The PR professional is making significant strides in the industry one campaign at a time.

PHOTOGRAPHY Cru Camara
You may not know her name yet, but Martine Tuanquin is the driving force behind many successful campaigns you know and love. Despite her recent switch from marketing to the PR industry, Martine is effectively shaping up her career. Her first major campaign for H&amp;M featured Andrea Brillantes, garnering millions of clicks and impressions. Now, working on a new project for Pride, she mentions her gratitude toward the brand, &ldquo;I'm very thankful to be able to work with a company that celebrates Pride Month for what it is and puts in an effort to really push the visibility, because that's also still a big part of equality, right?&rdquo;
In a conversation with L&rsquo;Officiel Philippines, she opens up about her role in the PR industry, the challenges faced by the LGBTQIA+ community, and her unwavering passion for whatever she does.

Hi Martine! Let's start with introducing yourself and what you do.
[My name&rsquo;s] Martine Tuanquin and I work in PR, and I also still dabble in modeling from time to time, of course, if my schedule permits. I identify as a woman, and my pronouns are she/her.&nbsp;
Can you also give an overview of what you do as a PR professional and what campaigns you're proud of?
As a PR Professional, at the moment I mainly strategize how we go about activating KOLs [Key Opinion Leaders] locally so they can help us convey authentic yet engaging fashionable content that, although fits with our brand identity, is also very much relatable to each of their audiences as KOLs have as their own persona. But of course, it isn&rsquo;t just as simple as picking who we work with and choosing what pieces to dress them up in &mdash; there&rsquo;s a lot of back-end work that goes into it to help me make more knowledge-based decisions.
[A campaign I&rsquo;m proud of] would definitely be my first biggest campaign for H&amp;M which is with Andrea Brillantes as I [oversaw it from] start to finish (conceptualization, planning, and down to execution). But honestly, I&rsquo;m equally proud of all the campaigns I&rsquo;ve done.
How do you typically go about creating a successful PR strategy?
When it comes to any PR strategy, the real work comes way before one even goes into thinking about executions. It&rsquo;s highly important to be in the know of the current and more importantly, upcoming coming trends.&nbsp; And because I also dabble in content creation from time to time, this comes as second nature to me.&nbsp;
I mainly align the insights I get from research and consuming relevant content to the objective and goals of any campaign I do, so I can come up with a relevant strategy that stays true to the core of the brand while also imparting a fresh and relevant take to it.

Talking about PR and visibility, how important is it for the members of the LGBTQIA+ community to be seen, heard, and properly represented online and in real life?
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; letter-spacing: 0px; font-weight: inherit;">One thing that I noticed, especially in the queer space within the Philippines, is that there are a couple of stereotypes when it comes to the LGBTQIA+ community that are presented in mainstream media today. It's good that with all the drag queens and all these shows, as well as movies that are coming out. Queerness is not represented just by exaggerating the fun aspect of it to the point of it being slapstick. But also, it's heavily celebrated nowadays in such a way that the glamorous side is also seen.&nbsp;
But to answer your question, it's to just humanize it. Being part of the community relates to what I said earlier. It's not a character. Being part of the community is so colorful and everything don't get me wrong, but I feel like what's missing in mainstream media is the humanization of it.&nbsp;
The queer community has been presented in so many different ways but at the end of it, I think the rightest way to be able to really represent the people of the community is for them to be shown as humans. That, at the end of the day, much like their straight counterparts, we're all just trying to live life the same way. Trying to survive, rather.
What do you think are the main hurdles, challenges, or problems members of the community face and how do you think they should be resolved?
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; letter-spacing: 0px; font-weight: inherit;">Honestly, I feel like in this industry&hellip; it has reached a level of acceptance&hellip; I mean it's just tolerated, it&rsquo;s not fully accepted. That's how I feel.&nbsp;
In the media, the members of the community are still portrayed sometimes as slapsticks, slapstick comedians, and everything. I mean, it's good that there is that part of the community where the drag queens are making it visible out there [so] that people can take the members of the community seriously. Way beyond comedies and everything.
I'm a true believer that at the end of the day, we're all just human beings trying to make it in this world right? I mean as simple as that. But I guess [someone can] be a good ally to the people of the community [if they] treat them like any other human being. There are small nuances wherein for example like, let's say, for a trans woman. It could be conceived as transphobia in the sense when a trans woman is so beautiful and then someone comes up to them and says like &ldquo;Oh My God! Ang ganda-ganda mo, mas maganda ka pa sa babae.&rdquo; I mean that's not a compliment at all. It&rsquo;s a very backhanded compliment, right? It's still saying, yeah you're beautiful but you're still not a woman. Which is totally wrong. I mean, you don't come up to a straight person and say &ldquo;Oh wow, you're so pretty I can't believe you're straight.&rdquo; Right?&nbsp;
What does equality mean for you, and how do you think we can improve on that aspect of treating members of the LGBTQIA+ community?
Reverting to what I said earlier, the ideal is to really be able to treat everyone [like any other human being], regardless of their gender, race, skin color, and whatnot. I know the visibility aspect of doing diversity campaigns, but sometimes, when it comes to the industry, there have been a lot of instances where I notice certain models and celebrity figures, were hired out of tokenism.
As much as it's important that we have that, at the end of the day, it's important to also let that person's skills shine. I mean, again, visibility is important, but that [isn&rsquo;t] what makes a person whole. Hopefully, we all get to live to see that day when race and gender are not even a topic of discussion anymore, and I feel like that's one we could really talk about, like, we've achieved equality.

CREATIVE DIRECTION Maura Rodriguez
PRODUCERS Loris Pe&ntilde;a and Maura Rodriguez&nbsp;
 MAKEUP Ria Aquino 
HAIR Johnglen Aquino
PHOTOGRAPHER'S ASSISTANT Lucille Raterta
VIDEO DIRECTOR Kevin Redder
INTERNS Red Binay, Andrei Santos, and Hannah Teng

Martine Tuanquin: Campaigns with Pride

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