Calero, Javier J.
HS 1954
1979
DLSAA Distinguished Lasallian Awardee
One of the foremost advertising executives in this country is JAVIER J. CALERO, who went to grade school and high school at La Salle but graduated from St. Andrew's Academy in 1955. His father, Don Antonio, was a La Salle graduate. He spent a year at the Ateneo, but returned to DLSC for three more years as a student in Business Administration. Again, he did not complete his course because he started working for J. Walter Thompson in 1958. "At that time, there were no courses in Mass Communication and the only way to learn was to be trained on the job," he revealed. He started in the firm, of which he is now president and general manager, as an account trainee. The following year he was made an account manager, and two years later, in 1961, a director. He was sent to Melbourne, Australia for 16 months in 1979 to learn how a foreign branch operated. Then he went to Boston to the Harvard Business School for the advanced management program. He became vice-president of JWT for Asia and the Pacific in 1980. On an annual basis, Thompson managers are sent in groups of 12 for a one-week "refresher" course in - Troutbeck, New York. Calero is the author of a paper written in 1981 on "Media Inflation and Its Real Effects," specifically the effectivity of an advertising campaign. He followed this up in 1983 with another paper entitled "Advertising in Difficult Times" for the Center for Research & Communication. "Precisely because times are difficult," Calero wrote, "it becomes the ideal opportunity to advertise and increase the market share at a nominal cost. This is generally the period when a competitor is trying to pull back. During better times, competition will spend as much, and the result is a stave-off." (La Salle:1911-1986 by Carlos Quirino)