Advertising industry encouraged to be more provocative
Amid enormous changes in the ad-media landscape, advertising and creative-industry experts suggest marketers should be braver, creating provocative work that makes brands more attractive to choosy consumers.
Prasert Eamrungroj, founder of Blacksheep Runs Business, a marketing consultancy, said that to make such an idea into reality, companies had to calculate the risk before making any changes, but if they did so it should be good for their image and overall business.
Rati Pantawee, vice president for international affairs of the Advertising Association of Thailand, suggested that innovative ideas should be relevant to brand identity. Apart from that, brands should put more emphasis on corporate social responsibility.
Sompat Trisadikun, chief creative officer of the Leo Burnett Group Thailand, pointed to his online viral campaign called "I Hate Thailand" that he ran for the Tourism Authority of Thailand.
"It was quite a challenge for the TAT to accept the concept, as the story was quite sceptical of the Thai tourism image. But the campaign stirred public discussion over Thai hospitality from the viral video posted on YouTube," he said.
The video tells the story of a backpacker named James who visited Thailand. He believed that someone stole his bag containing his passport and money. He became angry and lost hope. But at the end, he got his belongings back because of the help from locals, and he finally found that his bag was taken by a monkey.
Since being posted on YouTube on November 18, as of yesterday, the video had attracted nearly 2.6 million views and more than 26,000 "likes", and has become a popular sensation through social-media sharing.
Although the video was unbranded, the audience could recognise that it was a part of a TAT promotional campaign.
Marketing experts discussed these ideas at a seminar organised by a working committee for "AdFest 2015". The forum was held at a Bangkok venue. It was decided to introduce a new award category for "branded content and entertainment" for this year’s AdFest.
AdFest director Viliwan Suraphongchai said branded content was playing an important role in marketing communication.
AdFest 2015 under the "Be Bad’" theme aims to encourage Thai creative industries to generate provocative work that challenges the norms and breaks through barriers. The show will run from March 19-21 in Pattaya.
Vinit Suraphongchai, chairman of the working committee, said the AdFest organisers hoped for more than 3,200 creative entries in 18 categories, up from 3,100 entries in 17 categories last year.
According to the Commerce Ministry’s Department of International Trade Promotion, the three-day event last year generated about Bt80 million from trading and business deals in the Thai advertising industry.
