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Published on October 8, 2007

The Thai market-research industry is expected to be stagnant this year, according to Ipsos, a France-based research agency.

Jerome Hervio, managing director of Ipsos (Thailand), said on Friday that the industry expected flat growth in line with local advertising spending.

"Advertising and market research are closely related to local economic development. This year, we have seen the spending power of the Thai consumers decline, and many businesses have capped or cut their marketing expenditures and delayed the launch of new products," Hervio said.

He said that his agency nevertheless expected its market-research revenues this year to increase by 50 per cent to Bt100 million due to its small business base in the Thai market.

The agency provides market research to about 40 clients in Thailand, of which 10 to 15 are active. About 80 per cent of the clients are international companies, particularly in consumer goods, beverages and banking.

 "With the political situation in Thailand expected to be clearer after national elections by the end of the year, we expect the total advertising and market-research markets to pick up again to double-digit growth next year," he said.

Ipsos opened its Bangkok office in September 2005 as part of its plan to expand business in Asia. The office has been used as Ipsos's centre for conducting multi-country research in the Asean region to serve international consumer-product companies that have chosen Bangkok as their regional headquarters.

Nielsen Media Research reported that estimated total advertising expenditures in Thailand through August reached Bt59.3 billion, an increase of only 0.7 per cent compared to Bt58.9 billion posted in the same period last year.

Didier Truchot, Ipsos chairman and CEO, who visited Bangkok last week to attend the company's Asia-Pacific annual meeting, said Thailand was a "quite significant" market for the company due to the size of the local market-research industry.

"The total industry in Thailand is estimated to be worth about US$75 million [Bt2.56 billion], of which about $56 million is for customised research projects. The market is quite significant compared to $25 billion for all of the world's market research," said Truchot, adding that the company wanted to establish its local presence by working closely with international clients acting here, as well as Thai companies.

 "We are quite young in the Thai market. We want to build our capability in the market firmly," he said.

 At the meeting, the agency announced its new advertising research service designed to test clients' advertising work for business clients to make sure they are effective. The ad research unit will be launched by the end of the year.

Jim Thompson, chief executive officer for the global business unit Ipsos-ASI, said international clients were using Bangkok as their centre for Southeast Asia. A lot of advertising work is created in Bangkok for the region.

"Thailand could be a centre we can use to work for our global clients and do the testing for their advertising, which will be launched for each country throughout the region," said Thompson.

He said the testing would serve the basic purpose of advertising, which is to gauge its impact and persuasiveness in terms of driving sales and creating long-term brand equity.

Kwanchai Rungfapaisarn

The Nation