I have read an article about the teaser for Microsoft office 2010 from Sam Kwok’s blog. The video was quite interesting as a person who loves thriller and action movies. However a question came into my mind – “How in the world is this relevant to MS office softwares?”. I do understand that it is quite challenging for anyone to advertise something that does not physically exists such as services and softwares. I also do understand that making teaser as if a movie was the whole point for them and I would say they were pretty amazing and creative in ways that it is extremely movie-like and certainly eye catching as well as spreading word of mouth among netizens especially. However, they have failed to meet the basic foundation requirement of marketing – consumer centered.

Failed Target Segment – I would say the person whoever brought up this idea was only excited about making an extremely expensive teaser like  Hollywood movies with famous celebrities. A giant corporation like Microsoft not being able to target solid segment is somewhat shameful to me because I just do not see who they were targeting this teaser for – Those youngsters who are into battle games like ‘Halo’?, Chief Executive Officers who are into action/thriller movies? I mean they are not ones who are likely to be involved in puchase decision making for MS office.

Foregone value of branding – In addition, I strongly do not agree that they should have spend so much money making this film – helicopters, explosions, much action and heavy computer graphics involved. I actually wanted to purchase the MS office 2010 and it was quite pricey (from $159 for student package to $669 for professional). As MS office is arguably a neccessity good, if they replaced Keanu Reeves for $10 discounts on each product purchase the profit could have been greater because there would be more people officially purchasing the products rather than illegally downloading from the web.

In the end, I even wonder ‘was it even neccessary for them to spend such heavy budget to advertise Microsoft Office 2010?’ because as a second most valuable brand in the world, I am sure only about 0.1% of consumers would have bought it because they were impressed by such teaser anyways.

This is a public advertisement for road safety clearly delivering the message – “Don’t Speed”. 

As many other countries, Thailand has been facing huge social and economic loss from traffic accidents. Increasing GDP (Gross Domestic Product) has enabled more people to consume road vehicles such as motorbikes and personal cars but it has also indirectly caused more loss.  I see three crucial factors for increased number of road accidents and also increased seriousness for each incident – Large number of motorcycles, people driving vehicles without license and speeding.

• As many of you may be aware, motorbikes are one of the most dangerous transportation on the road. I know well about this issue from my personal experience. I have seen uncountable number of motorbike accidents (whether small or big) especially in Thailand. Also, I had an accident as well as most (I’d say about 90 percent) of my friends who drives motorcycles did. Statiscally, 21 percent of road accidents involved motorcycle.
• In addition hundreds and thousands of drivers in Thailand does not have the approved drivers’ license. Although this is more of the political problem, I think this fact contributes much on increasing number of vehicle accidents.
• Last but most importantly, speeding increases not only the number of accidents but also the fatality rate after accidents.  “According to the Police records which covers accidents occurred on National Highways, 82 percent of all accident causes by direct human causes and within these 73 percent causes[caused] by speed violation…” *

Although I may have focused too much on the road safety issue in Thailand, knowing these background facts (both statistically and culturally) would help the importance of message delivered by this advertisement. Also this advertisements’ setting is well selected as common backgrounds – So that anyone watching this commercial could think that this could happen to THEM.

*I have referred to a statistical report written by Sujin Mungnimit, Director of Traffic Safety Standard Unit in Thailand. (http://www.unescap.org/ttdw/roadsafety/Reports2006/Thailand_RSpaper.pdf)

Here is another simple but funny Thai Television Commercial.

This advertisement promotes the Yellow book (which is a famous world-wide phone book directory company).  Though it does not contain much fantasy such as high volume of computer graphic, based on extremely daily environment (ordinary family, house, situation, etc.) this advertisement successfully deliver the main message – “Yellow pages, easy to find”.

Here’s a print advertisement by Far East DDB, Bangkok, Thailand – one of the first advertising agency in Thailand.

This advertisement attracts people on a sight as if there is a serious medical sergery ongoing with some typical medical operational tools along. However, by looking at the bottom right corner (and probably dishes) people realize this is an advertisement for a detergent. I personally think this advertisement is pretty simple but creative at the same time because when we usually think about a detergent, kitchens or laundary rooms appear to our first thinking. However, this advertisement focus most to the ‘cleanness’ part of detergent and amplify the feature – wihch should be the most important feature to look at when considering to buy one.

I would say this company has successfully analysed both of the internal and external environments using SWOT analysis and put great emphasis on the cleanness rather than brand or product design that other competitors may put emphasis as their strengths.

I found a public advertisement made by Thai government which is both meaningful and enjoyable simultaneously. This advertisement also has three different situations involved all to promote daily exercise. I am not sure if having three different situations in a commercial is some sort of trend among Thai (or even global) advertising industry. I really wanted to research and get some valid information about the trend of Thai advertisement (focusing on having three different situations for one advertisement) but I couldn’t find any.

Anyways, this advertisement also meets all GAN that I personally think. It is funny, budget-friendly, ethical, meaningful AND creative. Usually it is quite challenging to bring awareness on the “importance of daily exercises” but I figured they have successfully completed.