Many questions were raised in a discussion held yesterday between senior officials from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Public Relations Department and the Consumer Protection Board and representatives from advertising agencies and makers and distributors of alcoholic beverages.

Riche Monde is disgruntled with the FDA response to its plan to market Italian-made Johnnie Walker-branded apparel in Thailand, saying that it being subjected to discrimination.

"There are many things in the new regulations for an alcohol ad ban that are still unclear and seem to be unfair," said Zanita Kajiji, vice president-marketing, Riche Monde (Bangkok), the local distributor of Johnnie Walker products.

"If the authorities allowed Singha or Chang to advertise their soda and drinking water under Singha and Chang logos, why can we not do the same thing?" said Zanita, adding that any regulations should be fairly based on the various players' different business cultures and products.

She said that if Singha or Chang advertised their non-alcoholic beverages like soda and drinking water on TV or radio spots, consumers would still recognise the brand as related to alcohol.

"It would be better if the authorities and the working team for these new regulations had representatives from both the advertising and alcohol industries working with the project from the beginning," Zanita said, suggesting that rather than being banned, advertising could be used as a tool to educate consumers to drink responsibly.

 Under the regulations, all alcoholic advertising, including product logos and displays, in all types of mass media, including TV, radio and billboards, will be banned around the clock.

However, company commercials aimed at promoting the culture of Thailand, tourism destinations and sport activities will be allowed to broadcast 24 hours a day with the appearance of the brand logo of non-alcoholic beverages (such as drinking water, soda and fruit juice) in their product portfolio.

The authorities are thus allowing companies with many products to advertise their non-alcoholic beverages with the same logo as their alcoholic drinks.

Parames Rachjaibun, chairman emeritus of the Advertising Association of Thailand, said the authorities should give another three months for business players - advertising agencies, alcohol firms and more than 100,000 restaurants and pubs throughout the Kingdom - to adjust themselves to comply with the new regulations.

"I don't know if the authorities have solved this social problem at the right point," said Parames.

He said that in addition to media advertising, there were many other activities in communicating and sending a product message to consumers, such as public relations, direct marketing, online advertising, and event marketing. The authorities had to pay much more attention to monitoring those marketing channels, he said.

"I believe that under the new regulations, all business players will shift themselves from advertising and marketing battles to heavy sales promotions and price cuts," said Parames, adding that the government should be cautious about discriminatory practices with the new ad-ban regulations.

Dr Samarn Futrakul, head of the Public Health Ministry's Tobacco & Alcohol Consumption Control Group, said the working committee would revise some loopholes and unfair practices that might result from the regulations.

He said the panel would also urge those companies selling alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages under one single brand to change the brand name and logo for non-alcoholic products, particularly in their commercials.

"We have launched the new regulations according to the facts and existing rules without any bias or preference to any companies," said Samarn. "It depends on the attention of those business players as to whether they will follow or break the law."

Kwanchai Rungfapaisarn

The Nation