fly on corporate wall
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Kasikornbank signed a contract with the Thailand Research Fund on Wednesday. The occasion was ripe for an earnest speech about education. Instead, the bank's chief executive, Banthoon Lamsam, went for the funny bone.
One of the world’s great talents at telling jokes with an utterly straight face, Banthoon soon had the room in an uproar with a slew of sarcastic remarks.
The bank has allocated Bt80 million to the Cultivation of Wisdom Project to improve educational standards in Thailand. Specifically, young researchers will be groomed at 80 schools in eight provinces.
Banthoon said he had dreamed since he was a young man of finding ways to make Thai education better, and fully expected the system to be shining by the time he was nearing his 60s. “But so far it has hardly changed!” he said.
He doesn’t expect the bank’s involvement to generate instant results, though. “I no longer think there’s any hope that we’ll see better education in this life. But perhaps we’ll see the fruits of our efforts in the next life.”
‘Subtle’ sales
Advertising is booming on the social media, especially the sort involving celebrities subtly endorsing products. The very fact that the stars have so many followers on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram makes them living, breathing, tweeting, posting billboards.
This week a bunch of celebrities got talking online about a new flavour of one particular kind of ice cream. In no time, half the country was having a lick.
An industry source tells us that marketers have been tapping the stars for quite a while to promote products and services indirectly. They approach people who have at least 100,000 followers and pay them fees for their post, varying in scale according to fame and reach.
One telecom firm offers at least Bt20,000 per tweet about a new video being available. One of the stars earned Bt60,000 for posting a single Instagram photo and mentioning a phone network. If you see a celebrity at a restaurant, there’s a good chance she will mention the place on Foursquare or Facebook and get paid Bt3,000 for her trouble.
Many of the fans don’t mind. It comes down to how well you can tolerate advertising.
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