“Colgate Palmolive in Thailand has started giving out ice creams and candy at annual events like Oral Health Month to remind target consumers, especially kids, to take better care of their teeth after eating sweets. The stick carrying the ice cream and cotton candy carries a hidden message. Once consumers have finished eating, the message printed on the tip of the stick shaped like a toothbrush reveals “Don’t Forget” with the Colgate logo. This simple message effectively reminded consumers to brush their teeth. It’s a change from the usual product samples that may or may not be used.”

– http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2009/colgate-ice-cream-and-candy/#more-19659

I strongly disagree with how many others think about this advertising campaign – promoting the product line and as whole (primary demand) but specifying the brand itself as well (selective demand). Most viewers think this was a clever event held by Colgate as to promote its sales on toothpaste specifically and I do think this campaign is creative and attractive. Even though it is fairly costly in order to produce mass amount of modified ice cream bars (which is not a primary product line of Colgate-Palmolive), I see number of primary issues regarding this innovative marketing strategy because despite creativity, it is;

• Not practical – How many people would stare at what are left over after eating food? Most people would just enjoy the benefit of getting free ice cream and put value on the consumption of product itself. A few kids might find out this idea interesting but even if that’s the case, once the bars go into a bin this marketing strategy no longer communicate to people.
• Ironic – I feel that a personal hygiene company (which has a great  market power over toothpastes as well as other products) giving out free sweets to promote tooth pastes are like medicine companies spreading viruses to people.
• Dangerous (Safety Issue) – Those modifies ice cream bars (especially the top part covered by ice cream) look dangerous potentially threatening children’s safety while eating.
• Targets wrong marketing segments – Most people who benefit from this campaign are children who get those free seets provided. However, many of them have not much purchasing power both economically and socially. Some may argue that increasing stubborn children obesity grant them with market purchase power but it is not the case in many Asian countries including Thailand. Also even if they are, would any of them actually beg their parents to get a “Colgate toothpaste”?
• Why English? – The most part I just could not understand about this advertising campaign was that the message (“Don’t forget”) on ice cream bars are carved in English rather than in Thai. I am not so sure how the marketers are trying to communicate or at least deliver the certain message using different languages. (This point totally reminded me of the banned commercial promoting to learn English below)

Due to the reasons stated above I strongly think this marketing campaign was a failure and I think it would have been much better if they created a market campaign targeting women who are 35-55 or men/women who are 18-28 as they seem two largest target market with purchasing power over personal hygiene products.

I was searching for another funny Thai advertisements that I think are good and there are plenty of them available on the Web. However, many of them were advertising same comapnies (Bangkok Insurance co., Thai Health Promotion (Public), etc.) Just for the sake of reliefing the boredom from such repetitive pattern of finding a humorous Thai advertisement and analyzing/commeting on them, I decided to think of back in the days when I was living in Thailand from the marketing perspective. I realized that one of the most common marketing strategy most foreigners living in Thailand (including myself) was bargaining.

Bargaining in Thailand is one of the most crucial marketing strategy any foreign individuals require in order to not feel frustrated after you purchase cheap goods/services a few times higher than their NORMAL prices. normal prices I am talking about here is the market price usual Thai people pay for goods and services. Those “rip-offs” does not really happen in supermarkets (or at least definitely not in convinience stores such as Seven-Elevens) but mostly nearby tourists attraction places as well as (night/day daily/weekly) street markets. 

From the experience, Thai sellers in markets without proper price tags set on products tends to offer in average of five times higher price than usual to foreigners who are mainly there for touring purpose – In fact, in some cases they tag the foreigners’ price but sell them at the normal price to Thai people or at least to those who seem to have lived for awhile in Thailand (speaking in Thai, fashion trends and so on).

There are certain tips on how to not get ripped off in such markets that I have figured from the experience;

1. More Thai you speak, better (Pronounciation of Thai you speak is the key to strengthen your bargaining power exponentially)
2. Be confident on the availability of those products/services at an acceptable price. Take your time looking around other shops as well – In most cases there are many other sellers who have the exact same items you desire to purchase but they will often offer different prices. So approach them as if you had cheaper offers from other sellers.
3. Guess the minimum price of products and suggest the price first despite some experience on Thai market is required.
4. Do NOT offence the sellers by being rude during any market transactions
5. Be a loyal customer of a seller – even the street marketers know the importance of Customer Relationship Management
6. Be humorous while negotiating for the price – creating pleasant atmosphere always helps during any kind of communication
7. Minimize the appearance as a tourist and pretned you have been living there for a few years.
8. Be friendly at all times – maybe just take a photo with them

Those were just some of the techniques to bargain in markets in Thailand that comes into my mind for now. I will be very happy to hear some of your opinions/ comments on them!

*Here is a link to another website that contains a typical conversation between a foreigner and a Thai seller in markets (quite funny) – http://www.1stopchiangmai.com/how_to/bargain/

I read a blog article – “Thailand Cracking down on Alcohol Advertising” written by Talen on July 9, 2010. This article was basically about some factual information and the blogger’s opinions on the Alcoholic Beverage Control Act that was passed in 2008 with purpose of excluding all types of alcoholic beverages advertisements in Thailand. Here is the link for the original article: http://thailandlandofsmiles.com/2010/07/09/thailand-cracking-down-on-alcohol-advertising/

As a resident of Thailand for past five years, I am aware of the seriousness of underage drinking, drink driving and alcoholism issues in Thailand. For example, an underage personnel drinking alcohol and driving back home without having to worry about getting caught by the police is an ordinary routine there. However, I am also aware of the government’s efforts on reducing such issues by looking at the amount of work they put in for Thai Health promotion videos (Some of them I have posted on my previous articles) and also the number of health reports they produce yearly regarding on alcohol and tobacco issues (along with road accident reports).  I just think Thai government sometimes just seems not efficient at enforcing regulations and thus having control over the public, at least democratically. Although I was present in Thailand in the year when this Act was enforced, I had absolutely no clue that such legislation came into existence. It maybe because it takes certain time for such regulation to be settled over all over the country but I saw many advertisements on alcohol beverages and I think I even remember seeing a promoting campaign or an event held largely by one of the largest beer companies in Thailand.

*This video commercial is irrelevant to this article but I thought it would be too boring to have this post full of letters only!

Talen is primarily arguing that “…this is the stupidest law I have [he has] ever heard of enforced in Thailand” in his article. He mentions a number of ideas to back up his main opinion; Firstly, he find it difficult to understand that drinking a bottle of Heineken beer (as an example) with its brand logo affixed is perfectly and legally fine but once that COLD bottle is wrapped with a beer cozy (beer bottle cover) with Heineken logo is NOT fine and the owner of the bar could be fined 500,000 baht and/or get jailed. He also does not understand that alcohol beverage advertisements are forbidden even in a bar because it is basically promoting a certain alcohol brand to people who are drinking. Then he brings up the failure of ban on cigarette advertising in the past and a case of a club owner who got caught unfortunately and fined to the police department to show non-sense of this new law.

I agree on his opinions to certain extent that I also think there are some unnecessary components in this Act as banning the entire advertisements on alcohol beverages. However to me, they seem to be enforced to show and inform the seriousness of alcohol beverages problems in Thailand and how much concern the government has on its people. In other words, it is somewhat necessary for the government to show great concern on growing public problems (especially related to health issue) even if it won’t be able to completely stop the cause of those problems. Anyways, I understand his opinions to certain extends but there are certainly much bias and critical ideas involved in supporting his ideas;

It is true that Thai government’s act on prohibiting beer cozy with alcohol beverages brand logos on is not so clever but trying to conflict with unreasonable and non-sense back ups sounds absolutely not necessary – In other words, I do not see why he even cares about wrapping the beer bottle with cozy because as most people could imagine, Thailand is boiling hot 24/7 and the beer cozies are not needed at all. In addition, I do not think he understands the concept of bar in Thailand but there are actually a lot of “bars” or “pubs” that people go to because they serve good dishes – unless they are night clubs which customers are required to show ID before even entering the place rather than providing it at the time of ordering alcohol beverages, the alcohol advertisements in bars are still open to children or any underage people. Finally, the reference to the failure of banning tobacco advertisements and censoring the cigarette packs with pictures of possible undesirable results from smoking cigarettes in order to decrease consumers’ demand is not appropriate to support his opinion. It is because cigarettes are still considered as more addictive goods to most people.

In the end I actually do not think it is even matter of whether those products are heavily being advertised or not because tobacco and alcohol are some of the products that consumer demands are not so much dependent on advertisements as there are much other strong external influences such as peer pressure and life backgrounds. So, I think it is stupid to think this legislation is stupid.

*p.s.: This was just my personal/ subjective opinions on this issue and I did not mean to offense both the writer of the orignial article, Talen and the Thai government at all!

I read two articles regarding McDonald’s business ethics from Berkeley Loh’s blog – one including photographies of a happy meal burger for 137 days taken by an artist, Sally Davies, and another article had extremely interesting and eye-catching advertisement from McDonald’s (for me, at least). Those two articles seemed to be written for health concerns (mainly on kids) possibly caused by consuming  McDonald’s products.

Although, she seems to be an extremely strong anti-fastfood (McDonald’s – specifically in this case) as she mentioned “Food at McDonald’s shouldn’t even be under the category “food” or “fast food””, I personally think McDonald’s is one of the world’s leading firms. Whenever I interact articles and opinions consisting negative views on fastfood restaurants,  I end up disagreeing with them for most cases. (Hoewver no offense at all to those opinions and dieas!)

The reasons I personally think such way are quite simple

 Fare competition to success just like any other businesses do. Is there ANYONE who would reject to be the Chief Executive Officer or owners of such fastfood restaurants as McDonald’s because they are so worried about people’s health concern and/or it may seem immoral to be in that position? I mean there are thousands of different junk food available to us and yet there are only a few that are successful and thus well-known. They were extraordinarily great at handling a business and I think they deserve it. I even have respect to those industries who are sneaky enough to pass through all ethical and political regulations and yet success on making profits (Tobacco industries, Fastfood industries and so on). 

Extremely successful marketing strategies such as STP (Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning), Branding. For many times, we seek for a fastfood restaurants because they are cheap (compare to dishes properly served in many restaurants, easily available (good locations/ 24 hours open) and fast (for obvious reasons).  This fact already explains why we NEED these fastfood chains. Imagine after having an extremely exhausting day there are nowhere to get some food nearby although you are literally starving with plenty money. A Double BigMac burger meal you get from McDonald’s would be paradise (probably worth $10 or more even).

As we are wise human beings we should choose to do the right thing. I do realize and I am aware of negative nutritional facts such food provides as well. However there are absolutely no reason for us to enjoy such benefits availabe to us in certain situations and choose consuming healthier food for other times. If we think they are unhealthy we, as consumers, have RIGHTS to choose not to consume them. I am pretty sure there are no single person in the world who eat junkfood, drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes because they are practically forced to buy those products.  In other words, as consumers it is always our choices to consume such products on our own willingness and pay certain costs for expected benefits. In the end, if many people believes the benefits provided by such a firm is not worth such costs, the business will completely fail – that’s the business world.

* I have attached a McDonald’s commercial in Thailand just because my blog’s main focus is on advertisements in Thailand