Pioneer reveals keys to success in Myanmar

Its experience is based on years of creating bonds of trust between the two companies that form the venture – Spa Advertising, representing Osotspa Group, and its Myanmar partner The Today Group.
These rich experiences were collected during the early stages of Myanmar’s development, when hardly anyone talked about investing there, let alone trying to establish a service-industry business like advertising, where the potential market was very small and not many local or international companies were ready to take a risk.
“We took a calculated risk and with the blessing of our partners, who came from different backgrounds such as medical doctors and engineering, and our pioneering managers and staff from various fields [not marketing or advertising], MSTF [Myanmar Spa Today Far East] was conceived, thrived and has become a successful top-three entity since 1996,” Kitti said.
“Our late group chairman Surat Osathanugrah came to join the opening of our joint-venture company, together with Lackana Leelayouthayotin, the managing director of Cerebos Asia-Pacific, who gave us Brand’s Essence of Chicken as our first client together with the Nivea brand,” he said.
“Since then it has been travelling in and out, educating one another about our ways, your ways, our culture, your culture, this is advertising, this is marketing, this is creativity, this is media ... Most of all this is our business, this is our company and we are committed as partner and teams together.
“Our staff comes and goes, but our business grows and we never look back,” he added.
But the road to success was not always smooth.
“It has been a constant test of an enduring relationship, a give-and-take situation where the Thais and locals are trained and work together at many levels for years. I myself learned to appreciate the spirit of partnership that we formed along the way with Far East Group, formed with two Thai and one Myanmar partner.”
Kitti has witnessed locals who worked very hard with a strong sense of commitment to make the business grow year by year. They pulled it off every year successfully.
“The key to success in joint business in Myanmar is your partner. If you find the right one like I did, no matter how competitive the marketplace … the odds will be in our favour to become more advantageous in the open market, not only in Myanmar but in Asia as well,” he noted.
These days all roads and routes into Myanmar are packed with hopes, dreams, plans and schemes that will bring prosperity. Skyrocketing numbers are seen not only among tourists, and prices of hotels and food, but also competitive new business opportunities in almost every sector.
“From now on Myanmar will never be the same,” he said.
“There were times when if you wanted to open an advertising agency in Myanmar, my partner had to bring me to meet the general who was in charge of the Ministry of Information to obtain his blessing.
“In that meeting I would have to show him and his team a sample reel of our agency’s television commercials comprising various brand we handled in Thailand such as M 150, Lipovitan D energy drink, Nivea, Toyota, Toshiba and Nokia to name a few.
“It was in such meetings that I learned about Myanmar’s culture regarding the dos and don’t in expressing your creativity to sell your brands, understanding the society, reflecting in tone and manner what we should do and be aware of, that is, avoid stories of tasteless value or showing models in miniskirts, baring too much skin in certain parts of their body.
“These days I see changes taking place, particularly in the entertainment sector –television, music, magazines – which will play an important role in shifting the sense of value and behaviour among Myanmar’s new youth culture, which will open up the opportunity for research businesses to probe their insights.”
Marketing and advertising will need to deploy new strategies to capture the new generation of Myanmar consumers, he said. The rules of do and don’t will change with time, Kitti said. “When we launched our company together with our partner, our parent company Osotspa granted a token of its goodwill to the government of Myanmar in the form of four scholarships for Master of Business Administration programmes at Bangkok University.” All graduated and now work in Myanmar and Vietnam. The company also funded other projects.
“Now I am wondering if changes and reform will bring forth the traditional value of give and take between Thailand and Myanmar in the same manner as Osotspa did with our partner and the government of Myanmar back in 1996,” Kitti said.
“The Asean community will put pressure on all of us to learn to be competitive and also collaborative in our battles for growth and new opportunities.
“The study of all cultures and ways of life, beliefs and different senses of value should be basic for all executives to learn and find ways to adapt without bias and wrong assumptions.
“Competition among us will make us stronger and better managers in dealing with business and people,” he said.