Candice Iyog

A maverick in the traditionally conservative aviation marketing sector, Iyog has helped build the Cebu Pacific from a scrappy low-cost challenger into a dominant carrier in the Philippines. In 2025, the airline's brand value surged 86% to be the fastest-growing brand, according to Brand Finance, amassing a record 27 million passengers while growing domestic and international market share. 

To make this all possible, Iyog has restructured Cebu Pacific's marketing organisation from a channel-and-geography model into an audience-first setup, with distinct teams for brand, domestic, and international markets, all backed by a centralised marketing operations hub for data, technology, and CRM.

The campaigns that followed this organisational shift reflected this enhanced creative capability. ‘Discover Philippine Weaves: QR Flight Codes’ printed scannable QR codes onto traditional Filipino textiles and were displayed in airports, along major avenues, and in magazines. Scanning them linked travellers to indigenous weaving communities, connecting a flight promotion directly to cultural tourism. Meanwhile, ‘Fly to Your Happy Philippines’ took the airline's international push further: a Cebu Pacific ad on the Burj Khalifa, a presence at Bondi Beach mid-winter, and the airline's first pop-up in Seoul's Seongsu district, all promoting the Philippines as a destination to travellers in the UAE, Australia, and South Korea.

For its 30th anniversary in 2026, Cebu Pacific moved its marketing decisively away from fare-led promotions toward storytelling rooted in Filipino culture and the people the airline flies. ‘Si Cebie at Ako’ launched with a brand film following an aspiring flight attendant through setbacks and persistence. Meanwhile, ‘The Dreamer Plane’ extended the milestone into the air: A custom Airbus A321neo livery designed with Cebuano artist duo Happy Garaje, making the airline's "every Juan" mission visible even at 35,000 feet. The March 2026 Super Seat Fest, the biggest in the campaign's history, put three million seats on sale from 49 cents (PHP30) and was built on the same conversion strategy she pioneered in 2019, now running at a scale that reflects 30 years of earned brand trust.

A frequent speaker at events including Campaign360, Iyog is a champion of diversity and inclusion. She was a key proponent of Cebu Pacific becoming the first Philippine carrier to hire transgender flight attendants and has operated flights crewed entirely by LGBTQIA+ members and allies. It joined the Philippine Business Coalition for Women Empowerment and also became the first Philippine airline to complete a full Gender Equality Assessment under the GEARS framework, commitments that continued to define the brand's culture through 2025 and into 2026.