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Published on September 14, 2007

The advice came from the managing director of interactive design development and consultancy firm mInteraction, Siwat Chawareewong, while speaking at Direct Marketing 2007, hosted by the Thai Direct Marketers' Association.

He said digital media could build the reputation of many products, but this did not mean every product should have its own website or demand huge investment in digital software.

Products and services from Thailand that have succeeded simply by having advertisements in search engines like Google include those offering plastic surgery and dentistry. Viewers from around the world see links to these businesses easily and Thailand is renowned for providing high service quality with cheaper costs than some developed countries such as Japan.

He said marketers should know which media have high reach. Online media tend to have an advantage in this regard because they can be tracked. For example, Thailand's top website Sanook.com knows that it had 297,000 visitors with 1.6 million page views last Wednesday, MSN knows it handles 62 million messages every day, and Google knows the top six keywords used by Internet searchers on any day.

Marketers should also be able to initiate strategies that allow brands to engage targeted customers, Siwat said.

He gave the example of Johnnie Walker's Android campaign, which used a website that asked people to supply some personal information and to list one good thing they promised to do within the following three years. A screensaver was then installed into the visitors' computers, and every time it came on screen, Android - the robot presenter - reminded people to keep doing good things, as they had promised. Siwat said this allowed Johnnie Walker to engage with consumers' minds for three years.

Nitida Asawanipont

 The Nation