Ged Carroll

Category: thailand | 泰國 | 태국 | タイ国

Sawadee krub – this category features any blog posts that relate to the country of Thailand, the Thai people, the Thai culture or language.

After the second world war, the country was best known for the quality of its rice and its silk. It played a major role during the cold war and is now the second largest economy in southeast Asia.

Thailand’s tourism industry started when the country was an R&R (rest and recreation) destination for soldiers during the Vietnam conflict. A decline in crop prices from 1982 – 1986 drove a migration of rural workers to the city. This provided a ready workforce for both tourism and manufacturing.

Thailand has become a hub for Japanese manufacturing companies. The Toyota Hilux pick up is made there. As are electronic components and consumer electronics.

There are pharmaceuticals manufacturing plants in the country. It also has a building products sector to support the large amount of property development in the country supporting economic development and rural to urban migration. Thailand has a financial sector that belies its developing world status.

All of this has meant that Thailand has developed a uniquely creative advertising industry to support these businesses.

It is likely the post will also in other categories too for example an advert developed for Thailand may appear in marketing and Thailand categories. If there is Thai subjects that you think would fit with this blog, feel free to let me know by leaving a comment in the ‘Get in touch’ section of this blog here.

  • M1 processor + more things

    Apple’s M1 ARM Pivot: A Step Into the Reality Distortion Field | Chips | TechNewsWorld – pretty much many of the points that I was thinking about. More here on the M1 Apple M1 Processor, Passing on the Chiplets | EE Times 

    BMW Unveils Anime-Like Electric Scooter Concept – Core77 – nice but I would still want Kenada’s bike

    The Biden team’s tug of war over Facebook – POLITICO – Facebook is the new Goldman Sachs….

    5G has been heralded as a tech game changer but consumers in China are underwhelmed by spotty coverage and hard sell | South China Morning Post 

    How to appeal to Gen Z in Asia | Vogue Business – “Chinese luxury consumers’ offline and online lives are becoming increasingly intertwined,” says Mark Morris, Burberry’s senior vice president of digital commerce. “They are demanding a more seamless blend of content and capabilities across their two worlds.”  Working with local experts like Mr Bags and relatively lower-tier influencers (Ching has 6.6 million fans on Weibo, which is mid-range for a Chinese KOL) helped reach this level of engagement. “Gen Z wants to be approached in a narrow and deep, insightful way instead of using a mass approach with a big talent [and] hashtag ads,” says Rie Tanaka, senior business strategist and senior researcher at Japanese PR firm Dentsu

    Europe is ready for Biden to start, says E.U. foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell – The Washington Post – Western governments may have been “a bit naive” about Beijing’s manipulation of global trade rules – strategic reset inbound

    Five-Year Plan, 15-Year Vision by Geoff Yu, Bank of New York Mellon – at the outset a new long-term objective for 2035 was established: China is expected to “largely realize socialist modernization” by that year. Specifically, this means achieving GDP per capita of a “moderately (or mid-level, depending on the translation) developed country”. Again, we underscore that the FYP itself does not contain a corresponding numerical target, but during his remarks at the plan’s launch, President Xi Jinping remarked that “it is fully possible for China to realize a doubling of the size of the national economy by 2035”. Assuming the doubling happens in real terms, this comes to around 4.7%y/y p.a. real GDP growth over the next 15 years (PDF)

    Micron Leapfrogs to 176-Layer 3D NAND Flash Memory | EE Times – everyone else is on 128 layers

    Japan gov’t may turn to YouTubers to promote ‘My Number’ ID cards – The Mainichi – To publicize the system, the government has inserted advertisements in newspapers and used digital signage to stream commercials at stations and in the streets, among other methods. However, it has not received as many applications as anticipated, and now places a big hope on the YouTubers’ power to transmit information. The choice is also apparently because labor costs are not as high as appointing nationally popular actors, celebrities and other public figures. Moreover, the Japanese government, by eradicating its image of stubborn bureaucracy and having people watch videos on YouTube without reserve, aspires to remove anxiety and concerns about possible personal information leaks that accompany the My Number system – surprised that Japanese influencers would be that cheap relative to their reach. More on marketing here

    Resharing this as many people still don’t know about this old paper from Ogilvy on Facebook organic reach

  • Space aliens + other things

    I didn’t want to talk about space aliens. Given that some people are currently beating up on network engineers and destroying 5G network infrastructure, this art project about space aliens and electro-magnetic radiation might be considered to be a bit close to the bone. Space Aliens are no longer visiting Earth due to an allergy to our cell phones – the storytelling neatly taps neatly into the cold war and X-Files peak of alien abduction and combines it with ambient music. Given the current conspiracies about 5G, it may get taken more literally than is good.

    Keep It Real Online is a great campaign by the New Zealand government highlighting the risk and appropriate action parents can take regarding online behaviour.

    Keep It Real Online – New Zealand government

    The online bullying themed video is really on-point, but all of them have real impact.

    YouTube channel Awkward Puppets has become active again over the past couple of months. Imagine if Sesame Street characters grew into awkward post-modern adults. The script writing on this is really on point

    Maybelline Launches ‘Spread Good Vibes’ COVID-19 Campaign in Thailand Branding in Asia | Branding Asia Magazine – a lovely bit of insight: that make-up and mutual social affirmation ‘good vibes’ will do wonders for how we feel during COVID-19. It also taps into Thai women’s love of beauty products. The execution was nicely done using augmented reality. The campaign was done by MRM for Maybelline-Thailand. Thailand has a great track record in really emotive advertising and these takes it into new mediums. More Thai-related posts.

    Maybelline-Thailand-Spread-Good-Vibes-Branding-in-Asia
    Maybelline-Thailand

    Ali Goldsworthy was on BBC Radio 4: Four Thought. She explained why campaigns which succeed by polarising people can cause long-term harm, and suggests ways we might tackle the resulting damage. Ali has written a book Poles Apart, that goes into these ideas in more depth.

  • Sophisticated card skimming & more

    Sophisticated card skimming in Mexico by a Romanian criminal gang was first highlighted by Brian Krebs. This documentary was produced by the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and features cybersecurity expert Brian Krebs. It is amazing how audacious this sophisticated card skimming scheme was.

    Sophisticated card skimming in Mexico with Romanian criminal gang.

    Adam and Eve DDB’s effectiveness expert Les Binet on COVID-19 and recommendations on marketing. Much of it is more common sense and nuanced consideration than just simple rules by other people. The key outtakes here compared to some of the stuff that I have seen coming out of Ogilvy Asia is the differentiation between supply-side driven recession and demand-side driven recession.

    Elders Corner is a documentary that focuses on the political context that Afrobeat exists and had been played in. It tells the stories of Nigeria’s musicians who pioneered the Afrobeat sound and the role of their music in society during a time of tremendous political upheaval.

    Asian brands really seem to have taken to Animal Crossing, with a Hong Kong eatery hiring a marketer to build their Animal Crossing presence. The Global Pride festival seems to be no exception to brands and culture going into Animal Crossing. The creator tools allows creative expression that works really well for Pride month celebrations.

    In the same week that Boston Dynamics released their ‘Spot’ robot, a Thai shopping mall are doing an interesting exercise in human computer interaction featured in the Singapore media Robot dog hounds Thai shoppers to keep hands virus-free – TODAYonline. I’d love to know if they managed to gather effectiveness data around this initiative. The only thing that surprised me about this was that it was a Thai shopping mall, rather than one in Singapore. It is much less creepy than the way China has used robots to educate people on COVID-19 and demand compliance.

  • Peepy and Mother Lee + more things

    Peepy and Mother Lee take influence to the next level. These Thai influencers are on point with style that crosses gender boundaries and is atemporal in nature. I am surprised the Peepy and Mother Lee don’t get more publicity outside Thailand. I am also surprised that they haven’t become the muse of a prominent fashion house or two.

    They look like precisely the kind of people someone like Vivienne Westwood would embrace as a muse. More on luxury here.

    Yet another way of landing the same Burger King message: Burger King’s flame-grilled glasses are too hot to handle | Creativepool. Having worked on FMCG brand, I know how hard it is to continually land the same messages in different ways that won’t generate groans from the client base. These are brands that people have known for decades, it’s hard to say the same thing in different ways that don’t jade audiences.

    This Adobe marketing gimmick was going around a lot of the people that I know – Creative Types – the characters are nicely drawn, but I don’t know how accurate they are. I suspect something even less accurate than the MBTI. This was clever because people want to find out more about themselves, its an itch that they can’t help but scratch. In return Adobe builds their marketing email list.

    Great economic analysis on China from the DLD Conference earlier this year

    Tristan Harris is getting a lot of traction for his message in wonkish circles and I don’t see big technology firms having their ducks in a row to deal with the outcome. I suspect that some of the problem might be what I describe as a wilful autism. 20 years ago, Silicon Valley was a place with utopian outlook, the unforeseen outcomes happened when the internet reached a societal critical mass.

  • Hiroshi Fujiwara & things from last week

    I first knew of Hiroshi Fujiwara though his work on old school Japanese hip-hop label Major Force. He was cited as an influence in Bomb The Bass’ first album Into The Dragon. His influence has been much bigger in terms of streetwear and Harajuku culture that fuelled fashion and culture of the past two decades. He is now collaborating Moncler and did some media interviews :

    Thailand is famous for emotion-filled adverts and this Sunsilk film is no exception, dealing with family acceptance of Kathoei (กะเทย). Its a beautiful piece of work by JWT’s Bangkok office.

    I’ve never worn Doctor Martens myself but they were often seen in the school yard and during my early working life. They are as British as Marks & Spencers chicken tikka masala. I thought product had been moved offshore as part of globalisation, but it seems that there is still a small production facility in the UK. The process of how the shoes are made is fascinating.

    The application of machine learning in the criminal justice system is something of concern. The natural inclination of authority is to inflate itself with every tool that progress provides.

    Great documentary on Chinese wealthy migration away from China. The move to Vancouver was pioneered in the early 1970s with wealthy Hong Kongers preparing for its handover in the decades to come. They’ve been followed families who got rich on the mainland following the opening up of the economy.

    It reflects the reality of major cities around the world now as capital flight out of China continues. Non-domestic earnings (like that from Russia and Middle East) is a factor driving unaffordability of housing. The experience of Mau and the opening up founded a culture of ‘now’. This has manifested itself in different ways: capital flight, having a bolt hole abroad and a foreign passport in case things go suddenly bad. It also explains historic product quality issues as entrepreneurs think about the now and let the future take care of itself, preferably while you have gone abroad to live a comfortable life.