. In fact, she has been instrumental in leading the production of several blockbuster movies such as Let the Love Begin, Lovestruck, and Moments of Love.

But out of all the shows she conceptualized together with the GMA Entertainment Group, it was the iconic series Mulawin which stands out. "I’m part of the creative group, so I think one of our most important dramas was Mulawin," she explains.

"I was involved in developing that concept. In our group, someone will pitch a concept, but I’m very lucky to be working with creatives who are—how do you say this?—they’re not insecure," the attorney goes on to add. "They’ve [been] very collaborative, and we build on each other’s ideas. [There's no] 'It’s not my idea. It’s not good.' I’m very lucky to be working with such a good group of creatives. So, we build on those aspects, those pitches."

As one of the network's first "fantaserye"—a fantasy teleserye all in one—the success of Mulawin stemmed from it being a genre and concept that was not thoroughly fleshed out back then. And yet, it succeeded—ushering in more to come.

This, however, was not a spur-in-the-moment choice. "Research is also very important in our business— not just intuition—so when you look at the audiences of our primetime, it’s really females, but there are also a lot of males and a lot of kids," she explains. "So in order to have a show that will be really strong in ratings, you should not just capture the housewives. You have to have incremental audiences. We have to add plus one, plus two, plus three into the show."

"By adding the fantasy element, we were able to bring in kids. By adding action to the show, we were able to bring in males—aside from the females who are already our audience. So when you are able to do that, that’s when the ratings skyrocket," she reveals.

Simply put, the attorney believes in capturing as much of the audience as possible—beyond the females, who make up the majority. If anything, it all goes back to a well-researched plan of action. "I think research is key. You have to know your customers. In our field, the audience is our customer," she explains.

"So you have to know them," she adds. "You have to understand what they want, and sometimes, you have to second guess because sometimes they don’t know what they really want. They can’t verbalize it, so you have to really observe and immerse yourself with your audience [and] with your customers, so you are able to give them what they really want, what they really need."

Reinventing, Rebranding, and Redoing

In her years in the network, Atty. Gozon-Valdes has been exposed to her fair share of things that work, don't work, and need work. This includes the success ratings of shows, which have sparked possibilities of remakes when well-received.

In fact, one of her latest projects is a remake of Voltes V—a Japanese mecha anime that has grown in popularity in the Philippines when it first aired in 1978. Set to launch sometime in 2023, the remake, Voltes V: Legacy is a ten-year project that will bear fruit very soon.

"Of course, Voltes V has always been aired in GMA, and we’ve been doing a lot of franchise remakes—adapting it to live-action and using Filipino actors. So Voltes V was always our dream to do, especially Direk Mark’s dream also, and Direk Mark is part of GMA," Atty. Gozon-Valdes explains. 

"I think it started more than ten years ago. He really wanted to do a movie, and then they made a demo reel. But then, at that time, the technology for special effects wasn’t that great. So in order to produce a very, very good program, we had to [wait first]. It was very, very expensive at that time," she reveals.

Eventually, the right time came after five years. "He approached us again and we thought about it, and then we decided—okay, we’ll franchise the Voltes V series into a live-action, but then we’ll have to ask for a long license period because we have to wait until the technology improves for us to be able to do good special effects," she narrates. "And the special effects are all Filipino made for this series, so if the people watch it, we can really be proud of how we do special effects."

"Not to boast, but I think this is already for [the] international level," the attorney says proudly.

All in all, planning, implementing and reaping the benefits of the project's success stem from a good partnership with the people she works with. And Atty. Gozon-Valdes believes that for a fact. "When we approach partnerships, even licensing materials, we always make sure that it will be a win-win situation. We always negotiate in good faith and we don’t hide anything from our partners. That’s how we do business.”

Spotting Opportunities and Making the Most of Them

Aside from launching homegrown shows, Atty. Gozon-Valdes has been the key force behind pushing for new partnerships with new global platforms. What's more, she can be credited for bringing Korean dramas (K-dramas) to local television before anyone else has even thought of it. These include hits like Full House, Stairway to Heaven, and Jewel in the Palace.

But more than that, she was one of the first to push for local adaptations of iconic foreign materials such as Marimar and other K-dramas like Stairway to Heaven and Endless Love.

Going back to her fundamentals of researching before doing something—in order to mitigate risks, Atty. Gozon-Valdes reveals the thinking behind bringing K-dramas into the Philippines. "Actually, what really spurred that in us was not our own abilities, but it was because ABS-CBN was airing Meteor Garden—a Taiwanese drama—and before that, all the channels here would only air South American telenovelas [like] Marimar. The likes of those. We never looked at Asian dramas."

"And then here comes Meteor Garden airing on ABS-CBN and it really wiped away competition at that time. We couldn’t compete with it," she continues. "So while it was airing, we were panicking and we were thinking, 'Okay, what can we get?' We have to look for Asian dramas—very good Asian dramas—and when were canvassing, we saw that the Koreans were making very, very good dramas. So we were able to already buy a lot of dramas at that time from them."

And it was the right choice for Atty. Gozon-Valdes! "we first aired Endless Love and it was a hit," she enthuses. "Then Stairway to Heaven, which was an even higher rating show. We even made local adaptations of those dramas because of the very, very high ratings. Then, of course, Jewel in the Palace was a personal favorite of mine. It also broke ratings at that time."

"During that time, it was unthinkable for a canned drama to rate higher than a locally produced drama, but during the heyday of Korean dramas, they were rating higher," the attorney shares.

However, the knack for spotting opportunities—according to Atty. Gozon-Valdes—was still founded on a basic ethos: research. "Business, for me, it’s 24/7. I don’t stop researching," she reveals. "When I see something interesting, I already think to myself, 'Is this worth pursuing? If I watch something, even not local shows, will it inspire me? Can I tweak that and create something local with that?'"