Fly on the Corporate Wall
Social media: A matter of taste Why are Thais suddenly going gaga over Magnum ice cream? At least on social media.
If you’re on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram you see countless photos and other postings about someone munching on a Magnum. "MagnumThailand" even has its own channel on YouTube full of videos of celebrities with rings of Belgian chocolate around their mouths.
Thailand might just have the regional market sewn up before the rest of the Asean Economic Community gets its lips on it.
Certainly the whopping Bt100 million that distributor Unilever has poured into the ice-cream bar’s "re-launch" is a factor in the current boom. That would have caused major waves back in the olden days of print ads and TV commercials. Now, of course, all the action is in the social media, where "360-degree marketing" hits home hardest and happiest.
Unilever lined up six top celebrity promoters – Nadet Kukimiya, Ananda Everingham, Araya "Chompoo" Hargate, Panisa "Opal" Primpru, Chantavit "Ter" Dhanasevi and Chawaporn "Ploy" Laohapongchana. Chompoo alone usually gets around Bt7.5 million to advertise a product.
In ancient times, the stars would appear in TV commercials and at occasional marketing events. The modern approach saw all six doing fashion shoots in Don’t magazine and Chompoo appearing topless on the cover of Lips – except for the chocolate spilled on her shoulder. She holds a Magnum in her hand.
Inside are more pictures of her in 26 advertorial pages that, by incredible coincidence, also feature socialites talking about the very same ice-cream snack. Meanwhile Opal has been tweeting up Magnum and posting an inordinate number of photos of it on Instagram.
One thing that people who use social media never want to be is left out. All sorts of ordinary folks have posted their own unsolicited ads for Magnum. To freer spirits, though, it feels like a multimedia ambush, and some are fighting back.
Blogger Jaoyin DaiSy posted an infographic that has gone viral called "Value of the Bt40 Magnum" in which the price of the ice-cream bar is assessed like this: Bt25 to show off, Bt15 for the body fat and Bt5 for the taste.
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